QC Ghost

Byron's nuclear reactor loses power, venting steam

2012-01-30T21:14:00.003-06:00

From Byron, the nuclear reactor at the northern Illinois plant shut down Monday after losing power, and steam was being vented to reduce pressure, according to officials from Exelon Nuclear and federal regulators.

Unit 2 at Byron Generating Station shut down at 10:18 a.m. after losing power, Exelon officials said. Diesel generators began supplying power to the plant, and operators began releasing steam to cool the reactor from the part of the plant where turbines are producing electricity, not from within the nuclear reactor itself, officials said.

The steam contains low levels of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, but federal and plant officials insisted the levels were safe for workers and the public.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared the incident an "unusual event," the lowest of four levels of emergency. Commission officials also said the release of tritium was expected. Source!

"Killing the totally disabled no different than pulling weeds"

2012-01-30T15:08:00.002-06:00

Two bioethicists — one from Duke University, the other from the National Institute of Health — bring up the question “What makes killing wrong?” in the latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Using their definition of killing, the authors conclude if the person is “universally and irreversibly disabled” and has “no abilities to lose” then killing them to take organs for donation in order to save the lives of others should not be considered morally wrong.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a professor of practical ethics from Duke, and Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member in the NIH Department of Bioethics, state in their abstract ”What makes an act of killing morally wrong is not that the act causes loss of life or consciousness but rather that the act causes loss of all remaining abilities.“ They argue that if no abilities remain then the ”dead donor rule,” which is the ethical practice that a person must be declared dead before removing vital organs, should apply to patients whose hearts have stopped and are being removed from a respirator. Source!

ALLEN WEST TO OBAMA, REID, PELOSI: ‘GET THE HELL OUT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’

2012-01-29T19:43:00.002-06:00

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Saturday President Barack Obama and other liberals should "get the hell out of the United States of America." (AP)
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) had a strong message Saturday for President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “Get the hell out.”

West made the comments during a speech at a Palm Beach County GOP event in West Palm Beach.

“This is a battlefield that we must stand upon. And we need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend, chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table,” West said.

The audience was booing by the time West got to Pelosi’s name.

“Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else,” he continued. “You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

As the audience cheered and many rose to their feet, West added, “Yeah I said ‘hell.’”

“This is not about 1 percent or 99 percent. This is about 100 percent. It’s about 100 percent America. And I will not stand back and watch anyone defame, degrade or destroy that which my father fought for, my older brother, my father-in-law, myself, my nephew and all my friend still in uniform,” he said.

“I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it. If that means I’m the No. 1 target for the Democrat Party, all I got to say is one thing: Bring it on, baby.” Video!

U.S. Army Sponsors atheists' Fort Bragg concert

2012-01-28T16:34:00.005-06:00

Why would atheists be using a music video that celebrates the burning of churches and bloodied crosses to promote an upcoming music festival?

While a viable answer to this question is hard to fathom, this is exactly what’s going on as non-believers prepare for “Rock Beyond Belief,” a massive Army-sponsored music festival occurring at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Source!

U.S falls to 47th in press freedom rankings

2012-01-27T19:58:00.003-06:00

Sweeping protests around the world made it an extremely difficult year for the media, and tested journalists as never before, the annual report into press freedom reveals.

The annual report by Reporters Without Borders has been released, showing the United States fell 27 points on the list due to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.

The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania.

Reporters Without Borders said the heightened unrest around the world resulted in a significant shake-up of the group's annual Press Freedom Index, which assesses governments' commitment to protecting media freedoms.

The Paris-based non-governmental Reporters Without Borders has named “crackdown” the word of 2011 in an assessment of global media freedom during a year in which journalists covering sweeping protests were tested as never before.

The non-governmental organisation seeks to defend journalists’ freedom to work and combat censorship internationally. Source!

Only 30 Percent Of Last Year’s Murders Have Been Solved

2012-01-25T16:22:00.003-06:00

Murders in Chicago were down last year, but it’s a different story when it comes to the number of murders actually solved.

“Forensic evidence may need processing time… so it stands to reason that an investigation may extend beyond a calendar year,” a police spokeswoman said.

But in 1991, for example, the murder clearance rate was 80 percent in Chicago – 927 murders committed, 741 solved.

In the early 1990s as a whole, the rate was 72 to 73 percent.

By 2005, it had slipped to 42 percent.

Last year, it was 30 percent, meaning fewer than a third of the murders committed in 2011 were solved last year.

If there’s any good news, the 2011 figure is slightly up from 28 percent in 2010. Source: WBBM, Chicago!

NBC's Andrea Mitchell: "Mitt Romney's ancestors crossed the Meican border illegally"

2012-01-22T20:51:00.004-06:00

Today on "Hardball" Andrea Mitchell said, “And looking ahead to the next primary in Florida, 30 percent of the Hispanic community is Cuban-American. That’s a smaller proportion, and so the Hispanic community there is different. And they are less prone to be susceptible to Mitt Romney’s really hard line on immigration, more prone to the Newt Gingrich approach to immigration. The other interesting little fact is about the Mexican Romneys, those looking back at all of those records say that Mitt Romney should look back at the records because the Romneys that came back from Mexico to the United States, they crossed the border illegally.” Source with video!

Georgia Mom Arrested for Allowing 10-Year-Old to Get Tattoo

2012-01-21T12:42:00.004-06:00

A Georgia mother who was arrested for allowing her 10-year-old to get a tattoo said she had no idea it was illegal for him to get one, even with her consent.

When Chuntera Napier’s son Gaquan Napier asked her if he could get a memorial tattoo for his 12-year-old brother Malik who died after being hit by a car, Napier was touched by the request.

“My son came to me and said, ‘Mom, I want to get a tattoo with Malik on it, rest in peace,’” she told ABC News’ Atlanta affiliate WSBTV. “It made me feel good to know that he wanted his brother on him.”

When Gaquan Napier was asked why he wanted the tattoo, he said, “Because it represents my brother.”

“What do I say to a child who wants to remember his brother? It’s not like he was asking me, ‘Can I get Sponge Bob?” Napier said. “He asked me [for] something that’s in remembrance of his brother. How can I say no?”

Gaquan got a tattoo on his right arm of his brother’s name and his former basketball jersey number. Napier also has memorial tattoos for her son on her right arm.

When someone at his school noticed the tattoo and contacted authorities, Napier was arrested on Tuesday and charged with misdemeanor cruelty and being a party to a crime, according to WSBTV. Napier bonded out of jail on Wednesday but is shocked that her consent was not enough for her son to get a tattoo.

“I always thought that if a parent gave consent, then it was fine,” she said. “How can somebody else say that it’s not okay? He’s my child, and I have the right to say what I want for my child. I can’t go tell anybody else what I want for their child.”

A Georgia law from 2010 states, “It shall be unlawful for any person to tattoo the body of any person under the age of 18, except a physician or osteopath.” Source!

Illinois’ Unpaid Bill Crisis Just Keeps Getting Worse

2012-01-20T07:25:00.004-06:00

Illinois has a backlog of more than $4.25 billion in unpaid bills. But Illinois State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka says when one factors in other bills, the figure is closer to around $8.5 billion.

Those other outstanding bills include tax refunds, employee health insurance, and bills that have not yet reached her desk.

Topinka says this is extremely disappointing, since a year ago, the state sharply increased income taxes (by 67 percent) and corporate taxes.

“After the largest tax hike in our history, the state continues to be in this precarious fiscal position with persistent payment delays, and frankly, the situation is unlikely to significantly improve in the near term,” she said.

Some state officials say the solution is more borrowing to pay the bills, but Topinka says the solution is to cut spending.

Ed: Duh! Source!

Watch the tennis player who just heard that Obama MIGHT be re-elected

2012-01-18T14:19:00.001-06:00

UN Soldiers Brought Deadly Superbug to Americas

2012-01-14T11:19:00.004-06:00

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time.

The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged the country on Jan. 12, 2010 -- two years ago today. Haiti had never seen a case of cholera until the arrival of the peacekeepers, who allegedly failed to maintain sanitary conditions at their base.

What scares me is that the strain from South Asia has been recognized as more virulent, more capable of causing severe disease, and more transmissible," said John Mekalanos, who chairs the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. "These strains are nasty. So far there has been no secondary outbreak. But Haiti now represents a foothold for a particularly dangerous variety of this deadly disease." Source!

TSA Makes $400K Off Loose Change

2012-01-13T16:10:00.003-06:00

Turns out those airport security checkpoints aren't just for your safety, they are also a source of funds for the Transportation Security Administration.

Travelers left behind $409,085.56 in loose change in 2010. Not only did they ditch their pennies, dimes and quarters at the checkpoints, but they also left behind foreign currency.

Nico Melendez, spokesperson for TSA, said when people go through security checkpoints they typically leave behind the change from their pockets in the plastic bins. Source!

Justice Department (duh) report defends (duh) Obama's 'recess' appointments (doy) as legal (duh)

2012-01-12T15:22:00.004-06:00

The Justice Department is defending the legality of President Obama's recent recess appointments, releasing Thursday a 23-page legal opinion that critics say is "unconvincing" and whose timing doesn't coincide with the president's decision.

The memo, justifying appointments made last week while Congress was technically not recessed, concludes what the White House claimed at the time -- that Congress isn't able to do business during "pro forma" sessions so it counts as a break. More!

Ed: V O T E !

Now we understand why sharks swim in circles around their prey

2012-01-11T19:30:00.002-06:00

Two great white sharks swimming in the ocean spotted survivors of a ship that had just sunk.

"Follow me son" the older father shark said to the son shark and they swam to the mass of people. "First we swim around them a few times with just the tip of our fins showing." And they did.

"Well done, son! Now we swim around them a few times with all of our fins showing." And they did.

"Now we eat everybody." And they did.

When they were both gorged, the son asked, "Dad, why didn't we just eat them all at first? Why did we swim around and around them?"

His wise old father replied, "Because they taste better without the crap inside!"

DNC Chair, Rep. Dummy Washerwoman-Schultz, blames TEA Party for Gabby Giffords' shooting

2012-01-11T15:07:00.004-06:00

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaking in New Hampshire this morning, reminded her audience of the tragic Tucson shooting last year -- and also insinuated that the Tea Party, which she said regards political opponents as "the enemy," has enhanced divisiveness in Congress and had something to do with the shooting, at least indirectly.

"We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords -- who is doing really well, by the way, -- [was shot]," Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chair said during a "Politics and Eggs" forum this morning. "The discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular . . . has really changed, I'll tell you. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement."

Having brought up the Giffords attack as a political cudgel, Wasserman Schultz doubled down on that attack. "You had town hall meetings that they tried to take over, and you saw some their conduct at those tea party meetings," Wasserman Schultz said today. "When they come and disagree with you, you're not just wrong, you're the enemy." Source!

Ed: DWS hit the 'Peter Principle' upon receiving her Jr. High diploma.

(A man whose wife died in the deadly Tucson shooting one year ago says Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband makes him want to “vomit.”

Speaking to the Arizona Republic, 77-year-old George Morris, a survivor of the shooting, blames Mark Kelly for the death of his wife and five others for not taking extra precautions to protect Giffords after she had been receiving death threats.)

Homeland Security monitors journalists / bloggers

2012-01-10T20:16:00.003-06:00

Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but the Department of Homeland Security is on the ready to make sure that the government is keeping dibs on who is saying what.

Under the National Operations Center (NOC)’s Media Monitoring Initiative that came out of DHS headquarters in November, Washington has the written permission to retain data on users of social media and online networking platforms.

Specifically, the DHS announced the NCO and its Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) can collect personal information from news anchors, journalists, reporters or anyone who may use “traditional and/or social media in real time to keep their audience situationally aware and informed.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition of personal identifiable information, or PII, such data could consist of any intellect “that permits the identity of an individual to be directly or indirectly inferred, including any information which is linked or linkable to that individual.” Previously established guidelines within the administration say that data could only be collected under authorization set forth by written code, but the new provisions in the NOC’s write-up means that any reporter, whether someone along the lines of Walter Cronkite or a budding blogger, can be victimized by the agency. Source!

Obama: You are turning America into a 'deadbeat nation'

2012-01-08T09:15:00.003-06:00

In a scathing letter sent to Barack Obama, Senator Marco Rubio said that under the President’s first term in office, “more and more people have come to believe that America is becoming a deadbeat nation.”

Rubio went on to pledge that he would challenge any further increase in the debt ceiling, arguing that “we [Congress] need to make it routine to actually spend no more than we take in.” In the letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, the Florida Senator said that President Obama’s upcoming request to increase the debt ceiling by a whopping $1.2 trillion will cause the nation’s public debt to surpass the $16 trillion mark.

“I will oppose your request to continue borrowing and spending recklessly.”

President Obama is expected to request the new borrowing power from Congress once the Senate and House return from their holiday recess.

The president must notify Congress when the debt closes within $100 billion of the ceiling, according to the Budget Control Act passed in August. This triggers for Congress their only available option to block an increase, in this case $1.2 trillion, by passing legislation. However, even if the House and Senate do that, the president can still veto their objections. In short, there is very little Republicans can do in a Democratic-controlled Senate to block an increase.

If President Obama led the charge to reduce the country’s unsustainable debt in mid 2011 rather than punt the enterprise to a “Super Committee,” asserted Rubio, we’d already be on a pathway toward economic growth and prosperity. "Unfortunately, the first three years of your presidency have been a profile in leadership failure." Source!

543,812 union workers received ObamaCare waivers

2012-01-07T15:50:00.003-06:00

Labor unions primary recipients of Obamacare waivers!

Labor unions continued to receive the overwhelming majority of waivers from the president’s health care reform law since the Obama administration tightened application rules last summer.

Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama‘s signature legislation since June 17, 2011.

By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers. Source!

Microsoft Patents ‘Avoid Ghetto’ Feature For GPS Devices

2012-01-06T22:12:00.004-06:00

Microsoft has been granted a patent for its “avoid ghetto” feature for GPS devices.

A GPS device is used to find shortcuts and avoid traffic, but Microsoft’s patent states that a route can be plotted for pedestrians to avoid an “unsafe neighborhood or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.”

Created for mobile phones, the technology uses the latest crime statistics and weather data and includes them when calculating a route. More!

DHS Officers Armed With Semiautomatics Set Up Unannounced ID Checkpoint

2012-01-05T10:16:00.006-06:00

Staff of Florida Social Security office not informed of drill, Homeland Security officials refused to talk to media!

Residents of Leesburg, Florida were shocked to see their local Social Security office turned into a random Homeland Security checkpoint Tuesday morning, as DHS officers armed with semiautomatic rifles and accompanied by sniffer dogs checked identifications of locals.

“With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building,” reports the local media.

The activity was part of Operation Shield, an unannounced drill conducted by the DHS’ Federal Protective Service centered around “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.” More!

Wake up, America!

These are all the programs that the Republican House has proposed cutting

2012-01-04T12:10:00.003-06:00

* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.
* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings.
* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicative education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress),
authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U.S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million
annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings.
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.
* Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual
savings.
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million
annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings.
* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.
* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical
Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings.
* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.
* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion
annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.
* FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings.
* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.
* Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.
* U.S. Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings.
* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million
annual savings.
* Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual
savings.
* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it
offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury,
instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings
over ten years.
* Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total
savings. WHAT THE HECK IS THIS ABOUT?
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2
billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15
billion total savings.
* Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress. WHAT???
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.
* Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings WELL ISN'T THAT SPECIAL
* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) --
$93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2
million annual savings.
* Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.
* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings.. WHY?????
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
* TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years

My question is, what is all this doing in the budget in the first place?

From the U.K. Mail: The lessons of a year of horrifying violence

2012-01-01T13:33:00.007-06:00

Tragically, 2011 (a year already scarred by the worst riots Britain has witnessed for 30 years) draws to a close against a backdrop of appalling violence.

The babysitter knifed to death in front of her own baby nephew and niece ... the brilliant Indian student executed in cold blood ... the teenager stabbed to death in broad daylight on London’s busiest shopping street in a fight between rival gangs ...

A visitor to this country over the Christmas period – during which, as we coldly document on pages 20 & 21, there were 14 killings – could be forgiven for wondering whether they had stepped into a land where there is no respect for the law, or even human life.

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of Britons are still law-abiding people who abhor the barbarity of this week and the nihilism of the August riots.

But, equally, questions must be asked about what has gone so dreadfully wrong in a country that, only a few short decades ago, would have considered the events of recent days and months utterly unthinkable.

As this paper has long argued, much of the blame rests with the liberal policies which, over the past 30 years, have undermined the fabric of our society.

By introducing fiscal policies which favour single motherhood over marriage, the political class has incentivised the growth of single parent households which, as the Mail revealed this week, one in five children now grows up in – more than any other major European country.

Unsurprisingly, a burgeoning and deeply dangerous gang culture has all too often filled the void left by the absence of strong families. Discipline has been largely eradicated from schools and bad behaviour has been permitted by liberal teachers afraid of being considered judgmental.

Meanwhile, unprecedented levels of immigration have placed huge strain on our social structures. Multiculturalism meant that asylum seekers arriving from often brutal, wartorn parts of the world were encouraged to live in isolation rather than to share traditional, peaceful British values.

Most shockingly, we now have a justice system that appears unable to understand the deterrent effect of harsh punishments.

Consider how 50 people every day are being attacked by convicts given risible community punishments instead of jail.

Or consider today’s revelations that – far from receiving draconian sentences – thugs involved in the August riots were permitted to escape with slap-on-the-wrist cautions for burglary, knife possession and even arson.

Fixing what David Cameron has called ‘broken Britain’ will be a huge challenge, which is likely to take many years.

But one thing his government can do immediately is toughen our hopelessly lax sentencing laws.

For one thing that is still certain is that criminals who are behind bars cannot riot, or murder members of the public. Source!

Siri Tells Little Boy to 'Shut the F--- Up'

2011-12-31T16:17:00.004-06:00

The iPhone 4S was then sent in for repairs!

For all the kind and helpful advice that Apple's Siri personal assistant gives out, don't ever catch it on a bad day, or it'll tell you off in ways your mother would not approve.

If a report from The Sun is to be believed, a demo unit for the iPhone 4S caught fire for telling 12-year-old Charlie Le Quesne to "Shut the f--- up, you ugly t---."

Charlie reportedly asked Siri "How many people are there in the world?" and that was the answer he got back. Together with his mother and the manager, they asked the demo iPhone 4S the same question and got the same answer back yet again. Needless to say, the demo unit was unplugged and sent back to Apple for "diagnostic tests." Siri!

Fisker Recalling 239 Karma Plug-In Hybrids for Fire Hazard

2011-12-31T12:46:00.007-06:00

Remember? "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland! Billion-Dollar Gamble on Tesla and Fisker, Some Worry About A Second Solyndra!"
**********
Fisker Automotive is recalling all 239 of its 2012 Karma luxury plug-in hybrid cars because of a fire hazard, according to a report filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Prices on the 2012 model start at $103,000, including the destination charge.

In a report filed recently on the agency’s Web site, Fisker said some hose clamps were not properly positioned, which could allow a coolant leak. “If coolant enters the battery compartment an electrical short could possibly occur, causing a thermal event within the battery, including a possible fire in the worse case,” the company told the safety agency.

Fisker said the problem was discovered on Dec. 16, when workers at the Valmet Automotive assembly plant in Finland noticed coolant dripping. Fisker said it was not aware of any consumer complaints, warranty claims or “any other reports related to this condition.” It said fewer than 50 vehicles were in the hands of consumers.

Under federal regulations dealers may not sell the remaining new models until the recall is completed.

In other recall developments:
• General Motors is recalling almost 4,300 of its new 2012 Chevrolet Sonics because they might be missing “the front brake inner or outer pad.”

In a filing with the safety agency, G.M. said this could “produce noise when the brakes are applied, result in reduced brake system performance and require a longer distance to stop the vehicle.”

The automaker said that it learned of the defect when an owner complaining of the car’s brake noise brought the car to a dealership at the end of November. G.M. said it was not aware of any accidents related to the Sonic’s brakes. The Sonic is built in Orion Township, Mich.

• Honda is recalling nine of its 2012 Odyssey minivans because a retention nut for part of the front, lower right suspension may loosen and result in a loss of steering.

In a filing Friday with the agency, Honda said if the nut came off, a bolt could come out and cause “the wheel assembly to shift to an extreme inward angle, resulting in a loss of steering.” Honda said it learned of the problem from a dealer on Dec. 1. There was no mention of any accidents.

• Piaggio Group America is recalling about 2,150 of its 2010-11 motor scooters with four-stroke, four-valve 50 cc engines because the engine could backfire and possibly catch fire. The models are the Fly 50; Vespa LX50 and Vespa S 50.

• N.H.T.S.A. said it was investigating possible rust-related safety problems on about 17,000 2003 Chevrolet Express vans and 63,000 2004 Ford Freestar and Mercury Monterey minivans.

The concern with the Express is leaking gasoline, while the Freestar/Monterey issue involves rear wheel arches rusting so badly that seat-belt anchors for the third row will not hold. Source!

Will you spare 9 minutes for your Country?

2011-12-30T16:44:00.002-06:00

The VIDEO: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness!

Obama's REAL reason for ending the war(s) too early

2011-12-30T15:30:00.001-06:00

President Barack Obama ended one war and is winding down another, bringing home tens of thousands of U.S. troops. Now he wants them to pay him back - with votes.

"You stood up for America. America needs to stand up for you," Obama told service members returning to Fort Bragg, N.C. from Iraq recently.

Expect to hear that pitch throughout the next year as the president's campaign, mindful that large numbers of veterans and military families live in states crucial to his re-election chances, highlights his efforts to promote jobs and benefits for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans, meanwhile, already are countering his record, noting high unemployment among veterans. Source!

TSA Worker Caught Downloading Child Pornography

2011-12-30T11:48:00.007-06:00

Federal agency tasked with groping travelers is a recruiting ground for perverts!

Yet another TSA screener has been exposed as a pervert after police raided the Maryland home of 41-year-old TSA screener Scott Wilson and discovered videos and photos of child pornography contained on over two dozen different storage devices.

A “forensic preview” of Wilson’s two computers (as well as various storage devices found in a locked safe) revealed a variety of videos and photos “depicting prepubescent females engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults. More!

ICE launches hotline for busted immigrants

2011-12-29T13:41:00.002-06:00

As states across the nation ramp up their efforts to catch illegal immigrants, the Obama administration on Thursday launched a new free hotline for people busted on violations to get help.

The hotline, run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is available 24/7 for detained individuals to phone if they think they “may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime.”

The hotline will have translation services available in several different languages. ICE personnel will gather the caller’s information and send it to a field office for immediate action, according to the press release.

The purpose of the hotline and other measures, including a new detainer form, are “to ensure that individuals being held by state or local law enforcement on immigration detainers are properly notified about their potential removal from the country and are made aware of their rights.”

The new practices are “part of a broader effort to improve our immigration enforcement process and prioritize resources to focus on threats to public safety, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants and immigration fugitives while continuing to strengthen oversight of the nation’s immigration detention system and facilitate legal immigration,” ICE wrote in its press release. Source!

A $2.5 Million Libel Judgment Brings the Question: Are Bloggers Journalists?

2011-12-22T22:25:00.005-06:00

Bloggers Beware!

That was the headline on a conservative blog following a $2.5 million judgment this month against blogger Crystal Cox in a defamation case tried in federal court in Oregon. It’s a case followed closely in both the blogosphere and in the traditional media, as it highlights the proliferation of blogging, the blurring of lines between journalists and bloggers and more libel cases born out of blog posts.

“There are a lot of malicious people out there,” says Bruce Johnson, a Seattle attorney with Davis Wright Tremaine and author of Washington state’s current Shield Law. “You’re not going to be able to get rid of them all. They will continue to basically write graffiti on the bathroom wall, and in this case, the Internet provides the bathroom wall,” says Johnson.

According to the Media Law Resource Center, bloggers have been hit with $47 million in defamation judgments. Just two years ago the total stood at $17 million, revealing a sharp increase. MLRC’s Dave Heller sees a rise in ‘fringe publishers’ and says the case against Cox was, in some ways, "extremely rare." Source

ED: Obviously they're after Cruiser!

Are you an animal lover?

2011-12-22T16:14:00.001-06:00

If so, this may be your favorite video:

Merry Christmas . . .

2011-12-21T12:44:00.002-06:00

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama; Not Jesus

2011-12-20T20:06:00.002-06:00

The 63-foot Sierra White Fir lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

On the north side of the tree (at a height of about 4 feet and easily visible to people standing near it) there is an ornament that says: “I ♥ President Obama.” Source!

ED: Never confuse kindness for weakness!

Here are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that will shock you

2011-12-18T20:26:00.006-06:00

1. A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

2. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be “low income” or impoverished.

3. If the number of Americans that “wanted jobs” was the same today as it was back in 2007, the “official” unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.

4. The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.

5. One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.

6. There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

7. Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8 percent once you account for inflation.

8. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

9. A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.

10. According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

11. Back in 1980, less than 30 percent of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40 percent of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

12. Back in 1969, 95 percent of all men between the ages of 25 and 54 had a job. In July, only 81.2 percent of men in that age group had a job.

13. One recent survey found that one out of every three Americans would not be able to make a mortgage or rent payment next month if they suddenly lost their current job.

14. The Federal Reserve recently announced that the total net worth of U.S. households declined by 4.1 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2011 alone.

15. According to a recent study conducted by the BlackRock Investment Institute, the ratio of household debt to personal income in the United States is now 154 percent.

16. As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

17. The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than 5 billion dollars over the past year.
18. In Stockton, California home prices have declined 64 percent from where they were at when the housing market peaked.

19. Nevada has had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation for 59 months in a row.

20. If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

21. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida are sitting vacant. That figure is 63 percent larger than it was just ten years ago.

22. New home construction in the United States is on pace to set a brand new all-time record low in 2011.

23. 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 are now living with their parents.

24. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

25. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5 percent of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3 percent.

26. One study found that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.

27. If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

28. The United States spends about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that China spends on goods and services from the United States.

29. It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit for 2011 will be 558.2 billion dollars.

30. The retirement crisis in the United States just continues to get worse. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

31. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.

32. According to a study that was just released, CEO pay at America’s biggest companies rose by 36.5 percent in just one recent 12 month period.

33. Today, the “too big to fail” banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

34. The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans combined.

35. According to an analysis of Census Bureau data done by the Pew Research Center, the median net worth for households led by someone 65 years of age or older is 47 times greater than the median net worth for households led by someone under the age of 35.

36. If you can believe it, 37 percent of all U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 35 have a net worth of zero or less than zero.

37. A higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty (6.7 percent) than has ever been measured before.

38. Child homelessness in the United States is now 33 percent higher than it was back in 2007.

39. Since 2007, the number of children living in poverty in the state of California has increased by 30 percent.

40. Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over America. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 36.4 percent of all children that live in Philadelphia are living in poverty, 40.1 percent of all children that live in Atlanta are living in poverty, 52.6 percent of all children that live in Cleveland are living in poverty and 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living in poverty.

41. Today, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

42. In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

43. A staggering 48.5 percent of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits. Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.

44. Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about 24 percent of GDP. Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.

45. For fiscal year 2011, the U.S. federal government had a budget deficit of nearly 1.3 trillion dollars. That was the third year in a row that our budget deficit has topped one trillion dollars.

46. If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

47. Amazingly, the U.S. government has now accumulated a total debt of 15 trillion dollars. When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

48. If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.

49. The U.S. national debt has been increasing by an average of more than 4 billion dollars per day since the beginning of the Obama administration.

50. During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.

Of course, after going through all these numbers, the obvious question is, “how has it come to this?” The Economic Collapse has a simple answer: ". . . the heart of our economic problems is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence. If the Federal Reserve system had never been created, the U.S. economy would be in far better shape. The federal government needs to shut down the Federal Reserve and start issuing currency that is not debt-based." Source 1 and Source 2!

‘60 MINUTES’ EDITS OUT OBAMA‘S CLAIM THAT HE’S THE FOURTH BEST PRESIDENT

2011-12-18T14:19:00.004-06:00

President Barack Obama sat for an extensive interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last week, though it appears the portion of the interview actually broadcast on TV left out a statement where Obama essentially declared himself the fourth best president in terms of his accomplishments.

The statement was only made available online as part of the full interview on “60 Minutes Overtime.”

According to a transcript posted on the “60 Minutes” website, Obama said he would hold his accomplishments so far as president against those of Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. Video Clip!

Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov't Help Hide Climate Data?

2011-12-16T23:06:00.002-06:00

Are your tax dollars helping hide global warming data from the public? Internal emails leaked as part of “Climategate 2.0” indicate the answer may be "Yes."

The original Climategate emails -- correspondence stolen from servers at a research facility in the U.K. and released on the Internet in late 2009 -- shook up the field of climate research. Now a new batch posted in late November to a Russian server shows that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit refused to share their U.S. government-funded data with anyone they thought would disagree with them. Source!

DOJ Holder and staff cover up culpability for gun smuggling and murder

2011-12-15T22:00:00.003-06:00

A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.

Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.

Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false. Such a vast operation only could have occurred with the full knowledge and consent of senior administration officials. Massive gun-running and smuggling is not carried out by low-level ATF bureaucrats unless there is authorization from the top. There is a systematic cover-up.

Congressional Republicans, however, are beginning to shed light on the scandal. Led by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Darrell Issa of California, a congressional probe is exposing the Justice Department’s rampant criminality and deliberate stonewalling. Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, who heads the department’s criminal division, helped craft a February letter to Congress that denied ATF had ever walked guns into Mexico. Yet, under pressure from congressional investigators, the department later admitted that Mr. Breuer knew about ATF gun-smuggling as far back as April 2010. In other words, Mr. Breuer has been misleading Congress. He should resign - or be fired.

Instead, Mr. Holder tenaciously insists that Mr. Breuer will keep his job. He needs to keep his friends close and potential witnesses even closer. Another example is former acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. Internal documents show Mr. Melson directly oversaw Fast and Furious, including monitoring numerous straw purchases of AK-47s. He has admitted to congressional investigators that he, along with high-ranking ATF leaders, reassigned every “manager involved in Fast and Furious” after the scandal surfaced on Capitol Hill and in the press. Mr. Melson said he was ordered by senior Justice officials to be silent regarding the reassignments. Hence, ATF managers who possess intimate and damaging information - especially on the role of the Justice Department - essentially have been promoted to cushy bureaucratic jobs. Their silence has been bought, their complicity swept under the rug. Mr. Melson has been transferred to Justice’s main office, where he serves as a “senior adviser” on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. Rather than being punished, Mr. Melson has been rewarded for his incompetence and criminal negligence.

Mr. Holder and his aides have given misleading, false and contradictory testimony on Capitol Hill. Perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power - these are high crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Holder should be impeached. Like most liberals, he is playing the victim card, claiming Mr. Issa is a modern-day Joseph McCarthy conducting a judicial witch hunt. Regardless of this petty smear, Mr. Holder must be held responsible and accountable - not only for the botched operation, but for his flagrant attempts to deflect blame from the administration.

Mr. Holder is a shameless careerist and a ruthless Beltway operative. For years, his out-of-control Justice Department has violated the fundamental principle of our democracy, the rule of law. He has refused to prosecute members of the New Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation that took place in the 2008 election. Career Justice lawyers have confessed publicly that Mr. Holder will not pursue cases in which the perpetrators are black and the victims white. States such as Arizona and Alabama are being sued for simply attempting to enforce federal immigration laws. Mr. Holder also opposes voter identification cards, thereby enabling fraud and vote-stealing at the ballot box. What else can we expect from one who, during the Clinton administration, helped pardon notorious tax cheat Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorists?

Mr. Holder clearly knew about Fast and Furious and did nothing to stop it. This is because the administration wanted to use the excuse of increased violence on the border and weapons-smuggling into Mexico to justify tighter gun-control legislation. Mr. Holder is fighting ferociously to prevent important internal Justice documents from falling into the hands of congressional investigators. If the full nature of his involvement is discovered, the Obama presidency will be in peril.

Fast and Furious is even worse than Watergate for one simple reason: No one died because of President Nixon’s political dirty tricks and abuse of government power. But Brian Terry is dead; and there are still 1,500 missing guns threatening still more lives.

What did Mr. Obama know? Massive gun-smuggling by the U.S. government into a foreign country does not happen without the explicit knowledge and approval of leading administration officials. It’s too big, too risky and too costly. Mr. Holder may not be protecting just himself and his cronies. Is he protecting the president?

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute!

U.S. to leave Iraqi airspace clear for strategic Israeli route to Iran

2011-12-15T13:21:00.004-06:00

The U.S. military’s fast-approaching Dec. 31 exit from Iraq, which has no way to defend its airspace, puts Israel in a better place strategically to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iraq has yet to assemble a force of jet fighters, and since the shortest route for Israeli strike fighters to Iran is through Iraqi airspace, observers conclude that the U.S. exit makes the Jewish state’s mission planning a lot easier.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the Iraqi military will maintain radars to monitor the country’s airspace, but it has not taken possession of American F-16s to guard that space.

“The country has a capable and improving capability to see the airspace, a viable system to provide command and control, but no system to defeat incoming air threats until it gets either the F-16s or ground-based systems or, optimally, some of both." Source!

New Haven Asks State to Allow Non-Citizens to Vote

2011-12-14T15:44:00.003-06:00

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano plans to ask the state Legislature to allow illegal immigrants who live in the city to be able vote in municipal elections.

DeStefano said on Tuesday that the proposal would build a more engaged community and follows the lead of other cities, the New Haven Independent reports.

The Independent reports that New Haven has about 10,000 non-citizen immigrants.

Immigrants who are in the U.S. legally or illegally and cannot vote now would still be unable to vote in state or federal elections.

ED: Nudge, nudge, nudge . . .
Source!

Obama Collecting GOP Emails

2011-12-14T11:36:00.003-06:00

The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website.

The effort could help the Obama campaign build a database that would enable it to target Republican voters during the general election campaign. But, more perniciously, it could also become part of an Democratic effort to influence Republican primary voters to select a candidate Democrats think Obama could most easily defeat.

The Democratic National Committee last month released a video that seemed designed to damage Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate feared most by the Obama campaign.

The Obama information collection effort is cast under the mischievous guise of asking Obama supporters to “have a little fun at the expense of a Republican in your life” by signing them up to get an email from the Obama campaign ribbing them for having “inspired” the Obama supporter to donate.

The result, however, is that the Obama campaign gets a new trove of Republican email addresses that it could never have collected through voluntary submissions.

ED: "Or to round us up for the FEMA camps?" NBC's Chuck Todd replies! Source!

Obama to slash National Guard force on U.S.-Mexico border

2011-12-12T17:26:00.003-06:00

Blaming budget cuts, the Obama administration early next year will cut the number of National Guard troops patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border by at least half, according to a congressman who was briefed on the plan.

The National Guard said an announcement will be made by the White House “in the near future,” but Rep. Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who has learned of the plans, said slashing the deployment in half is the minimum number, and he said it will mean reshuffling the remaining troops along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

ED: In California, that will mean going from 264 Guard troops down to just 14. Source!

Obama to OPEN Mexican border

2011-12-11T16:04:00.008-06:00

US proposes unmanned border crossing with Mexico

The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.

This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
Source!

This pile of crap is brain-washing Iowa's kids!

2011-12-09T15:46:00.003-06:00

An Iowa State University lecturer is under a firestorm of criticism after he insulted the U.S. military and condemned efforts by College Republicans to collect gift boxes for American soldiers.

“Why do Republicans care so much about the military?” Thomas Walker wrote in a letter to the Iowa State Daily. “Because the military-industrial complex is dear to their simplistic laissez-faire fantasies: a bottom-line patriotism that excludes the people at the bottom.”

Walker is a lecturer in the university’s English and orientation program. He ridiculed the charitable actions of the young college students and questioned their motives.

“Soldiers are to Republicans as fetuses are to them: prized,” Walker wrote. “But once out of the womb-like army, Republican solicitude for hapless veterans goes where extracted zygotes go.”

Walker was referring to a newspaper article detailing efforts by Iowa State’s College Republicans to show their support for America’s fighting men and women.

“Donating toiletries, boxed and canned foods, socks and beanies to U.S. soldiers who can already deodorize themselves, who eat better than the poorest Americans and who are gallantly garbed, is an eleemosynary travesty,” he wrote.

Rush Limbaugh's best rant ever! God bless the United States of America, PLEASE?

2011-12-07T18:59:00.006-06:00

RUSH Today: If you were going to give a hate-filled, lie-filled class warfare speech attacking the foundations of the American system -- from which, by the way, if you're Obama, you benefit like few others in history have.

And, by the way, Mr. President, you haven't contributed a damn thing to this country's prosperity! You are sure benefiting from it, but you haven't contributed an iota. It would at least be helpful, Mr. President, if you would get your straw men and your propaganda straight. May I call you "Barack"? You can't have "rugged individualism" and "socialism." Let me see if I can explain this, Mr. President, in a way that you can understand. Something cannot be an apple and a walnut at the same time. The point is, you don't believe in rugged individualism; you believe in massive government! But he said during the speech, "rugged individualism." He said (paraphrased), "I'm all for it, but that it doesn't work."

Look around you, Mr. President. That suit that you're wearing, the tie, those shoes, the pens that you use to sign all these executive orders, your two Boeing 747s (lavishly furnished), all of those helicopters, the limousines that you drive around in -- all of which you use to excess. The fuel that is used by all of these modes of transportation, none of it, sir -- none of it! -- was produced by your precious government. None of it! You played 88 rounds of golf this year. Those golf clubs, golf balls, golf bags, all the other equipment -- the hot dogs you eat at basketball games, the hamburgers when you have your meet-the-common man photo-ops -- none of it was produced by the government, Mr. President. And you, sir, are not capable of helping to produce any of it yourself.

You are a sponge.

Just got a note, an e-mail: "Rush, doesn't the White House have a television? Doesn't Obama follow news? Doesn't he know what's happening in Europe? Maybe instead of living so much in the past he ought to catch up on world events. Europe's fighting a life and death battle with socialism right before our eyes." Yeah, patently obvious. Europe is about five years ahead of where we're going and we're on the same track and we're on that track purposely. What does that tell you?

I long ago gave up caring about Obama's motivation. I know what it is. If you can see disaster straight ahead and you still head for it, you want the disaster. Don't tell me this guy loves the country, folks. Don't tell me that. There's no evidence. Now, Barack, if I may call you that, a free, productive, healthy country is a society of individuals, not a collection of departments or agencies or offices run by know-nothing bureaucrats. A free, productive, healthy country is a society of individuals working in their own self-interest, pursuing dreams, excellence, trying to be the best they can be, using God-given freedom and liberty to pursue happiness as enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. A free, productive, healthy country is not a collection of departments, agencies, offices run by a bunch of bureaucrats, a thousand federal judges, faceless, nameless bureaucrats.

Folks, I don't know if you know this or not, the House of Representatives is attempting -- this is almost indescribable. You're gonna think I'm loopy. The House of Representatives is trying to pass legislation to limit the laws that can be made by bureaucrats and regulators. The only people who are constitutionally permitted to make law, federal law, are members of the United States Congress. The House of Representatives is alarmed at how much law is being written by bureaucrats in various government agencies. They're writing legislation trying to limit it and it will not pass. The Congress of the United States is attempting essentially to protect its constitutional role, and it will not survive. It will not pass this round of efforts because the Democrats in the Senate will never go for this.

Now, Barack, if I may call you that, what is your obsession with big government, massive deficits, huge bureaucracies, endless regulations, confiscatory taxes, what is it about that that turns you on? None of this creates opportunity. None of what you love, sir, creates wealth or jobs. Where has such an economic system ever worked? Where has what you love and adore ever succeeded? You say, sir, you want a more activist government. What does that mean? We're about five steps away from the financial cliff's edge, thanks to you, thanks to the government, the incompetent ideologues who run it like you. What else would you like to spend money on? What else would you like to regulate? What else do you want to demonize? What else do you want to cut down to size? What else do you want to destroy? What else would you like to ban? What else in America do you want do to smother and obstruct?

Now, Barack, if I may call you that, the problem in this country right now is one individual in particular, not all of the rich individuals. The problem in the United States of America is one individual, and that would be you, sir. You can't decide which president to be on any given day. One thing we can see, Barack, if I may call you that, the president you don't want to be is yourself. The reason you try to project your own image onto Lincoln or Kennedy, Roosevelt, Truman, Reagan, is because you do not want the public to see you for who you are, Barack Obama. I wonder, Barack, if I may call you that, I wonder how many future presidents will want to emulate you. I wonder how many future presidents will try to be you in the future. Probably about as many presidents who have tried to emulate Jimmy Carter.

The speech you gave yesterday, sir, was idiotic, shameful, actionable, incoherent, and alien to American ideals and principles. And above all else, it was pure pathetic. But as my cohort here, Mr. Snerdley says, Barack, if I may call you that, you did the nation a great favor. You told every patriotic American loving citizen that your view of America is not shared by them. You finally told us after three years the cat's out of the bag. After three years everybody now knows why I wanted you to fail. Everybody that heard that speech now knows that you said America as founded has never worked. You have outed yourself, Barack, if I may call you that. You've come out. Maybe you'll be on the cover of the next Advocate, because you just outed yourself, sir. You have nothing but contempt for this country. You told us yesterday you have nothing but contempt for our economic and political system. You told us yesterday.

The speech you gave yesterday, sir, was idiotic, shameful, actionable, incoherent, and alien to American ideals and principles. And above all else, it was pure pathetic. But as my cohort here, Mr. Snerdley says, Barack, if I may call you that, you did the nation a great favor. You told every patriotic American loving citizen that your view of America is not shared by them. You finally told us after three years the cat's out of the bag. After three years everybody now knows why I wanted you to fail. Everybody that heard that speech now knows that you said America as founded has never worked. You have outed yourself, Barack, if I may call you that. You've come out. Maybe you'll be on the cover of the next Advocate, because you just outed yourself, sir. You have nothing but contempt for this country. You told us yesterday you have nothing but contempt for our economic and political system. You told us yesterday.

So now, as my cohort and subservient employee Mr. Snerdley has observed, even the least attentive citizen knows where you stand, even the Kardashians know. And that's a big achievement, folks. To penetrate the wall of stupidity surrounding that family, even Paris Hilton, even Alec Baldwin is so ticked off he gets thrown off an American Airlines flight, Barack. Thank you. Norman Lear is beside himself. So is Barbra Streisand. You gave it up. There's nowhere for your supporters to hide. They can't say you have a vision as a great American. You're something else. Your vision for this country is not rooted in any, not one, American tradition. Your vision for the future of this country is not rooted in one single aspect of American greatness. That is what you seek to destroy. Even the least attentive citizens, even if they are only half-wits, now know to vote against you. You have hastened my retirement.

NAACP warns black and Hispanic Americans could lose right to vote

2011-12-06T19:35:00.004-06:00

The largest civil rights group in America, the National Association for the Advancement of African-American People (NAAAAP), is petitioning the UN over what it sees as a concerted efforted to disenfranchise black and Latino voters ahead of next year's presidential election.

The organisation will this week present evidence to the UN high commissioner on human rights of what it contends is a conscious attempt to "block the vote" on the part of state legislatures across the US. Next March the NAACP will send a delegation of legal experts to Geneva to enlist the support of the UN human rights council.

(ED: Note the sentence structure ["...organisation will this week present..."]. Before someone votes, they should graduate from something; anything.) Source!

Obama's Congress to receive entire Twitter archive

2011-12-06T12:43:00.002-06:00

Tweets, emails and other electronic communications can be considered "government documents" and must be preserved. The National Archives handles official government materials, while the Library of Congress' mandate is to deal with anything that may have long-term historical interest. Source!

How Healthy Is Your State?

2011-12-06T09:26:00.005-06:00

Check out the full list of state rankings in order: Source!

1. Vermont
2. New Hampshire
3. Connecticut
4. Hawaii
5. Massachusetts
6. Minnesota
7. Utah
8. Maine
9. Colorado
10. Rhode Island
11. New Jersey
12. North Dakota
13. Wisconsin
14. Oregon
15. Washington
16. Nebraska
17. Iowa
18. New York
19. Idaho
20. Virginia
21. Wyoming
22. Maryland
23. South Dakota
24. California
25. Montana
26. Kansas
27. Pennsylvania
28. Illinois
29. Arizona
30. Delaware
31. Michigan
32. North Carolina
33. Florida
34. New Mexico
35. Alaska
36. Ohio
37. Georgia
38. Indiana
39. Tennessee
40. Missouri
41. West Virginia
42. Nevada
43. Kentucky
44. Texas
45. South Carolina
46. Alabama
47. Arkansas
48. Oklahoma
49. Louisiana
50. Mississippi

Caution: Flesh-eating Bananas

2011-12-02T16:11:00.005-06:00

Sales of bananas in Maputo have plummeted following the circulation of malicious e-mails and mobile phone text messages claiming that South African bananas are infected with a lethal bacteria.

The bananas sold in Maputo are grown in Mozambique, not South Africa; Mozambique exports bananas to South Africa. But this has made no difference to panic-stricken consumers who are avoiding the fruit altogether.

The Ministry of Health, although recently losing a few toes, has assured consumers that the messages are a hoax and that nobody has appeared at any Mozambican health unit suffering from illness caused by infected bananas.

The Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Trade issued a joint statement on Wednesday stating "there is no record of the entry of any infected bananas into the country", and guaranteeing that staff on the borders are careful to avoid the entry into the country of any infected produce.
Source!

This ad is causing a bit of a stir

2011-12-01T20:04:00.008-06:00

Source!

Places I have and have not been

2011-12-01T12:22:00.001-06:00

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.

I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to get to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often.

I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I'm getting older.

One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get!

And, sometimes I think I am in Vincible but life shows me I am not!

And finally I have been in Deepdoodoo many times; the older I get, the easier it is to get there.

Obama restores U.S. horse-slaughter industry

2011-11-30T14:56:00.004-06:00

Bye, bye Flicka . . .

Source!

Pandemic Possible? Scientist Genetically Modifies Bird Flu With Scary Results

2011-11-28T22:13:00.008-06:00

Five tweaks is all it took for a team of virologists at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands to genetically modify the H5N1 virus — commonly known as bird flu — and make it something some have said should not have been created while others advocate its importance in transmissibility studies.According to Science Magazine’s Science Insider, Ron Fouchier genetically modified H5N1 to be easily transmissible to ferrets, which are an animal that react in a similar fashion to humans with regard to the flu. Science Insider reports that a separated study conducted by virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the University of Tokyo with H5N1 achieved similar results in terms of transmissibility of the genetically altered virus.

Science Insider has more: Both studies have been submitted for publication, and both are currently under review by the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which on a few previous occasions has been asked by scientists or journals to review papers that caused worries.

NSABB chair Paul Keim, a microbial geneticist, says he cannot discuss specific studies but confirms that the board has “worked very hard and very intensely for several weeks on studies about H5N1 transmissibility in mammals.” The group plans to issue a public statement soon, says Keim, and is likely to issue additional recommendations about this type of research. “We’ll have a lot to say,” he says.

“I can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one,” adds Keim, who has worked on anthrax for many years. “I don’t think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.” Source!

A Thanksgiving pictorial:

2011-11-23T14:09:00.002-06:00

Antibiotic-resistant infections spread through Europe

2011-11-18T08:50:00.002-06:00

The world is being driven towards the "unthinkable scenario of untreatable infections", experts are warning, because of the growth of superbugs resistant to all antibiotics and the dwindling interest in developing new drugs to combat them.

Reports are increasing across Europe of patients with infections that are nearly impossible to treat. The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) said yesterday that in some countries up to 50 per cent of cases of blood poisoning caused by one bug – K. pneumoniae, a common cause of urinary and respiratory conditions – were resistant to carbapenems, the most powerful class of antibiotics.

Across Europe, the percentage of carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae has doubled from 7 per cent to 15 per cent. The ECDC said it is "particularly worrying" because carbapenems are the last-line antibiotics for treatment of multi-drug-resistant infections.

Marc Sprenger, the director, said: "The situation is critical. We need to declare a war against these bacteria." Source!

Obama To Aussie Students: "Our Kids are Behind"

2011-11-17T10:09:00.002-06:00

There’s an unwritten rule in politics that politicians must not criticize the president when they are overseas. How about adding America’s school kids to the list of untouchables?

Speaking at a high school in Australia, President Obama told a group of Aussie students that their counterparts in his country had “fallen behind” when it comes to math and science, saying he wants to reform the public school system.

Obama also asserted that poor children don’t get “support they need when they’re very young’’ and are “already behind’’’ when they enter grammar school, according to a press pool report.

Obama might have thought twice before casting America’s public school kids in a negative light to foreign students. Especially since he can exclude his own children from the system by paying for them to attend private school.

One might feel uncomfortable saying many types of unpleasant things about our country to people overseas. But then, one would have to be an American exceptionalist. Source!

Does it matter now?

2011-11-16T11:40:00.004-06:00

WHEN Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN it was discovered that his grandparents were strong socialists who sent Obama's mother to a socialist school where she was introduced to Frank Marshall Davis. He was later introduced to young Barrack Hussein Obama. People said it didn't matter.

WHEN people found out that Barrack Hussein Obama was enrolled as a Muslim child in school and his father and stepfather were both Muslims, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he wrote in another book he authored "I will stand with them (Muslims) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction" people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he admittedly, in his book, said he chose Marxist friends and professors in college, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he traveled to Pakistan after college on an unknown national passport, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he sought the endorsement of the Marxist Party in 1996 as he ran for the Illinois Senate, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he sat in a Chicago Church for twenty years and listened to a preacher spew hatred for America and preach black liberation theology, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN an independent Washington organization, that tracks Senate voting records, gave him the distinctive title as the "most liberal senator," people said it didn't matter.

WHEN the Palestinians in Gaza set up a fund raising telethon to raise money for his election campaign, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN his voting record supported gun control, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan and Mummar Kadaffi and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except community organizing, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were revolutionary radicals, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN his voting record in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he refused to wear a flag lapel pin, and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN people started treating him as a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he stood with his hands over his groin area for the playing of the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN Obama surrounded himself with advisers who were for guncontrol, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to silence the opposition, people said it didn't matter..

WHEN he aired his views on abortion, homosexuality and a host of other issues, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he favors sex education in Kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN his personal background was either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN the place of his birth was called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he had an association in Chicago with Tony Rezco, a man of questionable character and who is now in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his home, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN it became known that George Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him elected, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he started appointing White House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries and even avowed Marxist/Communist, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he stood before the Nation and told us that his intentions were to "fundamentally transform this Nation" into something else, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN it became known that he had trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed cabinet members and several advisers who were tax cheats and socialists, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed a Science Czar, John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed Cass Sunstein as Regulatory Czar who believes in "Explicit Consent," harvesting human organs without family consent and allowing animals to be represented in court while banning all hunting, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed Kevin Jennings, a homosexual and organizer of a group called gay, lesbian, straight, education network as Safe School Czar and it became known that he had a history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed Mark Lloyd, as Diversity Czar, who believes in curtailing free speech; taking from one and giving to another to spread the wealth; who supports Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN Valerie Jarrett was selected as Obama's Senior White House Advisor and she is an avowed Socialist, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed Carol Browner as Global Warming Czar, and her being a well known socialist working on Cap and Trade as the nations largest tax, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he appointed Van Jones, an ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to resign when this was made known, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for health and human services secretary could not be confirmed, because he was a tax cheat, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN as President of the United States, he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he traveled around the world criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN his actions concerning the Middle-East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel, our long time ally, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he took American tax dollars to resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he upset the Europeans by removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he played politics in Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders said they were necessary to win, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he started spending us into a debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he took a huge spending bill under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations, unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he took over insurance companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he took away student loans from the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he designed plans to take over the health care system and put it under government control, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he claimed he was a Christian during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama speaking to a Muslim group and 'stating' that he was "raised a Muslim; was educated as a Muslim; and still is a Muslim," people said it didn't matter.

WHEN he set into motion a plan to take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and Trade, people said it didn't matter.

Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn America into a Marxist-Socialist society.

***Ed: Please search for the truth. We all need to pull together or watch the demise of our free democratic society.

CABLE NEWS RACE, Monday 11/14/11

2011-11-15T19:15:00.002-06:00

***The Voice that's Heard:
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,185,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,207,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,104,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,969,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,669,000

***The Voice that's Left:
MSNBC SCHULTZ 907,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 866,000
MSNBC MADDOW 814,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 766,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 734,000

***Runners Up:
CNN COOPER 565,000
CNN PIERS MORGAN 544,000

Ex-Marine Tosses Occupy Heckler From Congressman’s Swearing-in

2011-11-14T13:37:00.004-06:00

One Wall Street Occupier messed with the wrong Marine on Sunday, and got a little taste of the sidewalk sandwich as a result.Adam Weissman, 33, of Astoria, was one of three demonstrators to disrupt Turner’s local swearing-in ceremony at Metropolitan High School in Forest Hills. Turner won the congressional seat once held by disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner by defeating Assemblyman David Weprin.

But the heckler was only able to get out a few words before Kevin Hiltunen of Brooklyn grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and booted him out to the curb.

Hiltunen was identified as an ex-Marine and ex-NYPD officer.

“I guess you could say I sorted him out,” Hiltunen said, ”All I was doing was trying to stop this historic occasion from being disrupt-ed. There is a time and place to exercise your First Amendment rights.” Source!

‘We’ve Been a Little Bit Lazy’ says Obama overseas

2011-11-13T13:44:00.000-06:00

For the third time in as many months, Obama chided the United States for lack of effort in the competition for business. At the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Honolulu Saturday, the president said the U.S. has been “lazy” about attracting new investments to its shores:

“But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America.” Source!

Obama's White House rejects subpoena request for Solyndra documents

2011-11-04T19:25:00.003-05:00

President Obama's attorney sent a letter to Congressional investigators on Friday, saying the White House would not cooperate with a subpoena requesting documents related to its doling out a $535 million loan guarantee to now bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra.

"I can only conclude that your decision to issue a subpoena, authorized by a party-line vote, was driven more by partisan politics than a legitimate effort to conduct a responsible investigation," Obama's counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, wrote in a letter to the top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce committee.

READ the LETTER!
STORY Source!

Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers

2011-11-01T13:31:00.000-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street movement has received so much media coverage in recent weeks that it’s nearly impossible to keep abreast of all the developments. So many endorsements and criticisms coming from all directions enter the news cycle in such rapid succession that even the most dedicated news junkies may have missed out on many of the pronouncements. Supporters and detractors of OWS both might find it useful to have a handy all-inclusive list of who has endorsed or embraced the protest.

To satisfy that demand, we hereby present a list of groups, organizations, individuals and entities that have expressed their support for, sponsorship of, or sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street Movement!

Burglar Uses His Birthday As Excuse to Not Call Cops

2011-10-31T19:14:00.003-05:00

A burglar caught rummaging through a car pleaded with the victim not tell to authorities because it was his birthday and his mother was going to be in town, the Broward Sheriff's Office said Monday.Gregory Dobbs, 38, of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, was arrested and remains in jail on a charge of burglary of conveyance.

On Oct. 28, Dobbs' birthday, Morris Schwarz saw Dobbs going through an open window into his truck and looking through his belongings, authorities said. Schwarz went to the car, but the suspect fled. He ran after the man, caught him and that's when Dobbs pleaded with him, authorities said.

Dobbs was able to get away again, leaving behind a flip-flop and shirt, the sheriff's office said. A few hours later, authorities recognized the suspect's description, and showed Schwarz a photo line-up, where he confirmed Dobbs was the suspect. Source!

Florida pizza workers burned down rival store

2011-10-30T13:18:00.002-05:00

Two managers of a Domino's Pizza restaurant in Lake City, in north-central Florida, have been charged with burning down a rival Papa John's location. The motive? Police say one of the men admitted that he believed with his competitor out of the way, more pizza lovers would flock to his restaurant.

The Papa John's was gutted in the Oct. 20 fire.

FOOD FIGHT! OBAMA vs. DEAN!

2011-10-25T14:46:00.003-05:00

Michelle Obama is now furious with Southern cooking queen Paula Deen for exposing the first lady (a fake healthy-eating advocate), who’s waging a war against childhood obesity, pigs out on fattening foods.

While plugging her new book, “Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible,” the feisty TV chef took a pot shot at Michelle for gorging herself on greasy french fries, fatty hot chicken wings and sugary deep-fried Snickers bars!

“Michelle’s spitting mad!” Source!

Car Company Gets U.S. Taxpayer's Cash to Build Cars In Finland

2011-10-20T22:19:00.001-05:00

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here." Source!

Something to think about . . .

2011-10-18T12:58:00.001-05:00

These are possibly the 5 most important sentences you'll ever read:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Dem leader says, "Voters are to blame for gridlock in Congress!"

2011-10-11T21:14:00.001-05:00

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer suggested Tuesday that voters are to blame for the partisan bickering and standoffs that have defined Congress this year.

The Maryland Democrat said voters are “absolutely right” to think that “Congress isn’t working very well.” But that dysfunction, he said, is largely of their own making.

“The American people have every right to be angry [and] disappointed by the performance of the Congress,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol. “Of course, the American people have also elected people with hard stances, so that to some degree the American people are realizing the results of their votes.

“If elections have consequences — which I think they do — some of those consequences are getting what you vote for,” Hoyer added. “In this case, many people voted for people who thought compromise was not something that they ought to participate in.” Source!

Bleach fight; bleach fight!

2011-10-10T02:44:00.003-05:00

A Saturday morning of shopping turned into an emergency hazmat situation at a Baltimore Walmart where two patrons threw bleach and disinfectant at one another.

Baltimore County Police responded to a call at about 10:48 a.m. Saturday and found two women fighting inside the store.

The bleach and disinfectant created toxic fumes, forcing the immediate evacuation of the entire Arbutus store. It closed for several hours.

Fire, EMS and hazardous materials units were dispatched to the scene, as well as 10 medics. Theresa Monique Jefferson appears in this photo provided by the Baltimore County Police Dept.Nineteen people reportedly received treatment, including three Walmart employees. One person was taken to the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital for treatment.

Ed: The photo proves it doesn't work.

Secret panel can put Americans on "kill list"

2011-10-06T21:42:00.003-05:00

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process. Source!

California Man Referred to 'Psych Observation'

2011-10-06T08:51:00.008-05:00

You may have heard on the news about a southern California man put under 72-hour psychiatric observation when it was found he owned 100 guns and allegedly had (by rough estimate) 1-million rounds of ammunition stored in his home. The house also featured a secret escape tunnel.

My favorite quote from the dimwit television reporter: "Wow! He has about a million machine gun bullets." The headline referred to it as a "massive weapons cache”.

By southern California standards someone even owning 100,000 rounds would be called "mentally unstable. Just imagine if he lived elsewhere:

In Arizona, he'd be called "an avid gun collector”.

In Texas, he'd be called "a novice gun collector".

In Utah, he'd be called "moderately well prepared", but they'd probably reserve judgment until they made sure that he had a corresponding quantity of stored food.

In Montana, he'd be called "The neighborhood 'Go-To' guy".

In Idaho, he'd be called "a likely gubernatorial candidate".

In Wyoming, he'd be called "an eligible bachelor".

And in Arkansas, he’d be called “a deer hunting buddy!"

It's "Obama Fried Chicken!" in China

2011-10-02T18:42:00.010-05:00

Is Obama abandoning his bid for a second term in the White House and is giving Colonel Sanders a run for his money by opening a chain of fried chicken joints?
But in Beijing, China, a restaurant is actually calling itself OFC with a logo that looks alarmingly like the President dressed in the colonel's clothes.
Now that's change you can't really believe in.

The catchphrase underneath apparently says 'We’re so cool, aren’t we?'The Obama Fried Chicken could be a response to the U.S. filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization about Chinese tariffs on American chicken exports.

According to the New York Times, the tariffs affect an industry that employs about 300,000 people and range from 50 to 100 per cent, which means some Chinese importers paid as much as twice the price for American chicken. Source!

As Prisoner Exchange Begins, LA County Officials Predict Doom

2011-10-01T17:47:00.006-05:00

Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor is predicting doom and gloom with a prospect of thousands of convicted felons being diverted to the county’s jail system rather than state prisons.

And amid such a move, Sheriff Lee Baca told us in an exclusive interview late Friday that he plans to launch his own personal investigation into an increased controversy about the use-of-force by sheriff’s deputies in the jails.

Starting Saturday, Baca says he plans to talk directly with county jail inmates about the alleged beatings.

“I want to hear what the inmates have to say for themselves,” he said. Baca's urgent action highlights not only use-of-force issue, but the magnitude of the problem facing law enforcement in LA County.

District Attorney Steve Cooley says with thousands of new, convicted felons coming into the jail system and 8,000 or more nonviolent felons being released early on parole; it’s a prescription for disaster.

“I’m also predicting in connection with that population, we’re going to experience the greatest spike in crime of the last several decades,” Cooley said. Source!

Hispanic students vanish from Alabama schools

2011-10-01T15:11:00.003-05:00

Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration.

Education officials say scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children from classes or kept them home this week, afraid that sending the kids to school would draw attention from authorities.

There are no precise statewide numbers. But several districts with large immigrant enrollments — from small towns to large urban districts — reported a sudden exodus of children of Hispanic parents, some of whom told officials they planned to leave the state to avoid trouble with the law, which requires schools to check students' immigration status.

The anxiety has become so intense that the superintendent in one of the state's largest cities, Huntsville, went on a Spanish-language television show Thursday to try to calm widespread worries. Source!

Ed: Adios!

New York Panel Wants Taxpayers to Foot the Bill for Gender Reassignment Surgery

2011-09-30T09:38:00.002-05:00

A state panel advising New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants taxpayers to foot the bill for transgender residents to get "sexual reassignment surgery," allowing them to change their physical characteristics from a man to a woman or woman to man. "Provide Medicaid coverage for transgender surgery/hormone replacement therapy and treatment," read the proposal submitted by the state's health disparities work group.

The panel is submitting recommendations to Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team for possible inclusion in the governor's budget plan.

A state Health Department spokesman confirmed that requiring Medicaid to cover gender reassignment surgery is being considered.

"Medicaid doesn't cover the surgery," said the department's Jeff Gordon. "This issue is under review by the Medicaid Redesign Team."

The proposal -- coming just months after Cuomo won national attention for steering a gay-marriage law through the state legislature -- came under fire from the political right.

"This is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars," said state Conservative Party chairman Mike Long.

Long insisted sex-change procedures are cosmetic and encourage permissiveness, adding, "I hope the governor doesn't push the envelope on this." More on the AMA's Adadictomy procedure!

Unemployment rates in 20 selected cities

2011-09-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

Highest unemployment rates August 2011
El Centro, Calif. 32.4
Yuma, Ariz. 29.4
Merced, Calif. 17.5
Yuba City, Calif. 17.0
Stockton, Calif. 16.1
Modesto, Calif. 16.0
Fresno, Calif. 15.8
Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 15.7
Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 15.3
Palm Coast, Fla. 14.9

Lowest unemployment rates August 2011
Bismarck, N.D. 3.0
Lincoln, Neb. 3.6
Fargo, N.D. 3.9
Portsmouth, N.H. 4.4
Rapid City, S.D. 4.5
Sioux Falls, S.D. 4.5
Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb. 4.6
Burlington, Vt. 4.6
Midland, Texas 4.8
Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux, La. 4.9

Federal judge upholds most of Alabama immigration law

2011-09-28T13:26:00.001-05:00

A Birmingham federal judge today upheld most sections of Alabama's tough new immigration law. U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn ruled on a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to block the law.

Blackburn upheld a provision of the state law related to police stops and detentions of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

She also upheld sections requiring schools to check the citizenship status of children and sections that would nullify contracts knowingly entered into with unauthorized aliens.

Blackburn also upheld a section making it a felony for "an alien not lawfully present in the United States" to apply for a license plate, driver's license, business license or other business license. Source!

There's always next year . . .

2011-09-27T19:37:00.001-05:00

Woman reportedly injured by exploding D.C. toilet

2011-09-27T18:34:00.005-05:00

A toilet reportedly exploded Monday and injured a woman at the General Services Administration Building in D.C.

The D.C. Fire and EMS Department confirms a woman went to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

"The GSA National Capital Regional Office Building experienced a building mechanical incident, which we understand may have resulted in injuries," a GSA statement reads. A memo made the rounds in the GSA building, warning people not to flush.

"Do NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water," Channel 9 quotes the memo as saying.

"Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets ... There has been damage to flushed toilets that has resulted in injuries."

The GSA has refused to respond to specific questions, only referring to its statement.

"The restrooms are back in service, and mechanical systems are being monitored as we speak," the statement says.

The incident is not the first of its kind in the United States. A trial lawyer in Memphis, Tenn., Parke Morris, says he represented a client who was seriously injured when a urinal exploded in a GSA building. Porcelain terror source!

Michael Moore, in full sedition

2011-09-27T10:38:00.004-05:00

Tummy-tuck candidate and filmmaker Michael Moore is throwing his weight behind the angst-ridden Day of Rage protesters. After dinner Monday, Moore headed down to Wall Street to speak to a few hundred participants claiming that the protests are going to “grow pretty fast.”

In speaking to the individuals who continue to camp out against “corruption,” Moore said, ”It warms my heart to see all of you here.”

Dumbo continued, “These people on Wall Street ripped off the future of many of these young people here and their not-yet-born fatherless children. It was the greatest heist of my lifetime and I will find a way to profit off their 'pretend' pain. This protest has to start somewhere, and it might as well have started here.”

But on CNN, Michael Moore admitted he's made his fortune on the backs of the little guy:

Trucking Industry Collapsing Under Obama's Regulations

2011-09-27T00:30:00.003-05:00

As President Barack Obama is touring the country touting his so-called jobs bill, he’s not talking about one of the largest job killers facing American industry — regulation. American Job Creators is compiling stories of how over-regulation is destroying jobs nationwide.

One of the most regulated industries in the United States is over-the-road trucking. Nearly anything you have in your house, from light bulbs, to toilet paper, to your flat-screen television, was delivered to where you bought it by truck – indeed, 70 percent of all goods travel by truck. And every year, more regulations are piled on top of one of the key industries for the American economy.

Wayne Meyer drives a refrigerated truck, delivering 640-pound blocks of cheese, and he has been driving for 42 years: "When I first started driving we had log books, but they weren’t enforced. Then they got into control of speed, but I was over in California and California has always been nasty about trucks and speed anyway. We’re around 200,000 drivers short, and they’re making it to where you’ve got to be a jail house lawyer to get down the road. It’s turning a lot of guys off from being a driver."

Chris Christie Reconsidering 2012 Run

2011-09-26T18:44:00.003-05:00

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is reconsidering his decision not to enter the 2012 presidential race — and he says he will let top Republican donors know within days about his plans, Newsmax has learned.

During the past few weeks, several leading Republican donors and fundraisers have been urging the popular Republican governor to reconsider his decision not to run and to enter the GOP primary.

These Christie supporters note that significant GOP support has remained on the sidelines of the primary fight. Many leading fundraisers have yet to commit to any current primary contender, including frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Source!

Georgia Middle School Assignment: Depict ‘Positive’ Aspects of Shariah Law

2011-09-26T15:25:00.001-05:00

A Georgia middle school adjusted its lessons after a father complained that his daughter’s homework assignment promoted Shariah law.

According to the Marietta Daily Journal, the assignment was supposed to teach students at Campbell Middle School about the pros and cons of school uniforms. It featured a letter from a woman who said she is “proud and happy” to be Muslim and to completely cover herself in public — and also that her husband could take another wife rather than divorce her if their marriage gets rocky: Read the LETTER!

Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government

2011-09-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed, adding to negativity that has been building over the past 10 years. Graphs!

San Antonio High School Teacher calls local Tea Party president a Nazi (video)

2011-09-24T11:14:00.004-05:00

Tempers flared during a town hall meeting on the Dream Act Tuesday night. During the meeting a San Antonio high school government teacher called the local Tea Party president a Nazi.

The exchange was recorded and posted on You tube.
"When you get to name calling that just shows that there is no logic to your argument any further. It's all emotion, " said George Rodriguez, President of the San Antonio Tea Party.

The teacher's emotion came from a panelist's comment that school administration should deport undocumented students.

"So you would have students in this room deported?" asked the teacher.

The panelist replied, "Yes, I would if they were illegal. You bet."

Rodriguez also told the teacher if the person is here illegally, they are breaking the law. "You know what I would have? I would have you teach more balanced - conservative," added Rodriguez.

After those remarks is when the teacher made the Nazi comment saying, "You can just say what you are - a Nazi."

(But of course) Edgewood ISD will not be taking any disciplinary action against the teacher.

East Wing Bling: Mooch-chelle's enjoying a lavish year

2011-09-22T16:48:00.005-05:00

Michelle Obama dazzles in New York, wearing diamond bangles (She's gotta be lovin' this)

That was no ordinary bling on the wrist of First Lady Michelle Obama at the DNC fundraiser in New York Tuesday night. Those fancy diamond cuffs were the creation of 23-year-old Katie Decker, whose namesake jewelry line has been making a serious splash since her graduation from Texas A&M two years ago.

The native Houstonian is over the moon with the fab pub that photos of the first lady in Katie Decker are already providing. Michelle Obama's stylist picked up the bracelets at Katie's showroom in Fragments in Soho. The bracelets were on loan for the evening; a common practice in the fashion industry. You can see more photos of the Obamas from the evening here by checking out the Gotham Hall event.

If you've been saving your nickels and dimes, the cuffs are available locally at Judith Ann Jewels. The First Lady wore Katie's Lotus cuff priced at $15,000 with 2.9 carats of diamonds, her Gothic cuff at $15,350 with 2.17 carats in diamonds and the Quatrefoil bracelet at $11,800 with 1.73 carats in diamonds.

As Katie continues her rise in the ranks of jewelry design she has participated in Couture, the trade show for jewelery designers, in Las Vegas and has now been accepted for the Centurion Jewelry Show in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Is this embarrassing Obama photo a fake?

2011-09-21T07:40:00.003-05:00

The photo has sparked widespread debate about whether it’s real or not (proof?); "hopefully the Chinese won't recall all those loans."

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Made in China

2011-09-20T15:08:00.004-05:00

When it was built in 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was a Depression-era project that put scores of Americans to work. When its $6.3 billion replacement opens in two years, it will be an international affair from the bottom up, an example of massive outsourcing that has drawn criticism. Video!

Ed: 35 States received less taxpayer money for bridges and highways than Obama's Green darling (and personal political supporter) Solandra received and flushed down the toilet.

"We Are Heroes, Who Need to Create a Crisis," SEIU.

2011-09-20T13:24:00.003-05:00

SEIU’s Stephen Lerner at Progressive Summit Tells Unions, Community Organizers and Students They Need to Escalate Protests, Break Laws, Occupy Abandoned Houses and Spread the Crisis All Over U.S.

Ed: B...b...but I thought it was those crazy TEA Partiers that are inciting riots?

Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer: You Are STUPID! Watch this video!

2011-09-19T22:20:00.003-05:00

And now, fools; the EBT song!

So, Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer; how many freeloaders are you allowed to deduct as dependants? Call your Representative!

Obama, Holder and Mexico join together fighting millions of U.S. citizens

2011-09-19T10:52:00.004-05:00

The person in this video is Professor Terry J. Lovell, Ph.D., at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. He puts a different spin on what Obama and Attorney General Holder are doing to Arizona:

Obama's urgent jobs plan: Right now, 'right now' means sometime next month . . . maybe

2011-09-19T09:10:00.003-05:00

Everybody remembers the urgency of President Obama's attitude toward the awful jobs situation.

Back in early August, Obama said the jobs situation was so urgent that he was going to give another speech about it -- in a month or so, in September after his vacation on Martha's Vineyard.

And then in September the president announced he would give his major jobs speech to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 7. But he neglected to check with congressional leaders first. And they suggested the 8th. So, since it was their House, the 8th it was.

"Tonight," the president said in the first 34 of his 4,021 words to a national television audience that night, "we meet at an urgent time for our country. We continue to face an economic crisis that has left millions of our neighbors jobless, and a political crisis that has made things worse."

The speech got panned as another political campaign one with Obama announcing, in effect, that since the first stimulus spending plan of $787 billion hadn't really worked, maybe another $447 billion stimulus spending plan would.

This is the kind of thinking that can make sense within Washington. But since "stimulus" has become a laugh line, he didn't use that word anymore. Source!

Obama to propose $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue

2011-09-18T23:00:00.000-05:00

Drawing a bright line with congressional Republicans, President Barack Obama is proposing $1.5 trillion in new tax revenue as part of his long-term deficit reduction plan, according to senior administration officials.

The president on Monday will announce a proposal that includes repeal of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, nearly $250 billion in reductions in Medicare spending, $330 billion in cuts in other mandatory benefit programs, and savings of $1 trillion from the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the officials said.

All in all, the president's plan is as much an opening bid as it is a political statement designed to draw contrasts with Republicans, who control the House of Representatives.

As such, it was not intended as a compromise and did not include agreements Obama had reached with House Speaker John Boehner during failed deficit reduction negotiations this summer.

TSA Workers at Honolulu Airport Fired for Not Screening Bags

2011-09-17T22:10:00.004-05:00

Dozens of employees at Honolulu's airport were fired or suspended after an investigation found workers did not screen checked bags for explosives, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday.

The firings and suspensions amounted to the single largest personnel action for misconduct in the federal agency's history. It said in a statement that 28 workers were "removed," 15 suspended, and three resigned or retired. The cases of two other employees were still being decided.

The agency began an investigation at the end of last year after two Honolulu employees told officials that thousands of bags weren't checked properly or screened for traces of explosives.

The probe, which included interviews with more than 100 employees, determined that some checked bags during one shift at the airport were not properly screened.

In June, the TSA placed 36 of the workers on paid administrative leave as it began the process of firing them. It also suspended 12 workers at that time. The Honolulu airport has 750 TSA employees.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents TSA workers, has said the employees faced pressure to make sure flights departed on time.

The workers can appeal the decision, the agency said. A TSA spokesman declined to comment because it involved personnel issues. Story!

Motive Unclear In Attack By Group Of Black, Hispanic Teens On 16th Street Mall

2011-09-16T19:11:00.001-05:00

Police are asking for the public’s help tracking down a large group of violent teenagers.

They say 10 to 15 young people — described as black or Hispanic and both male and female — attacked four white men on the 16th Street Mall at about 10:45 p.m. on Sunday.

Denver police say the men were standing on the mall near Arapahoe when they were approached by the group. After a conversation, the group turned violent and they attacked the men. Source!

3-Year-Olds Branded “Racist,” “Homophobic” Put In Government Database

2011-09-15T19:16:00.003-05:00

Over 30,000 British schoolchildren, some as young as three, have had their names registered on a government database and branded “racist” or “homophobic” for using playground insults, infractions that could impact their future careers.

The shocking figures were disclosed after civil liberties group the Manifesto Club made a Freedom of Information Act request which betrayed the fact that kids who used petty jibes are now being treated as thought criminals by education authorities.

34,000 incidents of “racism” in total were reported for the year 2009-2010, with nursery school toddlers as young as three being put on a state database for using the words “gay” and “lesbian”. One child who called another “broccoli head” was also reported to authorities. Other cases included a child who used the word “gaylord,” while another who told a teacher “this work is gay,” was also added to the thought crime database.

The majority of the reported cases involved primary school children.

“The record can be passed from primaries to secondaries or when a pupil moves between schools,” reports the Daily Mail. Source!

Chicago thugs rule D.C., forcing 4-Star Gen to lie

2011-09-15T15:46:00.004-05:00

The Pentagon has worried for months that a project backed by a prominent Democratic donor might interfere with military GPS. Now Congress wants to know if the White House pressured a general to change his testimony.

The four-star Air Force general who oversees Air Force Space Command walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a week ago to give a classified briefing to lawmakers and staff, and dropped a surprise. Pressed by members, Gen. William Shelton said the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to make it more favorable to a company tied to a large Democratic donor.

The episode is the latest in a string of incidents that have given Republicans sudden fodder for questions about whether the Obama administration is politically interfering in routine government matters that affect donors or fundraisers. Already, the FBI and a House committee are investigating a federal loan guarantee to a now failed solar firm called Solyndra that is tied to a large Obama fundraiser.

Now the Pentagon has been raising concerns about a new wireless project by a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared, whose majority owner is an investment fund run by Democratic donor Philip Falcone.

According to officials familiar with the situation, Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the Pentagon’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, officials said.

“There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said in an interview. “The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Office Management and Budget.” Source!

For Lexiphiles:

2011-09-15T11:05:00.002-05:00

· Writing with a broken pencil is pointless.
· Fish in schools sometimes take debate.
· A calendar thief got twelve months.
· When smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
· A professor found her earthquakes theory was on shaky ground.
· Batteries are to be given out free of charge.
· A dentist & a manicurist were in love but fought tooth and nail.
· A will is a dead giveaway.
· Pay your exorcist - you can get repossessed.
· Once married she had a new name and a dress.
· You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
· An Australian computer network - the LAN down under.
· A boiled egg is hard to beat.
· When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
· Police called to a day care found a three-year-old resisting a rest.
· The fellow whose left side was amputated is all right now.
· Running with a laptop computer jogs your memory.
· A bicycle can't stand alone - it is two tired.
· In democracy - your vote counts; in feudalism, your Count votes.
· A hungry clock goes back four seconds
· The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
· His photographic memory was never developed.
· Those too big for their britches are exposed in the end.
· She thought she’d dye when she first saw strands of gray hair.
· Acupuncture: a jab well done.
· He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
· Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
· Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.
· An optometrist fell into a grinder and made a spectacle of himself.

Michigan To Track Childhood Obesity

2011-09-14T16:12:00.003-05:00

In an attempt to combat Michigan's childhood obesity epidemic, Gov. Rick Snyder announced Wednesday that the state would begin tracking kids' body mass index through the Michigan Care Improvement Registry. Although the policy would be one of the most extensive government anti-childhood obesity efforts, pediatricians were divided over whether it would have the desired impact.The tracking system would require pediatricians to calculate patients' BMI using height and weight measurements, and report these numbers to the state through the existing immunization tracking system, the Michigan Care Improvement Registry. The numbers would be reported anonymously, meaning that the child's identity would not be connected to his or her BMI in state records.

The hope is that having doctors track height and weight in this way would encourage more discussion among parents, kids and doctors about the dangers of being overweight, says Geralyn Lasher, director of communications at the Executive Office of the Governor.

The new policy does not require doctors to discuss obesity with parents, just quietly keep track. More HERE and HERE!

Obama's "Rat on Your Neighbor" website; German literacy helpful

2011-09-14T14:28:00.002-05:00

Obama for America national field director Jeremy Bird told ABC News that the site’s goal is to offer “resources to fight back” against attacks. Mostly, that means fact checking statements from the likes of GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and conservative commentator Glenn Beck and offering evidence to the contrary.

Add your email address here, then change your name, move to California and apologize to your kids.

Obama to Tout Jobs Act at Company that Outsources

2011-09-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

President Obama today is visiting a small North Carolina manufacturing company that has outsourced half its workforce to Costa Rica and whose president is a Democratic politician who has contributed $2,000 to Obama.

WestStar Precision, a machine manufacturing firm headquartered in the Raleigh-Durham area, has a second plant located in San Jose, Costa Rica. There are 24 employees at each site, according to an NBC affiliate in Raleigh.

Ironically, Obama is traveling to the company’s headquarters to tout his new proposal to create jobs in the United States.

While he’s there, he can thank WestStar President Ervin Portman for his financial assistance. Source!

New website to rat on Obama-bashers

2011-09-13T22:36:00.003-05:00

Rats enter HERE!