January : 2008
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year from The Offices of Vegas!
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CNN Debates
Republicans
John McCain is terrible in debate. Not just the one last night in California where he was overly abysmal, but in all of them. We don't care who endorses him or who says otherwise. He repeats the same paragraphs everywhere he goes, cracks the same "funnies" that simply are not amusing. Not the first time one hears them and less so on the tenth. Not even variations of the themes, but rather, word for word (as well as it seems can be recalled and often without any relation to the question - Economics? "I was for the surge, Iraq etc." Didn't you just say all of that to the previous query?
He has been a part of far too much dreadful policy of late - not forgotten - and his manner in these debates, in our opinion, comes across as contrived with only intent of winning office. It is ill and grows only worse as these events progress. He seems pained to appear as though he "gets it" and it would be our guess that this new found "understanding" he has of the people's will evaporates as soon as he has the control and he'll just do whatever he pleases by some inherent right.
We simply cannot place stock in John McCain's words. How can he, with straight face repeat this "timetable" quote re: Romney? It is to insult and his childish jabs are nauseating.
Huckabee, is also dreadful. Endless smiley faces and eyebrow raisings and cartoon one liners. His standard m.o. is lame. Once asked a question, crack a joke (often about why he won't be answering that question), then proceed to tell you what he thinks is important...no matter if irrelevant to the question posed. Evasive, not amusing and as seems clear at this stage of the game, only wasting the air time of these debates and of course acting as a foil to assist McCain against Romney.
The Huckster cracks funnies like "Hey, give me a chance to answer a question!" Then when accommodated, he proceeds to not answer the question asked. Funny stuff, the old "I'll answer your question, but first let me say..." Good one Chuckles, but that is the Democrats turf. Do leave it to them if you might.
"There's more than two people in the race you know!" Another knee slapper Huck, however, also quite obviously wrong.
Romney did not put forth as strong of a game as he needed. I think he has to assert some serious rebuttal to this McCain drivel, call out the chicanery boldly, forcefully and loudly. Enough of the nice guy thing, it is not going to get you where you want it seems.
Given this stage of the game, we have to say that it is a shame that Rudy ran so poor a campaign - Thompson had no "fire in the belly?" What exactly did Rudy do? Seems less to me - because at this point we have to think he would have been the best representative.
Democrats
The Kodak Theater was a fitting scene for what could only be described as theater. With doled out tickets to the Hollywood 'stars' and yesterday vagabonds completing the scenario, it was remarkable how those in attendance applauded each breath with vigor. Bravo! Bravo!
Obama posed, put on his 'deep thinker" face and stance, made no doubt thoughtful 'note-to-self,' scribbles, smiled and posed some more and stretched on his vowels. 'It's a tough call, but could it be possible that Obama has unseated Kerry for the crown of gum-flapping for eternity while actually saying nothing champ? I think so.
Hillary smiled and delivered up what the crowd demanded. The patented shriek and ended with a magnificent wisdom that the media found to be the "best line of the night" and continued to replay it well into the next day. You know the one, the astounding depth of "...it took a Clinton to clean up after the last Bush, so maybe it'll take a Clinton to clean up after this one blahblahblah." How intoxicating is this! I feel need to spring from my seat and lend ovation!
Forgive the image, but we do not envy those that were tasked with cleaning up after Billy and his cigar smoking respites.
Debate? No, no such thing to be found here, but it was a cordial affair of rounds of testimonials being given and applause before sentences were even completed. LaLa Land indeed.
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Bush : State of The Union 2008 : Tax Cuts
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Yahoo to Cut 1,000 Jobs
[nyt] : After announcing a sharp drop in fourth-quarter profits Tuesday, Yahoo issued a disappointing outlook for this year, suggesting that investors would have to wait until 2009 for a turnaround.
Yahoo also said that as part of its plan to revive its fortunes, it would cut 1,000 jobs by mid-February to reduce costs and narrow its focus to its most important businesses.
The company, however, said it planned to invest aggressively in some areas, like advertising technology and selected portions of its Internet portal, as it tries to capture a larger share of online ad dollars. Since some laid-off employees could apply for new jobs at Yahoo, the net effect on the work force, which recently grew to 14,300, was not clear.
[yahoo earnings statement]
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Florida Win For McCain
[aol] MIAMI (Jan. 29) - Sen. John McCain won a breakthrough triumph in the Florida primary Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of next week's contests across 21 states and lining up a quick endorsement from soon-to-be dropout Rudy Giuliani.
"It shows one thing. I'm the conservative leader who can unite the party," McCain said after easing past former Massachusetts Gov, Mitt Romney in a hard-fought contest.
"It's a very significant boost, but I think we've got a tough week ahead and a lot of states to come," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the Democratic winner in a primary held in defiance of national rules that drew no campaigning and awarded no delegates.
The victory was worth 57 national convention delegates for McCain, a winner-take-all haul that catapulted him ahead of Romney for the overall delegate lead.
Giuliani ran third, his best showing of the campaign but not nearly good enough for the one-time front-runner who decided to make his last stand in a state that is home to tens of thousands of transplanted New Yorkers.
Florida Results
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State of The Union - Bush Tax Cuts
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EDITORIAL & OPINION
Mike Huckabee : For the love of God, please just go away.
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NHL Allstars Weekend
- SuperSkills Competition: Saturday, Jan. 26
- The Game : Sunday, Jan. 27, 6 p.m. ET
There are seven events in the Dodge/NHL SuperSkills competition this season. Each event is worth at least two goals toward the team’s final score. Each All-Star must compete in at least one event, so fans of one particular player will not be shortchanged.
The conference that finishes the competition with the most goals will be declared the winner. In the event of a tie at the end of the competition, each team captain -- Jarome Iginla of the Western Conference and Vincent Lecavalier of the Eastern Conference -- will pick a goalie and alternating players to compete in a sudden-death shootout.
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Economy: Along with the usual gloom that comes with a cyclical economic downturn, there's inevitably something darker and much more cataclysmic: predictions that capitalism as we know it will soon end. Please.
[ibd] A lot of reputable people think we're headed for a recession. That may or may not be true. But headed for an epic meltdown that will make our way of life obsolete?
On Wednesday, billionaire socialist George Soros penned a piece for London's Financial Times suggesting the era of capitalist dominance is coming to a screeching halt: "The current crisis is the culmination of a superboom that has lasted for more than 60 years," he declares.
Could he be right? Well, here's Soros testifying to Congress in 1998, during the greatest economic boom in history: "The global capitalist system . . . is coming apart at the seams."
Sorry, George. It wasn't then, and it isn't now. Yet Soros has made billions making financial bets against the West, mainly America, then bad-mouthing its economy for all to hear.
He isn't alone, however, in inveighing against the alleged sins of the U.S.-style free market.
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...And Then There's John Edwards
[wapo] : There's losing. There's losing honorably. And then there's John Edwards.
Mike Huckabee is not going to be president. The loss in South Carolina, one of the most highly evangelical states in the union, made that plain. With a ceiling of 14 percent among nonevangelical Republicans, Huckabee's base is simply too narrow. But his was not a rise and then a fall. He came from nowhere to establish himself as the voice of an important national constituency. Huckabee will continue to matter, and he might even carry enough remaining Southern states to wield considerable influence at a fractured Republican convention.
Fred Thompson will also not be president. His campaign failed, but quite honorably. He never tacked. He never dissimulated. He refused to reinvent himself. He presented himself plainly and honestly. Too plainly. What he lacked was the ferocious, near-deranged ambition (a.k.a., fire in the belly) required to navigate the bizarre ordeal that is today's nominating process. Political decency is not a common commodity. Thompson had it. He'd make a fine attorney general, and not just on TV.
Then there is John Edwards. He's not going to be president, either. He stays in the race because, with the Democrats' proportional representation system, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might end up in a very close delegate race -- perhaps allowing an also-ran with, say, 10 percent of the delegates to act as kingmaker at the convention.
It's a prize of sorts; it might even be tradeable for a Cabinet position. But at considerable cost. His campaign has been a spectacle.
Edwards has made much of his renunciation of his Iraq war vote. But he has not stopped there. His entire campaign has been an orgy of regret and renunciation:
- As senator, he voted in 2001 for a bankruptcy bill that he now denounces.
- As senator, he voted for storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Twice. He is now fiercely opposed.
- As senator, he voted for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind education reform. He now campaigns against it, promising to have it "radically overhauled."
- As senator, he voted for the Patriot Act, calling it "a good bill . . . and I am pleased to support it." He now attacks it.
- As senator, he voted to give China normalized trade relations. Need I say? He now campaigns against liberalized trade with China as a sellout of the middle class to the great multinational agents of greed, etc.
Breathtaking. People can change their minds about something. But everything? The man served one term in the Senate. He left not a single substantial piece of legislation to his name, only an endless string of votes on trade, education, civil liberties, energy, bankruptcy and, of course, war that now he not only renounces but inveighs against.
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On McCain and Memories
[nro-mm] : [...] Not all of us have forgotten how the short-fused Arizona senator cursed good-faith opponents in his own party (“F**k you!” and “Chickensh*t” were the choice words he had for Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn during a spat over enforcement provisions). Not all of us have forgotten that he voted against barring felons from receiving amnesty benefits under his plan. Not all of us have forgotten the underhanded, debate-sabotaging manner in which McCain, Kennedy, Lindsey Graham, and Harry Reid conspired to ram their package down voters’ throats.
[...] McCain harps on open-borders sob stories. Several times over the past year, in response to citizen questioners who have expressed frustration with the lack of accountability for immigration law-breakers, McCain has responded: “I am not going to call up a soldier and tell him I am deporting his mother. . . . I’m not going to do it. You can do it.”
But what if that mother had stolen an American citizen’s Social Security number to work here illegally? What if she had been previously deported, re-entered illegally, and had been convicted of previous crimes? What if she were part of a human-smuggling ring? What if she had been working in a sensitive area — airport security, a military base, a port? Would he still refuse to abide by his constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty for law-abiding Americans?
If McCain refuses to enforce immigration law against illegal-alien parents of soldiers, what about illegal-alien soldiers who used stolen or fake identification to get into the military? And why only illegal-alien parents of soldiers? Why not illegal-alien parents of police officers, teachers, doctors, and store owners? McCain’s selective enforcement policy is the exact recipe for the immigration anarchy that we have today.
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Fred Thompson Quits Presidential Race
[breitbart] : Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.
"Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort," Thompson said in a statement.
Thompson's fate was sealed last Saturday in the South Carolina primary, when he finished third in a state that he had said he needed to win.
In the statement, Thompson did not say whether he would endorse any of his former rivals. He was one of a handful of members of Congress who supported Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2000 in his unsuccessful race against George W. Bush for the party nomination.
Well, we never really bought into the "entered the race too late," meme, failing to see really what that mattered. Perhaps it did, but we still can't put a lot of stock into that. "No fire in the belly," ...same. The media certainly did their part in promoting this mindset and offered little attention to his policy positions - all easily found online long before he had his website or before the race began.
It is a shame and even more of a shame that he didn't at least stay in the race until Super Tuesday, as this only reinforces the silly memes and disappoints those that gave their support to him. Although it has been said that he is not endorsing anyone, if he turns on this and supports McCain this will further erode opinion of him among his supporters. It's understood that his mother is ill and we wish the best to Fred and family in this regard. Bottom line: Sad to say, Fred can blame none but himself for his result in this presidential race.
Now, I've written often of the contempt I have for CNN and the clown show that has become that station so long ago, but the mindless, infantile tripe that passes for dialogue there continues to make the viewer embarrassed to chance upon it. Jack Cafferty need only don a bright red, rubber nose to complete his act, and by doing so would actually lend him some authentication. The little laughing riff they ran on after Fred announced that he was dropping out of the race was beyond insulting of the man. Everyone associated with this joke network should be ashamed.
Lucky to have men like Fred
[nro-lopez] : [...] Whoever winds up the Republican nominee for president this year, he’d be doing his country a service if he read Fred’s pre-caucus message to Iowa voters that Thompson posted on his website. In it he listed “the fundamental, conservative principles that have unified us for over two centuries.”
-First, the role of the federal government is limited to the powers given to it in the Constitution
-Second, a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better
-Third, we don't spend money we don't have, or borrow money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back
-And the best way to avoid war is to be stronger than our enemies. But if we’re caught in a fight, we need to win it because not doing so makes us much more likely to be attacked in the future
-Also the federal judiciary is supposed to decide cases, not set social policy — and bad social policy at that
-And the bigger the government gets, the less competent it is to run our lives.
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South Carolina Results
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Tax Cuts : Best Stimulus
[examiner] : If somebody grabbed your wallet and then handed you back a $20 bill, would you be grateful? Realizing the money was yours to begin with, you would probably call the cops rather than thank the thief.
President Bush’s latest gimmick to stimulate the economy by giving back to taxpayers $800 of their own money is the Washington equivalent of the “generous” thief. The biggest fairy tale in Washington isn’t Barack Obama’s voting record on the war in Iraq, but the notion peddled by Republicans and Democrats alike that the government has a big pot of its own money that it generously gives to people by “injecting” it into the economy as a stimulus.
In fact, government has only our money or money it borrows from lenders. The problem is it costs the government a major portion of every dollar it takes from us in collecting it and paying the interest on dollars it borrows. Why not just let us keep our money in the first place?
For a real economic stimulus, look no further than the Bush 2003 tax cuts, which lowered the tax rate on capital gains and offered businesses other incentives to invest and hire more workers. Derided in the media as a “tax cut for the rich,” the 2003 tax cuts’ positive results were felt throughout the U.S. economy.
By reducing taxes, President Bush rewarded people who worked harder and invested more, thus generating tremendous economic growth. Now, those same folks know Congress refuses to renew the Bush tax cuts, which expire in 2010. It appears that the prospect of higher taxes encourages an economic slowdown.
Last Thursday, even as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was reassuring Congress that the proper stimulus could head off a recession, the cold, hard numbers in the financial pages told a different story: New home construction down nearly 25 percent, a faltering Dow at its lowest level since last March, the ongoing credit crisis, and a sharp, unexpected drop in manufacturing all point to rough economic waters ahead.
The proper response to a major economic slowdown is to slash government spending and make those tax cuts permanent. That will keep far more money circulating in the productive sectors of the economy and reward savings and investment, the two pillars of new job creation.
Then, as economic growth regains vigor, politicians should stay out of the way as the market makes painful but necessary corrections that reward the prudent and punish the profligate, including those responsible for the subprime mortgage meltdown.
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Clinton Grabs a Snooze During MLK Commemoration
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What a Strange Place Canada Is
[nationalpost] : Ezra Levant
January 21, 2008
(Ed- Some things simply need to be posted in entirety. This is one of them)
A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine.
Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title.
Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?"
It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.
Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.
When she's doing government interrogations, she always asks people about their thoughts.
It was so banal, so routine. When she walked in, she seemed happy. With a smile, she reached out her hand to shake mine. I refused — to me, nothing could have been more incongruous. Would I warmly greet a police officer who arrested me as a suspect in a crime? Then why should I do so for a thought crime? This was not normal; I would not normalize it with the pleasantries of polite society.
This was not a high-school debating tournament where Human Rights Officer McGovern and I were equals, enjoying a shared interest in politics and publishing. I was there because I was compelled to be there by the government, and if I answered Officer McGovern's political questions unsatisfactorily, the government could fine me thousands of dollars and order me to publicly apologize for holding the wrong views.
I told her that the complaint process itself was a punishment. Even if I was eventually acquitted, I would still lose — hundreds of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. That's not an accident, that's one of the tools of these commissions. Every journalist in the country has been taught a lesson: Censor yourself now, or be put through a costly wringer. I said all this and then Officer McGovern replied, "You're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."
But that's not for sure, is it? We're only entitled to our opinions now if they don't offend some very easily offended people.
One of the complainants against me is someone I would describe as a radical Muslim imam, Syed Soharwardy. He grew up in the madrassas of Pakistan and he lectures on the Saudi circuit. He advocates sharia law for all countries, including Canada. His website is rife with Islamic supremacism — offensive to many Canadian Jews, gentiles, women and gays. But his sensitivities — his Saudi-Pakistani values — have been offended by me.
And so now the secular government of Alberta is enforcing his fatwa against the cartoons.
It's the same for Mohamed Elmasry, the complainant against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone. Egyptian-born Elmasry has publicly said that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack, a grossly offensive statement.
Both the Canadian and B.C. Human Rights Commissions are now hearing his complaints against Maclean's.
How did it come to be that rough and, I would say, bigoted men such as Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry could, by simply claiming that their tender feelings were hurt, sic a government bureaucracy on a magazine, or anyone for that matter?
On this point, I agree with Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry: I blame the Jews.
A generation ago, illiberal elements in the "official" Jewish community pressed Canadian governments to introduce laws limiting free speech. The targets of those laws were invariably poor, unorganized, harmless neo-Nazi cranks and conspiracy theorists such as Ernst Zundel and Jim Keegstra — nobodies who were turned into international celebrities when they were prosecuted for their thought crimes.
But now come Mr. Elmasry and Mr. Soharwardy and their ilk, using the very precedents set by the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Before Mr. Soharwardy went to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, he went to the Calgary Police Service and demanded that they arrest me. He's done that three times now, and they've rejected him every time. But he only had to ask the willing enforcers of the human rights commission once.
What a strange place Canada is in 2008, where the police care more about human rights than the human rights commissions do, where fundamentalist Muslims use hate-speech laws drafted by secular Jews, and where a government bureaucrat can interrogate a publisher for 90 minutes, and be shocked when he won't shake her hand in greeting.
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Belarus Editor Jailed for Islam Cartoon
[yahoo] : MINSK, Belarus - A Belarus court sentenced a newspaper editor Friday to three years in prison for reprinting a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide riots when it was initially published in a Danish newspaper.
In Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe protested the sentence and called for the release of Alexander Sdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the small-circulation Zhoda newspaper.
Security officers in Belarus launched an investigation of Sdvizhkov in February 2006 when he published the caricatures which had originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Fiery protests swept across Muslim countries in early 2006 in reaction to the Danish publication.
President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the paper shut the following month, calling the publication of the cartoon "a provocation against the state." Sdvizhkov was arrested and charged with "inciting religious hatred" in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus following several months of living in Russia and Ukraine.
The Minsk City Court imposed its sentence Friday after a closed-door trial. Sdvizhkov said he would appeal.
Belarusian Islamic leader Ismail Voronovich called the sentence excessively harsh.
The ex-Soviet republic is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian; less than 1 percent of the country's 10 million is Muslim.
In the 14 years he has been in power, Lukashenko has run the country with an iron fist, quashing opposition groups, closing down independent media and restoring Soviet-style, central controls to the economy.
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The Perils of Identity Politics
Christopher Hitchens
January 18, 2008
[wsj] [...] People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of "race" or "gender" alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.
Madeleine Albright has said that there is "a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." What are the implications of this statement? Would it be an argument in favor of the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton? Would this mean that Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama don't deserve the help of fellow females? If the Republicans nominated a woman would Ms. Albright instantly switch parties out of sheer sisterhood? Of course not. (And this wearisome tripe from someone who was once our secretary of state . . .)
Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think "first woman president." We think -- for example -- "first ex-co-president" or "first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent" or "first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap."
One might come up with other and kinder distinctions (I shall not be doing so) but the plain fact about the senator from New York is surely that she is a known quantity who has already been in the White House purely as the result of a relationship with a man, and not at all a quixotic outsider who represents the aspirations of an "out" group, let alone a whole sex or gender.
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Duncan Hunter Leaves GOP Field
[wapo] : California Rep. Duncan Hunter dropped out of the Republican presidential race after placing near the bottom of the pack in Nevada's voting and even before the polls closed in South Carolina's primary.
In a statement, Hunter said he recognized that his campaign had not gained "traction" and he said he will return to the House of Representatives to do legislative work on defense issues, which have been his specialty there.
"The failure of our campaign to gain traction is mine and mine alone," he said. "But we have driven the issues of national security, the border fence, the emergence of China and the need to reverse bad trade policy. Because of that, this campaign has been very worthwhile, and for the Hunter family, a lot of fun."
Hunter, who represented the conservative San Diego area, had never raised much money and captured almost no attention from the media or the public. His only moments in the spotlight were the many Republican debates, but even there, he was outshined by Rep. Ron Paul and the front-runners in the GOP contest.
Hunter tried to appeal to conservative voters with an aggressive message on illegal immigration and was steadfastly pro-military during his year-long run for the White House. His departure leaves six people in the race.
: I had Hunter's statement after dropping out of the race up here, but simply cannot leave that up after reading that he has endorsed Huckabee. It's quite unbelievable and stunning to many that considered Hunter as their first choice or even those that simply agreed with his his policy positions and accepted the reality that he was going nowhere. Stunning and would make for a great April Fool's Day prank. If only it were so.
Hunter Endorses Huckabee
[cnn] : California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former presidential candidate, announced Wednesday he is endorsing Mike Huckabee's White House bid.
“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” Hunter said in a statement. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America’s industrial base.
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Only in Zimbabwe: 10-Million-Dollar Bill
[wapo] : Zimbabweans will be soon lining their pockets with 10-million-dollar bills.
The central bank annouced Thursday it would increase the denomination of the nation's highest bank note more than tenfold to keep pace with the world's highest inflation rate, officially estimated at 25,000 percent annually. Independent financial institutions say real inflation is closer to 150,000 percent.
The new 10-million note is the equivalent of about $4 at the dominant black market exchange rate.
In an effort to end chronic cash shortages and long, chaotic lines at banks and automated teller machines, the bank will issue the new notes on Friday along with 1-million and 5-million dollar bills, said Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.
The highest existing note, introduced last month, is 750,000 Zimbabwe dollars.
A hamburger at an ordinary cafe costs about 15 million Zimbabwe dollars ($6). But that price has trebled this month amid shortages of bread, meat and most other basic goods.
Acknowledging the inflation crisis, Gono said individuals from Friday would be allowed to withdraw an increased limit of 500 million Zimbabwe dollars ($200) in a single day, up from 50 million.
He said special arrangements were being made to pay soldiers, police and other uniformed services "because it is not desirable to see them queuing for cash."
With higher denomination bills, Gono said businesses might be tempted to again raise prices of scarce goods.
"If this happens, the whole objective of solving the cash shortages ... will be defeated," he said.
Zimbabwe's economy began to crumble when President Robert Mugabe's government stripped white Zimbabweans of their farms to give to blacks in 2000. The economic decline has caused runaway prices, chronic unemployment and acute shortages of basic goods, along with a decline in foreign investment over the past seven years.
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Military: 75% of Baghdad Areas Now Secure
[usatoday] : About 75% of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8% a year ago when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show.
The military classifies 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods in the "control" or "retain" category of its four-tier security rating system, meaning enemy activity in those areas has been mostly eliminated and normal economic activity is resuming.
The data given by the military to USA TODAY provide one of the clearest snapshots yet of how security has improved in Baghdad since roughly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq last year.
U.S. commanders caution that the gains are still fragile, but at the moment U.S. and Iraqi forces "basically own the streets," said Col. Ricky Gibbs, a brigade commander in southern Baghdad.
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Romney Wins Michigan
[aol] Mitt Romney scored his first major primary victory Tuesday, a desperately needed win in his native Michigan that gave his weakened presidential candidacy new life. It set the stage for a wide-open Republican showdown in South Carolina in just four days.
Three GOP candidates now have won in the first four states to vote in the 2008 primary season, roiling a nomination fight that lacks a clear favorite as the race moves south for the first time.
The former Massachusetts governor defeated John McCain, the Arizona senator who was hoping that independents and Democrats would join Republicans to help him repeat his 2000 triumph here. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, trailed in third, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is making a last stand in South Carolina.
"It's a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism," Romney said in an Associated Press telephone interview from Southfield, Mich., echoing his campaign speeches and taking a poke at McCain, the four-term senator he beat. "Now on to South Carolina, Nevada, Florida."
Minimizing the significance of Tuesday's vote, McCain said he had called Romney to congratulate him "that Michigan welcomed their native son with their support."
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Soros Funded Lancet Study : Numbers in Question
[timesonline] A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.
Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.
The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.
New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.
“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.
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First snow for 100 years falls on Baghdad
[afp] Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.
Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and centre of Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and even colder, an official said.
The snow in Baghdad, which melted as it hit the ground, began falling before dawn and continued until after 9 am, residents said.
"Snow has fallen in Baghdad for the first time in about a century as a result of two air flows meeting," said a statement by the meteorology department.
"The first one was cold and dry and the second one was warm and humid. They met above Iraq."
The director of the meteorology department, Dawood Shakir, told AFP that climate change was possibly to blame for the unusual event.
"It's very rare," he said. "Baghdad has never seen snow falling in living memory.
"These snowfalls are linked to the climate change that is happening everywhere. We are finding some places in the world which are warm and are supposed to be cold."
Snow was also reported in the mountainous Kurdish north of the country, where falls are common.
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Debate : SC
For those of us that follow the politics of the world relentlessly, it is becoming quite a numbing reprise - I'm really tired of hearing "Reagan," "NY 911," "change, change change," and the media shuffling refrains of "it's too late," "they're finished," etc, - but frankly, I doubt that the majority of America is even yet paying attention to the presidential race beyond the saturation effect. That said, it certainly is interesting and promises to continue to be as the months roll on.
Fred Thompson: I can understand why some people think he comes across as somewhat flippant in his some of his replies, but he also offers up a solid and clear viewpoint on issues of concern and generally doesn't pussyfoot around in speaking to them. I do think he could hone his answers somewhat and continue to talk the talk. I give the debate win to him.
Mitt Romney: A reasonable performance and perhaps it's just me but he seems to not be getting a lot of time and is getting marginalized. He isn't consistent in debate performance, though unlikely many are and I like him and his message.
Rudy Giuliani: Also seems to not be getting a lot out there, though when he does he comes across quite well and offers valid views on the concerns of the day.
John McCain: Not a bad performance, if coming across as reading his grocery list very much by rote and slips into non sequitur, a reality that all the candidates tend to do in effort to cover ground and bolster their positions. We keep hearing that the Dems like him, but I cannot see the conservatives forgetting his damaging positions on too many things in the past.
Mike Huckabee: I simply cannot find confidence in this man nor do I find it conceivable that he could even win the nomination. It's all too much shtick.
Ron Paul: OK. I'm sorry, but I've officially had enough of him and his squeaking, squawking ramble. No longer amusing, no longer worth air space in these things. The final tolerance curtain for me came with his idiotic response to the recent Iranian speedboat incident. Aside from the obvious fact that he exists somewhere inside of a cloud in his own mind and that he is clearly not even paying attention to the others with the aim of cogent reply, his assertion that a speedboat couldn't harm the US vessels is auto-disqualifying.
On October 12, 2000, a small boat exploded alongside the USS Cole killing 17 sailors, wounding 39 others...
[time] At 12:15, a small harbor boat mingling among the moorers pulled alongside. Two men stood upright, and the boat exploded. The blast tore a 40-ft. by 40-ft. hole in the port side of the Cole, shoving one of the ship's decks upward and destroying an engine room and an adjoining mess area. Sailors not maimed by the explosion and flying shrapnel had only an instant to scramble to safety before water rushed into the gaping hole and engulfed them. The attack killed 17 sailors and injured 38 more.
As the Cole, a $1 billion destroyer armed with an assortment of high-caliber machine guns, surface-to-air missiles and advanced radar equipment, listed sickeningly to port, crew members worked furiously to keep it afloat.
Paul would be a great cartoon voice over actor. Anyway, if you've got the numbers out there I'm sure we'll see them materialize. The damage it ultimately ends up causing to viable candidates, not unlike those that will vote based only on identity politics and cast for The Huckster will be clear in outcome. Indeed you'll reap what you sow, and in doing so succeed in pushing what you actually want further away with what will most likely be a Democrat win in November.
- TCB
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Richardson Drops Out of Race
Yea, that's a surprise. Enough of the hobby horse I suppose and just in time for the opening of NM legislative session. Thanks for wasting the bucks and time. Who gave him a call again? Gee...you think he'll be endorsing Hillary?
Wait a minute...didn't he just say he was staying in?
Wed. Jan 9, 2008
[santafenewmexican] Despite another single-digit, distant-fourth-place finish on Tuesday, a buoyant Gov. Bill Richardson told a cheering crowd that he's staying in the Democratic presidential race.
Taking the stage at the Puritan Backroom Conference Center to the pulsating beat of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name," Richardson told New Hampshire supporters, "We head out West and the fight goes on!" [...]
The New Mexico governor said he will compete in the Jan. 19 Nevada primary and go on to Feb. 5, when 22 states hold primaries and caucuses. [...]
Thurs. Jan 10, 2008
[cnn] The time has come to end my quest and come home to tackle the challenges before us in New Mexico," Richardson told cheering supporters in his state capital of Santa Fe. "Our legislature starts next week, and I intend to put my full efforts behind our No. 1 priority -- extending health insurance to every New Mexican by the end of my term.
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Pat "The Sage" Sajak Offers Salient Solution to Man-Made Global Warming
[humanevents] [...] It’s relatively simple, can begin immediately, and will change the dynamics of global warming overnight. Instead of continuing to preach to the rest of us, the true believers need to step forward and set an example. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles; I’m talking about giving up cars and moving into smaller houses or apartments, or even forming communes where people can live simpler, more Earth-friendly lives. Yes, I’m talking about living the kinds of lives they want all of us to live.
Such a movement could literally start tomorrow. It would need a leader, of course; someone who could inspire others to choose a more spartan lifestyle. The obvious choice would be Al Gore, who already has a loyal following. If he would eschew large homes, gas-guzzling cars, private jets and the consumption of meat, millions more would likely do the same. If enough people joined the cause, Mr. Gore and his followers would be able to demonstrate the results of this new way of living in very short order. They could lead by example. They could create a movement. They could have uniforms and badges and secret handshakes. The could have their own reality TV show. In short, they could become a major force for change. Carmakers would be driven out of business or forced to dramatically alter their products to meet the demands of this eco-friendly Gorian tsunami. Companies of all stripes would, similarly, have to adapt or perish. [...]
The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Just think of millions and millions of committed Americans making the personal sacrifices necessary to demonstrate their resolve to combat man-made global warming. And, most important, thanks to their efforts, theory would be replaced by fact. It’s much easier to argue about a study than it is to refute the demonstrable results when the temperature drops and the ocean levels stabilize. When future generations write of the sacrifices of these men and women, they’ll use words like “inspirational” and “heroic”.
And so, I urge the advocates for change to embark on this important mission. Do it for the children. Godspeed.
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Clinton, McCain Win in New Hampshire
[aolnews] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton powered to victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary Tuesday night in a startling upset, defeating Sen. Barack Obama and resurrecting her bid for the White House. Sen. John McCain defeated his Republican rivals to move back into contention for the GOP nomination.
"I felt like we all spoke from our hearts and I am so gratified that you responded," Clinton said in victory remarks before cheering supporters. "Now together, let's give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me."
Her victory, after Obama won last week's Iowa caucuses, raised the possibility of a prolonged battle for the party nomination between the most viable black candidate in history and the former first lady, seeking to become the first woman to occupy the Oval Office.
McCain's triumph scrambled the Republican race as well.
"We showed this country what a real comeback looks like," the Arizona senator told The Associated Press in an interview as he savored his triumph. "We're going to move on to Michigan and South Carolina and win the nomination."
Later, he told cheering supporters that together, "we have taken a step, but only a first step toward repairing the broken politics of the past and restoring the trust of the American people in their government."
McCain rode a wave of support from independent voters to defeat former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a showing that reprised the senator's victory in the traditional first-in-the-nation primary in 2000.
New Hampshire Results
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The grand anti-surprise here and no doubt soon forgot reality is that the polls, analysts, sophiste punditocracy and above all, the media, know close to nothing and offer about the same in value. There is precious little "news" offered these days. It does seem more and more that one parrots the drivel of another and then passes that on and so forth, because, well, they have to say something. "So and so is dead in the water," "Polls show this and that." It's all a neatly bundled bag of crap, bowed up with a ribbon of technology that espouses fact from gossip. For the record, I did call Hillary in N.H. Believe it or not.
- TCB
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Fox News : New Hampshire Republican Forum - 1/6/08
We'd have to say that this one was toss up between Romney and Thompson as to who offered the best showing. Thompson comes across well as someone who sincerely isn;t running for his own ego, but rather as someone with concerns for the condition of the country. Romney had substantial more air time, but again Fred comes across as having a solid grasp on the issues of importance.
Rudy did well, but he seemed almost non-existent, while Huckabee only served further notice as to how unacceptable he is. We cannot understand how anyone could possibly think he is suitable for the tasks at hand in the world today. Elusive and coy.
McCain gave an admirable performance of someone who is a jovial and vibrant person, but that is a tough sell and again (he knows how to get OBL, yet is keeping this info to himself I guess), he has been on the wrong side too many times and doing damage to his party in the process.
[watch]
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Bloomberg : Conference
[nyt] : Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a dozen current and former elected officials from both parties arrived in this college town Sunday evening with little fanfare but grand ambitions.
Over a Sunday dinner, Mr. Bloomberg and other participants in the conference were to begin discussing ways to end “partisan polarization” in Washington, according to the invitation sent last month.
The conference was organized by two former Democratic senators, David L. Boren of Oklahoma, now president of the University of Oklahoma here, and Sam Nunn of Georgia.
Last month, the former senators suggested that they would consider urging Mr. Bloomberg to mount an independent presidential campaign if the major-party nominees do not formally embrace bipartisanship to address the nation’s problems.
“Today, we are a house divided,” the two men explained in their invitation. “We believe that the next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available — without regard to political party — to help lead the nation.”
Mr. Bloomberg and his aides have toyed for months with the idea of such a campaign, though officially he says he plans to complete his second term as New York City’s mayor, which ends next year.
He is a repeat guest of Mr. Boren’s, having delivered the commencement address at the university last year.
Other participants in the conference include Christie Whitman, a Republican and the former governor of New Jersey; Senator Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska; and the former senators Charles S. Robb of Virginia and Gary Hart of Colorado.
The private meetings on Sunday will be followed by a private breakfast on Monday and a public panel discussion, after which the participants may issue a brief statement of shared principles.
NYT : Contrasting Bloomberg
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Muslims test press freedom limits in Canadian case
[yahoo] : OTTAWA (Reuters) - An Islamic group's demand that a Canadian magazine publish its response to an article that said Muslims were set to swamp the West has sparked warnings of government-imposed restrictions on freedom of expression.
The Canadian Islamic Congress, one of Canada's largest Muslim groups, says Maclean's, a popular Canadian weekly news magazine, subjected Muslims to hate speech with an article in October 2006 by best-selling author Mark Steyn that said a high Muslim birthrate, combined with Muslims "hot for jihad," could conquer a West that is unwilling to stand up for its civilization. [...]
Maclean's says it has already run 27 letters from readers, many opposed to Steyn's piece, and is ready to consider a further response. But it said the CIC wanted to direct the art work for the rebuttal and to run it on the cover.
Publisher Kenneth Whyte said he would rather go bankrupt than have the CIC set the terms for what the magazine publishes. [...]
The idea a magazine should have to defend its writings to a government body has some critics warning of Soviet-style thought police and urging the commissions to get out of the business of regulating speech and expression.
Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said he fought to create human rights commissions "to deal with "discriminatory deeds ... not discriminatory words."
"Nobody thought it would be used to censure freedom of expression," he said. [...]
Freedom of expression is guaranteed in Canada's constitution, but laws have been enacted that restrict hate speech. In December, an Alberta human rights panel ruled that a local pastor broke a human rights law by writing letters to the editor urging citizens to stand up against what he described as militant homosexuality.
CBC commentator Rex Murphy said Maclean's should not have to defend itself for starting debate and stirring thought.
"Is every touchy, or agenda-driven sensibility now free to call upon the offices of the state and ... embroil them in 'justifying' their right to write and broadcast as they see fit?" he asked on CBC's flagship news program, The National.
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Romney Wins GOP Wyoming
[cbc] : Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney sealed his first victory in the Republican presidential race on Saturday, winning the Wyoming caucuses. Romney won eight of the first 11 delegates chosen at county conventions held across the western state, while candidate Fred Thompson won two and Duncan Hunter won one. [...]
Republicans in the state appreciated the fact that Romney campaigned in Wyoming, which has little political pull in the presidential race. Huckabee did not visit the state, and neither did prominent Republicans like Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Wyoming held its caucuses earlier than usual this year, in January instead of March, in the hopes that the state could garner more attention by being between the first two big races — Iowa and New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday. [...]
But Wyoming Republicans were penalized for holding their caucuses in January, as Republican rules state that nomination contests must be held after Feb. 5. The Republican National Committee cut in half the number of delegates Wyoming can send to the party's national convention in September, from 28 to 14.
Iowa is not being penalized because, technically, its caucuses are not binding on convention delegates.
The Democrats will hold their caucuses in Wyoming in March.
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The Cynical Bastard Runs Down the ABC New Hampshire Debates
Easily the best debate so far in all regards. Charlie Gibson offered a measured balance of being quiet and letting the candidates talk and of query to some obviously questionable statements - if a bit too politely for our taste; but at least he did question and not just let everything sail on by.
The first half of each debate was a nice change of pace compared to the concoct of things like the CNN / Youtube entertainment programming or the PBS farce and all should have this format to some extent. The candidates were set in motion by a theme and then, free of any timer or warning light prompts, were able to discuss and interact and retort as they might.
The second half of each followed a more common timed format where questions were posed and the clock (and warning light) was set in motion.
The biggest puzzle of the night and not a new one at all, has to be: What on Earth is Bill Richardson doing on the stage aside from embarrassing himself? I like Bill (or did) but he has been successful over the course of the last year in one thing only and that is to show how utterly unacceptable he is for the position of which he pretends.
I also credit him with ruining the Dem. portion of the debate with his blubbering along the lines of "waaa...can't we all just get along," which followed a moment where Hillary seemed about to let the costume drop and speak her mind. This, one assumes, would then be followed by the others doing likewise, but Richardson saved the day with his "diplomatic skills" that seem well grounded in preschool conflict resolution texts or from somewhere in a time decades long gone.
Sorry Bill, but I'd rather enjoy seeing the candidates actually say what they think and mean, your weepy feelings be damned, instead of the by-the-book, prefab usually offered. Thanks for cancelling that for us.
Richardson (who looked almost slovenly) laughably insinuated that the GOP portion prior was somehow childish in the way that they actually confronted each other instead of standing around repeating hollow mantra and empty blither, which is standard summation of the Democrat portion. Does anyone amongst these people say anything? They do talk a lot and orate and gesture, lots of words are expelled and repeated over and over, yet end up saying nothing. But some people nod and applaud and say bravo. The entire platform is composed of Bush is bad, change(!) and we'll perform miracles and Bush is bad. Platitudes piled like pancakes.
In the credit where due department, nods to Hillary for saying this very thing herself after winded and vacuous moments from her opponents.
Obama (who perpetually sat with a singular expression of "deep thought" while staring down at his notepad (tic tac toe?) as if contemplating the universe or maybe a nap) basically played it safe for the evening. Wouldn't want to tarnish the sacred media Mo'.
John "Seabiscuit" Edwards offered his trademark mill worker shtick and threatened to beat everybody up. He also seemed to draw the distinction of decision that he had chosen to side with Obama against the Clinton "machine." The lines are drawn? Edwards is going no where except maybe out for dinner with Denny Kucinich (thankfully excluded this eve) to compare tactics of career presidential bidders.
The GOP portion was a spirited affair, enjoyable for this and the fact that they were left to speak to and at each other, which often was comprised of putting Romney squarely on the firing line which is a good thing. He dealt with it reasonably well and tried to say let's not go into personal stuff (though not venturing into Bill Richardson whine territory), but found there was no escape route and handled the onslaught without running out of the room.
McCain, I assume, buoyed by a recent Lieberman comment, delivered his crackpot attempts at humour and lamely attempted to parse the word amnesty. Sorry John, but I think you're time came and went some years ago and you've pissed off too many of your own in too many ways.
The Huckster honed his parables and wide eyed expressions some more, but really did nothing to further his cause which I cannot believe is actually going anywhere - regardless of what the media would have you believe. Earlier in the day he also worked on the callous of his one finger that drives his tres cool, single finger bass mastery. Well...at least I haven't seem him using a pick.
Thompson was quite good, perhaps his best showing do far, offering up sensible answers often, while still tossing a couple of now trademark smack down, crowd pleasers, yet managing to appear above the fray to some extent. Maybe he can overcome the tired rhetoric that he is tired that is trumpeted endlessly. I really don't find a lot of ground being touted against his policy statements.
Rudy was mediocre - no harm no foul. He seemed comfortable and clearly he hasn't been banking on this phase of the primaries in any big way. Time will tell how sage his methodology was. Ron Paul, as usual strikes some resonating chords before proceeding to then make statements that send him off into oblivion.
-TCB
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From the Huckster's Camp "Wary of New Hampshire"
[wapo] : Huckabee promised to compete in New Hampshire, but his weak standing there might force him to turn his attention to South Carolina's primary on Jan. 19, where a strong religious community could help him repeat his Iowa success. In dozens of interviews in New Hampshire this week, few voters indicated support for Huckabee.
His aides are wary of New Hampshire. "It's all no tax, no government there," said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. "It's not ideal." But they believe that the message of economic anxiety that he preaches will help in Michigan's primary on Jan. 15 and in states in the South, which have high poverty rates in addition to strong groups of social conservatives.
* Emphasis ours
Geezuz. How inspiring. Almost as much as his weak-ass bass playing, not to mention apparent void of sensible policy position, foreign and domestic. Please, sir, just go away.
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Obama, Huckabee : Victors in Iowa
[aolnews] CONCORD, N.H. (Jan. 4) -- Iowa caucus victories behind them, Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama vowed to stick with their winning principles Friday in an abbreviated dash to the finish in New Hampshire's presidential primary campaign, despite facing a different political alignment and, as Huckabee put it, "only a few days to close the sale."
Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, GOP poll leaders in New Hampshire, stood ready to try to douse Huckabee 's "prairie fire" in a state that lacks the religious voting bloc of Iowa and has an ornery tradition of rejecting Iowa's Republican caucus winners.
"It will be a different race here," Romney said Friday. He attributed Huckabee 's Iowa win largely to his biography as a Southern Baptist preacher.
"Mike had a terrific base as a minister," the former Massachusetts governor told a news conference in Portsmouth, N.H. "He drew on that base, got a great deal of support from it. It was a wonderful strategy that he pursued effectively. I don't think that's the strategy that's going to work in every state."
Obama, the Illinois senator who dashed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's front-runner status in his convincing Iowa win, was rallying in Portsmouth and Concord. Clinton was being joined in Nashua by her husband, hoping to become the family's newest "Comeback Kid" in a state that revived Bill Clinton's run for the Democratic nomination in 1992.
Obama said he saw no reason to revamp his campaign for new realities: "No, it's not broken, why fix it?"
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Franken vs. Franken
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First outdoor NHL game played in U.S. draws big TV numbers down south
[tcp] : NEW YORK - More people in the U.S. tuned in on New Year's Day to see the NHL play outdoors than any other regular-season game in more than a decade.
The Penguins-Sabres game in snowy Buffalo - the first regular-season outdoor NHL game in the United States - drew a 2.6 overnight rating and a 5 share on NBC. Those were the best numbers since a six-game regional telecast on Fox drew a 3.0 overnight rating and a 7 share on Feb. 3, 1996.
Pittsburgh won 2-1 in a shootout on a Sidney Crosby's score before a crowd of more than 71,000 at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
CBC's ratings weren't available Wednesday.
The big U.S. numbers, in the stands and on TV, came three years after the NHL lockout forced the cancellation of an entire season and after last season's Stanley Cup finals on NBC drew record-low ratings.
"We're delighted by the success of this historic event," NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer said. "The Winter Classic exposed hockey to a larger audience and definitely made new fans of the game."
The Winter Classic ratings also surpassed Wayne Gretzky's final game, which was broadcast on Fox on April 18, 1999, and drew a 2.5/6.
The Buffalo and Pittsburgh markets led the ratings, at 38.2/58 and 17.7/30, respectively. But markets such as Sacramento, Calif., St. Louis and Denver also drew strong ratings, even though the game went up against a number of college football bowl games, including an intriguing Capital One Bowl between Florida and Michigan.
"This was one of the best events I've ever been a part of as a player, coach or broadcaster," NBC game analyst Eddie Olczyk said. "It truly was a memorable experience and a great day for the sport of hockey."
Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, and each ratings point represents about 735,000 households. The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among homes with televisions, and the share is the percentage tuned into a broadcast among those households with televisions on at the time.
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Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change
PRESS RELEASE: SSRC 1-2008
January 2, 2008
[ssrc] Today, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) in Orlando, Florida announces that it has confirmed the recent web announcement of NASA solar physicists that there are substantial changes occurring in the sun’s surface. The SSRC has further researched these changes and has concluded they will bring about the next climate change to one of a long lasting cold era.
Today, Director of the SSRC, John Casey has reaffirmed earlier research he led that independently discovered the sun’s changes are the result of a family of cycles that bring about climate shifts from cold climate to warm and back again.
“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,100 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.” [...]
Given the importance of the next climate change Casey was asked whether the government has been notified. “Yes, as soon as my research revealed these solar cycles and the prediction of the coming cold era with the next climate change, I notified all the key offices in the Bush administration including both parties in the Senate and House science committees as well as most of the nation’s media outlets. Unfortunately, because of the intensity of coverage of the UN IPCC and man made global warming during 2007, the full story about climate change is very slow in getting told. These changes in the sun have begun. They are unstoppable.
With the word finally starting to get out about the next climate change, hopefully we will have time to prepare. Right now, the newly organized SSRC is the leading independent research center in the US and possibly worldwide, that is focused on the next climate change. Some of the world’s brightest scientists, also experts in solar physics and the next climate change have joined with me. In the meantime we will do our best to spread the word along with NASA and others who can see what is about to take place for the Earth’s climate. Soon, I believe this will be recognized as the most important climate story of this century.”
*Emphasis ours
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January 1.2008 : Sunday Show Roundup
Wisdom from Merriam
Pathetic
Main Entry:
pa·thet·ic Listen to the pronunciation of pathetic
Pronunciation: \pə-ˈthe-tik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French pathetique, from Late Latin patheticus, from Greek pathētikos capable of feeling, pathetic, from paschein (aor. pathein) to experience, suffer — more at pathos
Date: 1598
1 : having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity 2 : marked by sorrow or melancholy : sad 3 : pitifully inferior or inadequate the restaurant's pathetic service 4 : absurd laughable a pathetic costume
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Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year from The Offices of Vegas!
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CNN Debates
Republicans
John McCain is terrible in debate. Not just the one last night in California where he was overly abysmal, but in all of them. We don't care who endorses him or who says otherwise. He repeats the same paragraphs everywhere he goes, cracks the same "funnies" that simply are not amusing. Not the first time one hears them and less so on the tenth. Not even variations of the themes, but rather, word for word (as well as it seems can be recalled and often without any relation to the question - Economics? "I was for the surge, Iraq etc." Didn't you just say all of that to the previous query? He has been a part of far too much dreadful policy of late - not forgotten - and his manner in these debates, in our opinion, comes across as contrived with only intent of winning office. It is ill and grows only worse as these events progress. He seems pained to appear as though he "gets it" and it would be our guess that this new found "understanding" he has of the people's will evaporates as soon as he has the control and he'll just do whatever he pleases by some inherent right.
We simply cannot place stock in John McCain's words. How can he, with straight face repeat this "timetable" quote re: Romney? It is to insult and his childish jabs are nauseating.
Huckabee, is also dreadful. Endless smiley faces and eyebrow raisings and cartoon one liners. His standard m.o. is lame. Once asked a question, crack a joke (often about why he won't be answering that question), then proceed to tell you what he thinks is important...no matter if irrelevant to the question posed. Evasive, not amusing and as seems clear at this stage of the game, only wasting the air time of these debates and of course acting as a foil to assist McCain against Romney.
The Huckster cracks funnies like "Hey, give me a chance to answer a question!" Then when accommodated, he proceeds to not answer the question asked. Funny stuff, the old "I'll answer your question, but first let me say..." Good one Chuckles, but that is the Democrats turf. Do leave it to them if you might.
"There's more than two people in the race you know!" Another knee slapper Huck, however, also quite obviously wrong.
Romney did not put forth as strong of a game as he needed. I think he has to assert some serious rebuttal to this McCain drivel, call out the chicanery boldly, forcefully and loudly. Enough of the nice guy thing, it is not going to get you where you want it seems.
Given this stage of the game, we have to say that it is a shame that Rudy ran so poor a campaign - Thompson had no "fire in the belly?" What exactly did Rudy do? Seems less to me - because at this point we have to think he would have been the best representative.
Democrats
The Kodak Theater was a fitting scene for what could only be described as theater. With doled out tickets to the Hollywood 'stars' and yesterday vagabonds completing the scenario, it was remarkable how those in attendance applauded each breath with vigor. Bravo! Bravo!
Obama posed, put on his 'deep thinker" face and stance, made no doubt thoughtful 'note-to-self,' scribbles, smiled and posed some more and stretched on his vowels. 'It's a tough call, but could it be possible that Obama has unseated Kerry for the crown of gum-flapping for eternity while actually saying nothing champ? I think so.
Hillary smiled and delivered up what the crowd demanded. The patented shriek and ended with a magnificent wisdom that the media found to be the "best line of the night" and continued to replay it well into the next day. You know the one, the astounding depth of "...it took a Clinton to clean up after the last Bush, so maybe it'll take a Clinton to clean up after this one blahblahblah." How intoxicating is this! I feel need to spring from my seat and lend ovation!
Forgive the image, but we do not envy those that were tasked with cleaning up after Billy and his cigar smoking respites.
Debate? No, no such thing to be found here, but it was a cordial affair of rounds of testimonials being given and applause before sentences were even completed. LaLa Land indeed.
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Bush : State of The Union 2008 : Tax Cuts
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Yahoo to Cut 1,000 Jobs
[nyt] : After announcing a sharp drop in fourth-quarter profits Tuesday, Yahoo issued a disappointing outlook for this year, suggesting that investors would have to wait until 2009 for a turnaround.
Yahoo also said that as part of its plan to revive its fortunes, it would cut 1,000 jobs by mid-February to reduce costs and narrow its focus to its most important businesses.
The company, however, said it planned to invest aggressively in some areas, like advertising technology and selected portions of its Internet portal, as it tries to capture a larger share of online ad dollars. Since some laid-off employees could apply for new jobs at Yahoo, the net effect on the work force, which recently grew to 14,300, was not clear.
[yahoo earnings statement]
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Florida Win For McCain
[aol] MIAMI (Jan. 29) - Sen. John McCain won a breakthrough triumph in the Florida primary Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of next week's contests across 21 states and lining up a quick endorsement from soon-to-be dropout Rudy Giuliani.
"It shows one thing. I'm the conservative leader who can unite the party," McCain said after easing past former Massachusetts Gov, Mitt Romney in a hard-fought contest.
"It's a very significant boost, but I think we've got a tough week ahead and a lot of states to come," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was the Democratic winner in a primary held in defiance of national rules that drew no campaigning and awarded no delegates.
The victory was worth 57 national convention delegates for McCain, a winner-take-all haul that catapulted him ahead of Romney for the overall delegate lead.
Giuliani ran third, his best showing of the campaign but not nearly good enough for the one-time front-runner who decided to make his last stand in a state that is home to tens of thousands of transplanted New Yorkers.
Florida Results
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State of The Union - Bush Tax Cuts
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EDITORIAL & OPINIONMike Huckabee : For the love of God, please just go away.
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NHL Allstars Weekend
- SuperSkills Competition: Saturday, Jan. 26- The Game : Sunday, Jan. 27, 6 p.m. ET
There are seven events in the Dodge/NHL SuperSkills competition this season. Each event is worth at least two goals toward the team’s final score. Each All-Star must compete in at least one event, so fans of one particular player will not be shortchanged.
The conference that finishes the competition with the most goals will be declared the winner. In the event of a tie at the end of the competition, each team captain -- Jarome Iginla of the Western Conference and Vincent Lecavalier of the Eastern Conference -- will pick a goalie and alternating players to compete in a sudden-death shootout.
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Economy: Along with the usual gloom that comes with a cyclical economic downturn, there's inevitably something darker and much more cataclysmic: predictions that capitalism as we know it will soon end. Please.
[ibd] A lot of reputable people think we're headed for a recession. That may or may not be true. But headed for an epic meltdown that will make our way of life obsolete?
On Wednesday, billionaire socialist George Soros penned a piece for London's Financial Times suggesting the era of capitalist dominance is coming to a screeching halt: "The current crisis is the culmination of a superboom that has lasted for more than 60 years," he declares.
Could he be right? Well, here's Soros testifying to Congress in 1998, during the greatest economic boom in history: "The global capitalist system . . . is coming apart at the seams."
Sorry, George. It wasn't then, and it isn't now. Yet Soros has made billions making financial bets against the West, mainly America, then bad-mouthing its economy for all to hear.
He isn't alone, however, in inveighing against the alleged sins of the U.S.-style free market.
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...And Then There's John Edwards
[wapo] : There's losing. There's losing honorably. And then there's John Edwards.
Mike Huckabee is not going to be president. The loss in South Carolina, one of the most highly evangelical states in the union, made that plain. With a ceiling of 14 percent among nonevangelical Republicans, Huckabee's base is simply too narrow. But his was not a rise and then a fall. He came from nowhere to establish himself as the voice of an important national constituency. Huckabee will continue to matter, and he might even carry enough remaining Southern states to wield considerable influence at a fractured Republican convention.
Fred Thompson will also not be president. His campaign failed, but quite honorably. He never tacked. He never dissimulated. He refused to reinvent himself. He presented himself plainly and honestly. Too plainly. What he lacked was the ferocious, near-deranged ambition (a.k.a., fire in the belly) required to navigate the bizarre ordeal that is today's nominating process. Political decency is not a common commodity. Thompson had it. He'd make a fine attorney general, and not just on TV.
Then there is John Edwards. He's not going to be president, either. He stays in the race because, with the Democrats' proportional representation system, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might end up in a very close delegate race -- perhaps allowing an also-ran with, say, 10 percent of the delegates to act as kingmaker at the convention.
It's a prize of sorts; it might even be tradeable for a Cabinet position. But at considerable cost. His campaign has been a spectacle.
Edwards has made much of his renunciation of his Iraq war vote. But he has not stopped there. His entire campaign has been an orgy of regret and renunciation:
- As senator, he voted in 2001 for a bankruptcy bill that he now denounces.
- As senator, he voted for storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Twice. He is now fiercely opposed.
- As senator, he voted for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind education reform. He now campaigns against it, promising to have it "radically overhauled."
- As senator, he voted for the Patriot Act, calling it "a good bill . . . and I am pleased to support it." He now attacks it.
- As senator, he voted to give China normalized trade relations. Need I say? He now campaigns against liberalized trade with China as a sellout of the middle class to the great multinational agents of greed, etc.
Breathtaking. People can change their minds about something. But everything? The man served one term in the Senate. He left not a single substantial piece of legislation to his name, only an endless string of votes on trade, education, civil liberties, energy, bankruptcy and, of course, war that now he not only renounces but inveighs against.
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On McCain and Memories
[nro-mm] : [...] Not all of us have forgotten how the short-fused Arizona senator cursed good-faith opponents in his own party (“F**k you!” and “Chickensh*t” were the choice words he had for Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn during a spat over enforcement provisions). Not all of us have forgotten that he voted against barring felons from receiving amnesty benefits under his plan. Not all of us have forgotten the underhanded, debate-sabotaging manner in which McCain, Kennedy, Lindsey Graham, and Harry Reid conspired to ram their package down voters’ throats.
[...] McCain harps on open-borders sob stories. Several times over the past year, in response to citizen questioners who have expressed frustration with the lack of accountability for immigration law-breakers, McCain has responded: “I am not going to call up a soldier and tell him I am deporting his mother. . . . I’m not going to do it. You can do it.”
But what if that mother had stolen an American citizen’s Social Security number to work here illegally? What if she had been previously deported, re-entered illegally, and had been convicted of previous crimes? What if she were part of a human-smuggling ring? What if she had been working in a sensitive area — airport security, a military base, a port? Would he still refuse to abide by his constitutional obligation to provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty for law-abiding Americans?
If McCain refuses to enforce immigration law against illegal-alien parents of soldiers, what about illegal-alien soldiers who used stolen or fake identification to get into the military? And why only illegal-alien parents of soldiers? Why not illegal-alien parents of police officers, teachers, doctors, and store owners? McCain’s selective enforcement policy is the exact recipe for the immigration anarchy that we have today.
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Fred Thompson Quits Presidential Race
[breitbart] : Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.
"Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort," Thompson said in a statement.
Thompson's fate was sealed last Saturday in the South Carolina primary, when he finished third in a state that he had said he needed to win.
In the statement, Thompson did not say whether he would endorse any of his former rivals. He was one of a handful of members of Congress who supported Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2000 in his unsuccessful race against George W. Bush for the party nomination.
Well, we never really bought into the "entered the race too late," meme, failing to see really what that mattered. Perhaps it did, but we still can't put a lot of stock into that. "No fire in the belly," ...same. The media certainly did their part in promoting this mindset and offered little attention to his policy positions - all easily found online long before he had his website or before the race began.It is a shame and even more of a shame that he didn't at least stay in the race until Super Tuesday, as this only reinforces the silly memes and disappoints those that gave their support to him. Although it has been said that he is not endorsing anyone, if he turns on this and supports McCain this will further erode opinion of him among his supporters. It's understood that his mother is ill and we wish the best to Fred and family in this regard. Bottom line: Sad to say, Fred can blame none but himself for his result in this presidential race.
Now, I've written often of the contempt I have for CNN and the clown show that has become that station so long ago, but the mindless, infantile tripe that passes for dialogue there continues to make the viewer embarrassed to chance upon it. Jack Cafferty need only don a bright red, rubber nose to complete his act, and by doing so would actually lend him some authentication. The little laughing riff they ran on after Fred announced that he was dropping out of the race was beyond insulting of the man. Everyone associated with this joke network should be ashamed.
Lucky to have men like Fred
[nro-lopez] : [...] Whoever winds up the Republican nominee for president this year, he’d be doing his country a service if he read Fred’s pre-caucus message to Iowa voters that Thompson posted on his website. In it he listed “the fundamental, conservative principles that have unified us for over two centuries.”
-First, the role of the federal government is limited to the powers given to it in the Constitution
-Second, a dollar belongs in the pocket of the person who earns it, unless the government has a compelling reason why it can use it better
-Third, we don't spend money we don't have, or borrow money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back
-And the best way to avoid war is to be stronger than our enemies. But if we’re caught in a fight, we need to win it because not doing so makes us much more likely to be attacked in the future
-Also the federal judiciary is supposed to decide cases, not set social policy — and bad social policy at that
-And the bigger the government gets, the less competent it is to run our lives.
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South Carolina Results
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Tax Cuts : Best Stimulus
[examiner] : If somebody grabbed your wallet and then handed you back a $20 bill, would you be grateful? Realizing the money was yours to begin with, you would probably call the cops rather than thank the thief.
President Bush’s latest gimmick to stimulate the economy by giving back to taxpayers $800 of their own money is the Washington equivalent of the “generous” thief. The biggest fairy tale in Washington isn’t Barack Obama’s voting record on the war in Iraq, but the notion peddled by Republicans and Democrats alike that the government has a big pot of its own money that it generously gives to people by “injecting” it into the economy as a stimulus.
In fact, government has only our money or money it borrows from lenders. The problem is it costs the government a major portion of every dollar it takes from us in collecting it and paying the interest on dollars it borrows. Why not just let us keep our money in the first place?
For a real economic stimulus, look no further than the Bush 2003 tax cuts, which lowered the tax rate on capital gains and offered businesses other incentives to invest and hire more workers. Derided in the media as a “tax cut for the rich,” the 2003 tax cuts’ positive results were felt throughout the U.S. economy.
By reducing taxes, President Bush rewarded people who worked harder and invested more, thus generating tremendous economic growth. Now, those same folks know Congress refuses to renew the Bush tax cuts, which expire in 2010. It appears that the prospect of higher taxes encourages an economic slowdown.
Last Thursday, even as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was reassuring Congress that the proper stimulus could head off a recession, the cold, hard numbers in the financial pages told a different story: New home construction down nearly 25 percent, a faltering Dow at its lowest level since last March, the ongoing credit crisis, and a sharp, unexpected drop in manufacturing all point to rough economic waters ahead.
The proper response to a major economic slowdown is to slash government spending and make those tax cuts permanent. That will keep far more money circulating in the productive sectors of the economy and reward savings and investment, the two pillars of new job creation.
Then, as economic growth regains vigor, politicians should stay out of the way as the market makes painful but necessary corrections that reward the prudent and punish the profligate, including those responsible for the subprime mortgage meltdown.
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Clinton Grabs a Snooze During MLK Commemoration::::
What a Strange Place Canada Is
[nationalpost] : Ezra Levant
January 21, 2008
(Ed- Some things simply need to be posted in entirety. This is one of them)
A few days ago, I was interrogated for 90 minutes by Shirlene McGovern, an officer of the government of Alberta. I have been accused of hurting people's feelings because, two years ago, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard magazine.
Ms. McGovern's business card said she was a "Human Rights Officer." What a perfectly Orwellian title.
Early in her interrogation, she said "I always ask people … what was your intent and purpose of your article?"
It wasn't even a question about what we had published in the magazine. It was a question about my private thoughts. I asked her why my private feelings were of interest to the government. She said, very calmly, that they would be a factor taken into account by the government in determining whether or not I was guilty.
Officer McGovern said it as calmly as if I had asked her what time it was.
When she's doing government interrogations, she always asks people about their thoughts.
It was so banal, so routine. When she walked in, she seemed happy. With a smile, she reached out her hand to shake mine. I refused — to me, nothing could have been more incongruous. Would I warmly greet a police officer who arrested me as a suspect in a crime? Then why should I do so for a thought crime? This was not normal; I would not normalize it with the pleasantries of polite society.
This was not a high-school debating tournament where Human Rights Officer McGovern and I were equals, enjoying a shared interest in politics and publishing. I was there because I was compelled to be there by the government, and if I answered Officer McGovern's political questions unsatisfactorily, the government could fine me thousands of dollars and order me to publicly apologize for holding the wrong views.
I told her that the complaint process itself was a punishment. Even if I was eventually acquitted, I would still lose — hundreds of hours, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills. That's not an accident, that's one of the tools of these commissions. Every journalist in the country has been taught a lesson: Censor yourself now, or be put through a costly wringer. I said all this and then Officer McGovern replied, "You're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."
But that's not for sure, is it? We're only entitled to our opinions now if they don't offend some very easily offended people.
One of the complainants against me is someone I would describe as a radical Muslim imam, Syed Soharwardy. He grew up in the madrassas of Pakistan and he lectures on the Saudi circuit. He advocates sharia law for all countries, including Canada. His website is rife with Islamic supremacism — offensive to many Canadian Jews, gentiles, women and gays. But his sensitivities — his Saudi-Pakistani values — have been offended by me.
And so now the secular government of Alberta is enforcing his fatwa against the cartoons.
It's the same for Mohamed Elmasry, the complainant against Maclean's magazine for publishing an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book, America Alone. Egyptian-born Elmasry has publicly said that any adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for a terrorist attack, a grossly offensive statement.
Both the Canadian and B.C. Human Rights Commissions are now hearing his complaints against Maclean's.
How did it come to be that rough and, I would say, bigoted men such as Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry could, by simply claiming that their tender feelings were hurt, sic a government bureaucracy on a magazine, or anyone for that matter?
On this point, I agree with Mr. Soharwardy and Mr. Elmasry: I blame the Jews.
A generation ago, illiberal elements in the "official" Jewish community pressed Canadian governments to introduce laws limiting free speech. The targets of those laws were invariably poor, unorganized, harmless neo-Nazi cranks and conspiracy theorists such as Ernst Zundel and Jim Keegstra — nobodies who were turned into international celebrities when they were prosecuted for their thought crimes.
But now come Mr. Elmasry and Mr. Soharwardy and their ilk, using the very precedents set by the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Before Mr. Soharwardy went to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, he went to the Calgary Police Service and demanded that they arrest me. He's done that three times now, and they've rejected him every time. But he only had to ask the willing enforcers of the human rights commission once.
What a strange place Canada is in 2008, where the police care more about human rights than the human rights commissions do, where fundamentalist Muslims use hate-speech laws drafted by secular Jews, and where a government bureaucrat can interrogate a publisher for 90 minutes, and be shocked when he won't shake her hand in greeting.
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Belarus Editor Jailed for Islam Cartoon
[yahoo] : MINSK, Belarus - A Belarus court sentenced a newspaper editor Friday to three years in prison for reprinting a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide riots when it was initially published in a Danish newspaper.
In Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe protested the sentence and called for the release of Alexander Sdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the small-circulation Zhoda newspaper.
Security officers in Belarus launched an investigation of Sdvizhkov in February 2006 when he published the caricatures which had originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Fiery protests swept across Muslim countries in early 2006 in reaction to the Danish publication.
President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the paper shut the following month, calling the publication of the cartoon "a provocation against the state." Sdvizhkov was arrested and charged with "inciting religious hatred" in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus following several months of living in Russia and Ukraine.
The Minsk City Court imposed its sentence Friday after a closed-door trial. Sdvizhkov said he would appeal.
Belarusian Islamic leader Ismail Voronovich called the sentence excessively harsh.
The ex-Soviet republic is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian; less than 1 percent of the country's 10 million is Muslim.
In the 14 years he has been in power, Lukashenko has run the country with an iron fist, quashing opposition groups, closing down independent media and restoring Soviet-style, central controls to the economy.
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The Perils of Identity Politics
Christopher Hitchens
January 18, 2008
[wsj] [...] People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of "race" or "gender" alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason. Yet see how this obvious question makes fairly intelligent people say the most alarmingly stupid things.
Madeleine Albright has said that there is "a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." What are the implications of this statement? Would it be an argument in favor of the candidacy of Mrs. Clinton? Would this mean that Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama don't deserve the help of fellow females? If the Republicans nominated a woman would Ms. Albright instantly switch parties out of sheer sisterhood? Of course not. (And this wearisome tripe from someone who was once our secretary of state . . .)
Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think "first woman president." We think -- for example -- "first ex-co-president" or "first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent" or "first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap."
One might come up with other and kinder distinctions (I shall not be doing so) but the plain fact about the senator from New York is surely that she is a known quantity who has already been in the White House purely as the result of a relationship with a man, and not at all a quixotic outsider who represents the aspirations of an "out" group, let alone a whole sex or gender.
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Duncan Hunter Leaves GOP Field
[wapo] : California Rep. Duncan Hunter dropped out of the Republican presidential race after placing near the bottom of the pack in Nevada's voting and even before the polls closed in South Carolina's primary.
In a statement, Hunter said he recognized that his campaign had not gained "traction" and he said he will return to the House of Representatives to do legislative work on defense issues, which have been his specialty there.
"The failure of our campaign to gain traction is mine and mine alone," he said. "But we have driven the issues of national security, the border fence, the emergence of China and the need to reverse bad trade policy. Because of that, this campaign has been very worthwhile, and for the Hunter family, a lot of fun."
Hunter, who represented the conservative San Diego area, had never raised much money and captured almost no attention from the media or the public. His only moments in the spotlight were the many Republican debates, but even there, he was outshined by Rep. Ron Paul and the front-runners in the GOP contest.
Hunter tried to appeal to conservative voters with an aggressive message on illegal immigration and was steadfastly pro-military during his year-long run for the White House. His departure leaves six people in the race.
: I had Hunter's statement after dropping out of the race up here, but simply cannot leave that up after reading that he has endorsed Huckabee. It's quite unbelievable and stunning to many that considered Hunter as their first choice or even those that simply agreed with his his policy positions and accepted the reality that he was going nowhere. Stunning and would make for a great April Fool's Day prank. If only it were so. Hunter Endorses Huckabee
[cnn] : California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a former presidential candidate, announced Wednesday he is endorsing Mike Huckabee's White House bid.
“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” Hunter said in a statement. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America’s industrial base.
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Only in Zimbabwe: 10-Million-Dollar Bill
[wapo] : Zimbabweans will be soon lining their pockets with 10-million-dollar bills.
The central bank annouced Thursday it would increase the denomination of the nation's highest bank note more than tenfold to keep pace with the world's highest inflation rate, officially estimated at 25,000 percent annually. Independent financial institutions say real inflation is closer to 150,000 percent.
The new 10-million note is the equivalent of about $4 at the dominant black market exchange rate.
In an effort to end chronic cash shortages and long, chaotic lines at banks and automated teller machines, the bank will issue the new notes on Friday along with 1-million and 5-million dollar bills, said Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono.
The highest existing note, introduced last month, is 750,000 Zimbabwe dollars.
A hamburger at an ordinary cafe costs about 15 million Zimbabwe dollars ($6). But that price has trebled this month amid shortages of bread, meat and most other basic goods.
Acknowledging the inflation crisis, Gono said individuals from Friday would be allowed to withdraw an increased limit of 500 million Zimbabwe dollars ($200) in a single day, up from 50 million.
He said special arrangements were being made to pay soldiers, police and other uniformed services "because it is not desirable to see them queuing for cash."
With higher denomination bills, Gono said businesses might be tempted to again raise prices of scarce goods.
"If this happens, the whole objective of solving the cash shortages ... will be defeated," he said.
Zimbabwe's economy began to crumble when President Robert Mugabe's government stripped white Zimbabweans of their farms to give to blacks in 2000. The economic decline has caused runaway prices, chronic unemployment and acute shortages of basic goods, along with a decline in foreign investment over the past seven years.
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Military: 75% of Baghdad Areas Now Secure
[usatoday] : About 75% of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8% a year ago when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show.
The military classifies 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods in the "control" or "retain" category of its four-tier security rating system, meaning enemy activity in those areas has been mostly eliminated and normal economic activity is resuming.
The data given by the military to USA TODAY provide one of the clearest snapshots yet of how security has improved in Baghdad since roughly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq last year.
U.S. commanders caution that the gains are still fragile, but at the moment U.S. and Iraqi forces "basically own the streets," said Col. Ricky Gibbs, a brigade commander in southern Baghdad.
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Romney Wins Michigan
[aol] Mitt Romney scored his first major primary victory Tuesday, a desperately needed win in his native Michigan that gave his weakened presidential candidacy new life. It set the stage for a wide-open Republican showdown in South Carolina in just four days.
Three GOP candidates now have won in the first four states to vote in the 2008 primary season, roiling a nomination fight that lacks a clear favorite as the race moves south for the first time.
The former Massachusetts governor defeated John McCain, the Arizona senator who was hoping that independents and Democrats would join Republicans to help him repeat his 2000 triumph here. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, trailed in third, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is making a last stand in South Carolina.
"It's a victory of optimism over Washington-style pessimism," Romney said in an Associated Press telephone interview from Southfield, Mich., echoing his campaign speeches and taking a poke at McCain, the four-term senator he beat. "Now on to South Carolina, Nevada, Florida."
Minimizing the significance of Tuesday's vote, McCain said he had called Romney to congratulate him "that Michigan welcomed their native son with their support."
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Soros Funded Lancet Study : Numbers in Question
[timesonline] A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.
Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.
The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.
New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003.
“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Lancet study was commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and led by Les Roberts, an associate professor and epidemiologist at Columbia University. He reportedly opposed the war from the outset.
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First snow for 100 years falls on Baghdad
[afp] Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.
Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and centre of Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and even colder, an official said.
The snow in Baghdad, which melted as it hit the ground, began falling before dawn and continued until after 9 am, residents said.
"Snow has fallen in Baghdad for the first time in about a century as a result of two air flows meeting," said a statement by the meteorology department.
"The first one was cold and dry and the second one was warm and humid. They met above Iraq."
The director of the meteorology department, Dawood Shakir, told AFP that climate change was possibly to blame for the unusual event.
"It's very rare," he said. "Baghdad has never seen snow falling in living memory.
"These snowfalls are linked to the climate change that is happening everywhere. We are finding some places in the world which are warm and are supposed to be cold."
Snow was also reported in the mountainous Kurdish north of the country, where falls are common.
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Debate : SC
For those of us that follow the politics of the world relentlessly, it is becoming quite a numbing reprise - I'm really tired of hearing "Reagan," "NY 911," "change, change change," and the media shuffling refrains of "it's too late," "they're finished," etc, - but frankly, I doubt that the majority of America is even yet paying attention to the presidential race beyond the saturation effect. That said, it certainly is interesting and promises to continue to be as the months roll on.
Fred Thompson: I can understand why some people think he comes across as somewhat flippant in his some of his replies, but he also offers up a solid and clear viewpoint on issues of concern and generally doesn't pussyfoot around in speaking to them. I do think he could hone his answers somewhat and continue to talk the talk. I give the debate win to him.
Mitt Romney: A reasonable performance and perhaps it's just me but he seems to not be getting a lot of time and is getting marginalized. He isn't consistent in debate performance, though unlikely many are and I like him and his message.
Rudy Giuliani: Also seems to not be getting a lot out there, though when he does he comes across quite well and offers valid views on the concerns of the day.
John McCain: Not a bad performance, if coming across as reading his grocery list very much by rote and slips into non sequitur, a reality that all the candidates tend to do in effort to cover ground and bolster their positions. We keep hearing that the Dems like him, but I cannot see the conservatives forgetting his damaging positions on too many things in the past.
Mike Huckabee: I simply cannot find confidence in this man nor do I find it conceivable that he could even win the nomination. It's all too much shtick.
Ron Paul: OK. I'm sorry, but I've officially had enough of him and his squeaking, squawking ramble. No longer amusing, no longer worth air space in these things. The final tolerance curtain for me came with his idiotic response to the recent Iranian speedboat incident. Aside from the obvious fact that he exists somewhere inside of a cloud in his own mind and that he is clearly not even paying attention to the others with the aim of cogent reply, his assertion that a speedboat couldn't harm the US vessels is auto-disqualifying.
On October 12, 2000, a small boat exploded alongside the USS Cole killing 17 sailors, wounding 39 others...
[time] At 12:15, a small harbor boat mingling among the moorers pulled alongside. Two men stood upright, and the boat exploded. The blast tore a 40-ft. by 40-ft. hole in the port side of the Cole, shoving one of the ship's decks upward and destroying an engine room and an adjoining mess area. Sailors not maimed by the explosion and flying shrapnel had only an instant to scramble to safety before water rushed into the gaping hole and engulfed them. The attack killed 17 sailors and injured 38 more.
As the Cole, a $1 billion destroyer armed with an assortment of high-caliber machine guns, surface-to-air missiles and advanced radar equipment, listed sickeningly to port, crew members worked furiously to keep it afloat.
Paul would be a great cartoon voice over actor. Anyway, if you've got the numbers out there I'm sure we'll see them materialize. The damage it ultimately ends up causing to viable candidates, not unlike those that will vote based only on identity politics and cast for The Huckster will be clear in outcome. Indeed you'll reap what you sow, and in doing so succeed in pushing what you actually want further away with what will most likely be a Democrat win in November.
- TCB
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Richardson Drops Out of Race
Yea, that's a surprise. Enough of the hobby horse I suppose and just in time for the opening of NM legislative session. Thanks for wasting the bucks and time. Who gave him a call again? Gee...you think he'll be endorsing Hillary?
Wait a minute...didn't he just say he was staying in?
Wed. Jan 9, 2008
[santafenewmexican] Despite another single-digit, distant-fourth-place finish on Tuesday, a buoyant Gov. Bill Richardson told a cheering crowd that he's staying in the Democratic presidential race.
Taking the stage at the Puritan Backroom Conference Center to the pulsating beat of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name," Richardson told New Hampshire supporters, "We head out West and the fight goes on!" [...]
The New Mexico governor said he will compete in the Jan. 19 Nevada primary and go on to Feb. 5, when 22 states hold primaries and caucuses. [...]
Thurs. Jan 10, 2008
[cnn] The time has come to end my quest and come home to tackle the challenges before us in New Mexico," Richardson told cheering supporters in his state capital of Santa Fe. "Our legislature starts next week, and I intend to put my full efforts behind our No. 1 priority -- extending health insurance to every New Mexican by the end of my term.
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Pat "The Sage" Sajak Offers Salient Solution to Man-Made Global Warming
[humanevents] [...] It’s relatively simple, can begin immediately, and will change the dynamics of global warming overnight. Instead of continuing to preach to the rest of us, the true believers need to step forward and set an example. I’m not talking about recycling Evian bottles; I’m talking about giving up cars and moving into smaller houses or apartments, or even forming communes where people can live simpler, more Earth-friendly lives. Yes, I’m talking about living the kinds of lives they want all of us to live.
Such a movement could literally start tomorrow. It would need a leader, of course; someone who could inspire others to choose a more spartan lifestyle. The obvious choice would be Al Gore, who already has a loyal following. If he would eschew large homes, gas-guzzling cars, private jets and the consumption of meat, millions more would likely do the same. If enough people joined the cause, Mr. Gore and his followers would be able to demonstrate the results of this new way of living in very short order. They could lead by example. They could create a movement. They could have uniforms and badges and secret handshakes. The could have their own reality TV show. In short, they could become a major force for change. Carmakers would be driven out of business or forced to dramatically alter their products to meet the demands of this eco-friendly Gorian tsunami. Companies of all stripes would, similarly, have to adapt or perish. [...]
The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. Just think of millions and millions of committed Americans making the personal sacrifices necessary to demonstrate their resolve to combat man-made global warming. And, most important, thanks to their efforts, theory would be replaced by fact. It’s much easier to argue about a study than it is to refute the demonstrable results when the temperature drops and the ocean levels stabilize. When future generations write of the sacrifices of these men and women, they’ll use words like “inspirational” and “heroic”.
And so, I urge the advocates for change to embark on this important mission. Do it for the children. Godspeed.
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Clinton, McCain Win in New Hampshire
[aolnews] Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton powered to victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary Tuesday night in a startling upset, defeating Sen. Barack Obama and resurrecting her bid for the White House. Sen. John McCain defeated his Republican rivals to move back into contention for the GOP nomination.
"I felt like we all spoke from our hearts and I am so gratified that you responded," Clinton said in victory remarks before cheering supporters. "Now together, let's give America the kind of comeback that New Hampshire has just given me."
Her victory, after Obama won last week's Iowa caucuses, raised the possibility of a prolonged battle for the party nomination between the most viable black candidate in history and the former first lady, seeking to become the first woman to occupy the Oval Office.
McCain's triumph scrambled the Republican race as well.
"We showed this country what a real comeback looks like," the Arizona senator told The Associated Press in an interview as he savored his triumph. "We're going to move on to Michigan and South Carolina and win the nomination."
Later, he told cheering supporters that together, "we have taken a step, but only a first step toward repairing the broken politics of the past and restoring the trust of the American people in their government."
McCain rode a wave of support from independent voters to defeat former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a showing that reprised the senator's victory in the traditional first-in-the-nation primary in 2000.
New Hampshire Results
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The grand anti-surprise here and no doubt soon forgot reality is that the polls, analysts, sophiste punditocracy and above all, the media, know close to nothing and offer about the same in value. There is precious little "news" offered these days. It does seem more and more that one parrots the drivel of another and then passes that on and so forth, because, well, they have to say something. "So and so is dead in the water," "Polls show this and that." It's all a neatly bundled bag of crap, bowed up with a ribbon of technology that espouses fact from gossip. For the record, I did call Hillary in N.H. Believe it or not.- TCB
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Fox News : New Hampshire Republican Forum - 1/6/08
We'd have to say that this one was toss up between Romney and Thompson as to who offered the best showing. Thompson comes across well as someone who sincerely isn;t running for his own ego, but rather as someone with concerns for the condition of the country. Romney had substantial more air time, but again Fred comes across as having a solid grasp on the issues of importance.
Rudy did well, but he seemed almost non-existent, while Huckabee only served further notice as to how unacceptable he is. We cannot understand how anyone could possibly think he is suitable for the tasks at hand in the world today. Elusive and coy.
McCain gave an admirable performance of someone who is a jovial and vibrant person, but that is a tough sell and again (he knows how to get OBL, yet is keeping this info to himself I guess), he has been on the wrong side too many times and doing damage to his party in the process.
[watch]
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Bloomberg : Conference
[nyt] : Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a dozen current and former elected officials from both parties arrived in this college town Sunday evening with little fanfare but grand ambitions.
Over a Sunday dinner, Mr. Bloomberg and other participants in the conference were to begin discussing ways to end “partisan polarization” in Washington, according to the invitation sent last month.
The conference was organized by two former Democratic senators, David L. Boren of Oklahoma, now president of the University of Oklahoma here, and Sam Nunn of Georgia.
Last month, the former senators suggested that they would consider urging Mr. Bloomberg to mount an independent presidential campaign if the major-party nominees do not formally embrace bipartisanship to address the nation’s problems.
“Today, we are a house divided,” the two men explained in their invitation. “We believe that the next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available — without regard to political party — to help lead the nation.”
Mr. Bloomberg and his aides have toyed for months with the idea of such a campaign, though officially he says he plans to complete his second term as New York City’s mayor, which ends next year.
He is a repeat guest of Mr. Boren’s, having delivered the commencement address at the university last year.
Other participants in the conference include Christie Whitman, a Republican and the former governor of New Jersey; Senator Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska; and the former senators Charles S. Robb of Virginia and Gary Hart of Colorado.
The private meetings on Sunday will be followed by a private breakfast on Monday and a public panel discussion, after which the participants may issue a brief statement of shared principles.
NYT : Contrasting Bloomberg
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Muslims test press freedom limits in Canadian case
[yahoo] : OTTAWA (Reuters) - An Islamic group's demand that a Canadian magazine publish its response to an article that said Muslims were set to swamp the West has sparked warnings of government-imposed restrictions on freedom of expression.
The Canadian Islamic Congress, one of Canada's largest Muslim groups, says Maclean's, a popular Canadian weekly news magazine, subjected Muslims to hate speech with an article in October 2006 by best-selling author Mark Steyn that said a high Muslim birthrate, combined with Muslims "hot for jihad," could conquer a West that is unwilling to stand up for its civilization. [...]
Maclean's says it has already run 27 letters from readers, many opposed to Steyn's piece, and is ready to consider a further response. But it said the CIC wanted to direct the art work for the rebuttal and to run it on the cover.
Publisher Kenneth Whyte said he would rather go bankrupt than have the CIC set the terms for what the magazine publishes. [...]
The idea a magazine should have to defend its writings to a government body has some critics warning of Soviet-style thought police and urging the commissions to get out of the business of regulating speech and expression.
Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said he fought to create human rights commissions "to deal with "discriminatory deeds ... not discriminatory words."
"Nobody thought it would be used to censure freedom of expression," he said. [...]
Freedom of expression is guaranteed in Canada's constitution, but laws have been enacted that restrict hate speech. In December, an Alberta human rights panel ruled that a local pastor broke a human rights law by writing letters to the editor urging citizens to stand up against what he described as militant homosexuality.
CBC commentator Rex Murphy said Maclean's should not have to defend itself for starting debate and stirring thought.
"Is every touchy, or agenda-driven sensibility now free to call upon the offices of the state and ... embroil them in 'justifying' their right to write and broadcast as they see fit?" he asked on CBC's flagship news program, The National.
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Romney Wins GOP Wyoming
[cbc] : Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney sealed his first victory in the Republican presidential race on Saturday, winning the Wyoming caucuses. Romney won eight of the first 11 delegates chosen at county conventions held across the western state, while candidate Fred Thompson won two and Duncan Hunter won one. [...]
Republicans in the state appreciated the fact that Romney campaigned in Wyoming, which has little political pull in the presidential race. Huckabee did not visit the state, and neither did prominent Republicans like Arizona Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Wyoming held its caucuses earlier than usual this year, in January instead of March, in the hopes that the state could garner more attention by being between the first two big races — Iowa and New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Tuesday. [...]
But Wyoming Republicans were penalized for holding their caucuses in January, as Republican rules state that nomination contests must be held after Feb. 5. The Republican National Committee cut in half the number of delegates Wyoming can send to the party's national convention in September, from 28 to 14.
Iowa is not being penalized because, technically, its caucuses are not binding on convention delegates.
The Democrats will hold their caucuses in Wyoming in March.
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The Cynical Bastard Runs Down the ABC New Hampshire Debates
Easily the best debate so far in all regards. Charlie Gibson offered a measured balance of being quiet and letting the candidates talk and of query to some obviously questionable statements - if a bit too politely for our taste; but at least he did question and not just let everything sail on by.
The first half of each debate was a nice change of pace compared to the concoct of things like the CNN / Youtube entertainment programming or the PBS farce and all should have this format to some extent. The candidates were set in motion by a theme and then, free of any timer or warning light prompts, were able to discuss and interact and retort as they might.
The second half of each followed a more common timed format where questions were posed and the clock (and warning light) was set in motion.
The biggest puzzle of the night and not a new one at all, has to be: What on Earth is Bill Richardson doing on the stage aside from embarrassing himself? I like Bill (or did) but he has been successful over the course of the last year in one thing only and that is to show how utterly unacceptable he is for the position of which he pretends.
I also credit him with ruining the Dem. portion of the debate with his blubbering along the lines of "waaa...can't we all just get along," which followed a moment where Hillary seemed about to let the costume drop and speak her mind. This, one assumes, would then be followed by the others doing likewise, but Richardson saved the day with his "diplomatic skills" that seem well grounded in preschool conflict resolution texts or from somewhere in a time decades long gone.
Sorry Bill, but I'd rather enjoy seeing the candidates actually say what they think and mean, your weepy feelings be damned, instead of the by-the-book, prefab usually offered. Thanks for cancelling that for us.
Richardson (who looked almost slovenly) laughably insinuated that the GOP portion prior was somehow childish in the way that they actually confronted each other instead of standing around repeating hollow mantra and empty blither, which is standard summation of the Democrat portion. Does anyone amongst these people say anything? They do talk a lot and orate and gesture, lots of words are expelled and repeated over and over, yet end up saying nothing. But some people nod and applaud and say bravo. The entire platform is composed of Bush is bad, change(!) and we'll perform miracles and Bush is bad. Platitudes piled like pancakes.
In the credit where due department, nods to Hillary for saying this very thing herself after winded and vacuous moments from her opponents.
Obama (who perpetually sat with a singular expression of "deep thought" while staring down at his notepad (tic tac toe?) as if contemplating the universe or maybe a nap) basically played it safe for the evening. Wouldn't want to tarnish the sacred media Mo'.
John "Seabiscuit" Edwards offered his trademark mill worker shtick and threatened to beat everybody up. He also seemed to draw the distinction of decision that he had chosen to side with Obama against the Clinton "machine." The lines are drawn? Edwards is going no where except maybe out for dinner with Denny Kucinich (thankfully excluded this eve) to compare tactics of career presidential bidders.
The GOP portion was a spirited affair, enjoyable for this and the fact that they were left to speak to and at each other, which often was comprised of putting Romney squarely on the firing line which is a good thing. He dealt with it reasonably well and tried to say let's not go into personal stuff (though not venturing into Bill Richardson whine territory), but found there was no escape route and handled the onslaught without running out of the room.
McCain, I assume, buoyed by a recent Lieberman comment, delivered his crackpot attempts at humour and lamely attempted to parse the word amnesty. Sorry John, but I think you're time came and went some years ago and you've pissed off too many of your own in too many ways.
The Huckster honed his parables and wide eyed expressions some more, but really did nothing to further his cause which I cannot believe is actually going anywhere - regardless of what the media would have you believe. Earlier in the day he also worked on the callous of his one finger that drives his tres cool, single finger bass mastery. Well...at least I haven't seem him using a pick.
Thompson was quite good, perhaps his best showing do far, offering up sensible answers often, while still tossing a couple of now trademark smack down, crowd pleasers, yet managing to appear above the fray to some extent. Maybe he can overcome the tired rhetoric that he is tired that is trumpeted endlessly. I really don't find a lot of ground being touted against his policy statements.
Rudy was mediocre - no harm no foul. He seemed comfortable and clearly he hasn't been banking on this phase of the primaries in any big way. Time will tell how sage his methodology was. Ron Paul, as usual strikes some resonating chords before proceeding to then make statements that send him off into oblivion.
-TCB
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From the Huckster's Camp "Wary of New Hampshire"
[wapo] : Huckabee promised to compete in New Hampshire, but his weak standing there might force him to turn his attention to South Carolina's primary on Jan. 19, where a strong religious community could help him repeat his Iowa success. In dozens of interviews in New Hampshire this week, few voters indicated support for Huckabee.
His aides are wary of New Hampshire. "It's all no tax, no government there," said Bob Wickers, a top strategist. "It's not ideal." But they believe that the message of economic anxiety that he preaches will help in Michigan's primary on Jan. 15 and in states in the South, which have high poverty rates in addition to strong groups of social conservatives.
* Emphasis ours
Geezuz. How inspiring. Almost as much as his weak-ass bass playing, not to mention apparent void of sensible policy position, foreign and domestic. Please, sir, just go away.
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Obama, Huckabee : Victors in Iowa
[aolnews] CONCORD, N.H. (Jan. 4) -- Iowa caucus victories behind them, Republican Mike Huckabee and Democrat Barack Obama vowed to stick with their winning principles Friday in an abbreviated dash to the finish in New Hampshire's presidential primary campaign, despite facing a different political alignment and, as Huckabee put it, "only a few days to close the sale."
Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, GOP poll leaders in New Hampshire, stood ready to try to douse Huckabee 's "prairie fire" in a state that lacks the religious voting bloc of Iowa and has an ornery tradition of rejecting Iowa's Republican caucus winners.
"It will be a different race here," Romney said Friday. He attributed Huckabee 's Iowa win largely to his biography as a Southern Baptist preacher.
"Mike had a terrific base as a minister," the former Massachusetts governor told a news conference in Portsmouth, N.H. "He drew on that base, got a great deal of support from it. It was a wonderful strategy that he pursued effectively. I don't think that's the strategy that's going to work in every state."
Obama, the Illinois senator who dashed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's front-runner status in his convincing Iowa win, was rallying in Portsmouth and Concord. Clinton was being joined in Nashua by her husband, hoping to become the family's newest "Comeback Kid" in a state that revived Bill Clinton's run for the Democratic nomination in 1992.
Obama said he saw no reason to revamp his campaign for new realities: "No, it's not broken, why fix it?"
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Franken vs. Franken
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First outdoor NHL game played in U.S. draws big TV numbers down south
[tcp] : NEW YORK - More people in the U.S. tuned in on New Year's Day to see the NHL play outdoors than any other regular-season game in more than a decade.
The Penguins-Sabres game in snowy Buffalo - the first regular-season outdoor NHL game in the United States - drew a 2.6 overnight rating and a 5 share on NBC. Those were the best numbers since a six-game regional telecast on Fox drew a 3.0 overnight rating and a 7 share on Feb. 3, 1996.
Pittsburgh won 2-1 in a shootout on a Sidney Crosby's score before a crowd of more than 71,000 at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
CBC's ratings weren't available Wednesday.
The big U.S. numbers, in the stands and on TV, came three years after the NHL lockout forced the cancellation of an entire season and after last season's Stanley Cup finals on NBC drew record-low ratings.
"We're delighted by the success of this historic event," NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer said. "The Winter Classic exposed hockey to a larger audience and definitely made new fans of the game."
The Winter Classic ratings also surpassed Wayne Gretzky's final game, which was broadcast on Fox on April 18, 1999, and drew a 2.5/6.
The Buffalo and Pittsburgh markets led the ratings, at 38.2/58 and 17.7/30, respectively. But markets such as Sacramento, Calif., St. Louis and Denver also drew strong ratings, even though the game went up against a number of college football bowl games, including an intriguing Capital One Bowl between Florida and Michigan.
"This was one of the best events I've ever been a part of as a player, coach or broadcaster," NBC game analyst Eddie Olczyk said. "It truly was a memorable experience and a great day for the sport of hockey."
Overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, and each ratings point represents about 735,000 households. The rating is the percentage watching a telecast among homes with televisions, and the share is the percentage tuned into a broadcast among those households with televisions on at the time.
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Changes in the Sun’s Surface to Bring Next Climate Change
PRESS RELEASE: SSRC 1-2008
January 2, 2008
[ssrc] Today, the Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC) in Orlando, Florida announces that it has confirmed the recent web announcement of NASA solar physicists that there are substantial changes occurring in the sun’s surface. The SSRC has further researched these changes and has concluded they will bring about the next climate change to one of a long lasting cold era.
Today, Director of the SSRC, John Casey has reaffirmed earlier research he led that independently discovered the sun’s changes are the result of a family of cycles that bring about climate shifts from cold climate to warm and back again.
“We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the sun’s surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. This is not however a unique event for the planet although it is critically important news to this and the next generations. It is but the normal sequence of alternating climate changes that has been going on for thousands of years. Further according to our research, this series of solar cycles are so predictable that they can be used to roughly forecast the next series of climate changes many decades in advance. I have verified the accuracy of these cycles’ behavior over the last 1,100 years relative to temperatures on Earth, to well over 90%.” [...]
Given the importance of the next climate change Casey was asked whether the government has been notified. “Yes, as soon as my research revealed these solar cycles and the prediction of the coming cold era with the next climate change, I notified all the key offices in the Bush administration including both parties in the Senate and House science committees as well as most of the nation’s media outlets. Unfortunately, because of the intensity of coverage of the UN IPCC and man made global warming during 2007, the full story about climate change is very slow in getting told. These changes in the sun have begun. They are unstoppable.
With the word finally starting to get out about the next climate change, hopefully we will have time to prepare. Right now, the newly organized SSRC is the leading independent research center in the US and possibly worldwide, that is focused on the next climate change. Some of the world’s brightest scientists, also experts in solar physics and the next climate change have joined with me. In the meantime we will do our best to spread the word along with NASA and others who can see what is about to take place for the Earth’s climate. Soon, I believe this will be recognized as the most important climate story of this century.”
*Emphasis ours
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January 1.2008 : Sunday Show Roundup
Wisdom from Merriam
Pathetic
Main Entry:
pa·thet·ic Listen to the pronunciation of pathetic
Pronunciation: \pə-ˈthe-tik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French pathetique, from Late Latin patheticus, from Greek pathētikos capable of feeling, pathetic, from paschein (aor. pathein) to experience, suffer — more at pathos
Date: 1598
1 : having a capacity to move one to either compassionate or contemptuous pity 2 : marked by sorrow or melancholy : sad 3 : pitifully inferior or inadequate the restaurant's pathetic service 4 : absurd laughable a pathetic costume
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