ACORN Qualifies for Funding in Senate Health Care Bill

Senator Roland Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid's "manager's amendment," unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill.

On December 9, Burris, an Illinois Democrat, pledged that he would filibuster a health care bill without a public option. "If we have to get 60 and it comes back and it does not have a public option in it, I will not vote for it," he said. Then early last week he said he could vote for the bill if there were changes made to achieve the goals of the public option: "until this bill addresses cost, competition, and accountability in a meaningful way—it will not win [my vote]."

Asked last night before the Senate voted why he was planning to support a bill without a public option, Burris said: "We have a great bill--the best we could get. And it also covers most of our concerns: competition, cost, and accountability." But had anything specifically changed in the text of the bill that helped him change his mind? Burris told THE WEEKLY STANDARD: "It was the disparity provision that was put in, which we had something to do with, in terms of making sure that diabetes and the other diseases that are affecting minorities are really studied by HHS in all of these pilot programs."

The provision he cites, found on pages 240 through 248 of the manager's amendment, requires that six different agencies each establish an “Office of Minority Health.” The agencies are the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.”

According to page 241 of the amendment:


In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary, acting through the Deputy Assistant Secretary, shall award grants, contracts, enter into memoranda of understanding, cooperative, interagency, intra-agency and other agreements with public and nonprofit private entities, agencies, as well as Departmental and Cabinet agencies and organizations, and with organizations that are indigenous human resource providers in communities of color to assure improved health status of racial and ethnic minorities, and shall develop measures to evaluate the effectiveness of activities aimed at reducing health disparities and supporting the local community. Such measures shall evaluate community outreach activities, language services, workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.’’


According to a Senate legislative aide, the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now could qualify for grants under this provision. ACORN would also qualify for funding on page 150 of the underlying Reid bill, which says that "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" may receive grants to "conduct public education activities to raise awareness of the availability of qualified health plans."

Earlier this year, Congress passed and the president signed into law a ban on federal funding for ACORN, but a judge ruled that that law was unconstitutional. If a higher court reverses that ruling, ACORN may be prohibited from receiving funds through the Office of Minority Health earmark. But according to the Senate legislative aide, ACORN would still "absolutely" qualify for federal funding through the provision in the underlying Reid bill because the anti-ACORN appropriations amendment would not apply to funds provided through the health care exchanges.

A spokesman for Sen. Harkin, chairman of the HELP committee, wrote in an email that he "will look into" which organizations qualify for funding under these provisions. Spokesmen for Senators Reid and Dodd did not immediately reply to emails

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/12/exclusive_acorn_qualifies_for_1.asp

Sex-Selective Abortions in China Have Produced 32 Million Extra Boys
The preference for sons in traditional Chinese families has led to a vast gender disparity in China: A study has found that there are currently 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20. While Chinese officials have acknowledged that the country’s “one-child” policy has led to a gender imbalance, the new study offers the first hard data on the extent of the disparity. The study included nearly five million people under the age of 20 and covered every county in China. It found that overall ratios of boys were high everywhere, but were most striking among the younger age group of 1-4 years, and in rural areas, where it peaked at 126 boys for every 100 girls [The Wall Street Journal blog].

With the greatest imbalance occurring with very young children, the researchers say that China will be grappling with the problem for 20 years. The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems…. “If you’ve got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes” [AP], says study coauthor Therese Hesketh.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, attributed the imbalance almost entirely to couples’ decisions to abort female fetuses. The trend toward more male than female children intensified steadily after 1986, they said, as ultrasound tests and abortion became more available. “Sex-selective abortion accounts for almost all the excess males,” the paper said [The New York Times]. Although tests to determine the fetus’s gender for non-medical reasons are officially banned, the rule is largely ignored.

The Chinese government instituted strict birth control policies in the 1970s to prevent runaway population growth, but the one-child policy clashed with Chinese families’ traditional preference for a male heir. In some provinces, a second child is permitted if the first is a girl or if parents are experiencing “hardship” [AFP]. But among those second births the proportion of boys is even higher than average as families desperately pursue their last chance for a son. Among second births, there are 143 males to 100 female births.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/04/13/sex-selective-abortions-in-china-have-produced-32-million-extra-boys/

Cost of the Bush era: $11.5 trillion

"Wall Street bailouts: $6 trillion

When the real-estate bubble burst, Wall Street collapsed, too. Starting with Bear Stearns in March, investment banks fell like dominoes, done in by overexposure to mortgage-backed securities. We're still sifting through the damage. But we know U.S. taxpayers are among the biggest losers.

In hopes of stanching the bleeding, the federal government has spent or put at risk approximately $6 trillion. True, a big part of that number reflects the government's purchase of securities that may actually yield a profit one day. Critics of this enormous commitment will point out that it has yet to produce any solid evidence of a turnaround in the economy's slide, while the Bush administration's apologists argue that, without such a commitment, the news would have been much worse.

The best-known aspect of this epic spending spree is the U.S. Treasury's $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, whose remit has included purchasing so-called toxic securities, giving banks cash and helping Detroit automakers avoid bankruptcy.

But TARP, as the program is known, is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Treasury also gave $300 billion in guarantees for struggling Citigroup, poured $200 billion into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when officials seized the mortgage giants to prevent their bankruptcy, and granted an additional $50 billion in temporary guarantees to keep investors from pulling out of money market funds. Again, a guarantee doesn't necessarily mean the Treasury will actually spend the money. But that money is at risk, and that's taxpayer money.

The Federal Reserve has also been busy. Central bankers have said they could purchase as much as $1.3 trillion of commercial paper from nonfinancial companies to make sure businesses have the working capital they need in an environment where banks are hesitant to lend. The Fed has committed an additional $1 trillion to a variety of credit facilities designed to encourage banks to loosen up, from outright loans to banks, to purchases of securities backed by consumer credit, to $600 billion to buy securities backed by prime mortgages -- a move that knocked standard home loan rates down to 5%.

And there's more.

Among other federal rescue measures we have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s decision to guarantee as much as $1.4 trillion in interbank loans, $300 billion for the Federal Housing Administration to insure mortgages in danger of foreclosure and a $150 billion aid package for insurance giant American International Group.

A lot of the guarantees that have been made will never come into play; just making a guarantee usually does the trick, if it's the Federal Reserve speaking. Here is some more good news: Some of the government's crisis-related investments may actually prove profitable. Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, believes the government could see a profit of $500 billion from stock dividends and the appreciation of stocks. Just remember, that's peanuts in this game.

There are other variables that complicate the picture on a similar scale. The federal government is on the hook for $5 trillion of debt that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underwrote. The two companies themselves hold only a third of that debt, Kogan said, so it's unclear what the taxpayer's ultimate liability will be there.

Also unclear is how the Wall Street bailout money is being spent. The Treasury has been reluctant to monitor how banks are using TARP funds, and the Fed has refused to name the recipients of its loans, arguing that naming names would undermine the health of the companies in question.

"It's a lot of money going out the door, with basically no public knowledge of it whatsoever," said Dean Baker, a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

About $600 billion of the Fed's $1.3 trillion plan to buy commercial paper has been spent, Baker said. But the Fed won't say who has received that cash.

"People are making and losing fortunes depending on whether the Fed will buy their commercial paper," Baker said. "We should know what they're doing.""

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/cost-of-the-bush-era-11-point-5-trillion.aspx

U.S. military report warns 'sudden collapse' of Mexico is possible
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 01/13/2009 03:49:34 PM MST


EL PASO - Mexico is one of two countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse," according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.
The command's "Joint Operating Environment (JOE 2008)" report, which contains projections of global threats and potential next wars, puts Pakistan on the same level as Mexico. "In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.

"The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels.
How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone."
The U.S. Joint Forces Command, based in Norfolk, Va., is one of the Defense Departments combat commands that includes members of the different military service branches, active and reserves, as well as civilian and contract employees. One of its key roles is to help transform the U.S. military's capabilities.

In the foreword, Marine Gen. J.N. Mattis, the USJFC commander, said "Predictions about the future are always risky ... Regardless, if we do not try to forecast the future, there is no doubt that we will be caught off guard as we strive to protect this experiment in democracy that we call America."

The report is one in a serious focusing on Mexico's internal security problems, mostly stemming from drug violence and drug corruption. In recent weeks, the Department of Homeland Security and former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey issued similar alerts about Mexico.

Despite such reports, El Pasoan Veronica Callaghan, a border business leader, said she keeps running into people in the region who "are in denial about what is happening in Mexico."

Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderon instructed his embassy and consular officials to promote a positive image of Mexico.

The U.S. military report, which also analyzed economic situations in other countries, also noted that China has increased its influence in places where oil fields are present.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_11444354

Sarah Louise Palin (née Heath)
(born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska,
and the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate
for the November 2008 election.



Palin was elected governor in 2006 after defeating incumbent
governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary and former
Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election.

She gained attention for publicizing ethical violations by
state Republican Party leaders.

Before becoming governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla
City Council from 1992 to 1996, was elected mayor of
Wasilla in 1996, and ran unsuccessfully for
lieutenant governor in 2002.

On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate John
McCain chose Palin to serve as his running mate.

She will be the first female vice presidential candidate
representing the Republican Party and the second female
vice presidential candidate representing
a major political party.

She will also be the first politician from Alaska to run on
a national ticket in a campaign for president or
vice president.
Palin was the youngest person, and the first woman,
to be elected governor of Alaska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin


God Bless America

South Ossetia leader says 1,400 dead in fighting -

Russia-Georgia tensions explode; S. Ossetia president: 1,400 died as result of 'Georgian aggression'

Reuters
Latest Update: 08.08.08, 20:47 / Israel News

About 1,400 people have died as a result of "Georgian aggression" against South Ossetia, the president of the Georgian breakaway region was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on Friday.


"About 1,400 died. We will check these figures, but the order of the numbers is around this. We have this on the basis of reports from relatives," Eduard Kokoity was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3579706,00.html

God Bless

South Ossetia says fatalities over 1,000 - RIA -



http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-34904720080808

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Minister in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia said more than a thousand people had died in overnight shelling by Georgian forces of their capital Tskhinvali, RIA news agency reported.

"According to our information, as a result of the night-time shelling of Tskhinvali, there has been a large number of victims ... the number of fatalities is more than a thousand," the South Ossetian Nationalites Minister, Teimuraz Kasaev, told the news agency by telephone.

God Bless

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her Altitude and spotted a man in a bass boat below. She shouted to him, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an Hour ago, but I don't know where I am.'

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, 'You're in a hot air Balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet Above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and
100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.'

She rolled her eyes and said, 'You must be a Republican.'

'I am,' replied the bass fisherman. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist, ' everything you told me is Technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your Information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to Me. '

The man smiled and responded, 'You must be a Democrat.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' said the bass fisherman, 'you don't know where you are or Where you are going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large Quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to Keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the Same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my Fault.'

Scary Obama truth :http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?RsrcID=2036

Anti-Americanism Uber Alles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted GMT 5-7-2008 21:47:31
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It is a country that needs to get its priorities straight - and soon.

Germany's leftists, never the biggest fans of America, are currently up in arms about a recent agreement between their country the United States that would benefit both nations in the War on Terror.

Signed March 11, the accord involves a data-sharing plan concerning people suspected of involvement in terrorist and/or criminal activities. Under the agreement, personal information, such as DNA samples, fingerprints, political views, ethnic or racial origin, and even a person's sexual orientation will now be made available to intelligence services in both countries.

Designed as part of a larger project to catch terrorist/criminal evil-doers when they cross international borders, US Secretary for Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said in Berlin at the time of the deal's signing: "We are fighting a networked, international enemy therefore we have to respond with a global network of our own."

But while such a security proposal, if not long overdue, would at least be viewed as a common sense measure to most rational-minded people, since it is meant to protect and save lives, leftist German union leaders and politicians are condemning the deal as an attack on human rights and Germany's privacy laws.

According to a story in the magazine, Der Spiegel, one German union leader called it "the height of impertinence" that personal data about union members and German citizens can now be passed on to the United States. A liberal German politician, on the other hand, gave as a reason for opposing the agreement her inability to understand what sexual orientation had to do with terrorism (Such lib/left politicians always support gay rights except when gays are persecuted by the very Islamists this accord is designed to catch. Then, it's excused as a multicultural trait).

These phoney humanitarian protests, however, are in reality nothing more than a cheap camouflage used to cover the real reason for the German left's opposition to the deal, namely, its deep-rooted anti-Americanism.

It's bad enough that such anti-accord Germans seem to have forgotten 9/11, a good part of which was planned in their country. Many of the Islamic terrorists who participated in the murder of hundreds of people that tragic day, including their leader, Mohamed Atta, belonged to what later came to be called the "Hamburg cell." And it is just as bad the German left shows no sign of wanting to atone for this blunder by helping America prevent such future, devastating attacks. But what is perhaps worse is that German leftists do not appear interested even in defending themselves against the jihadist danger.

Only last week, for example, 130 German security officials staged country-wide raids on different Islamic establishments and apartments to break up an organization that was radicalising young Moslems and German converts to prepare them for jihad both inside and outside of Germany. While this network was not plotting terrorist attacks itself, it was spreading the poison of radical Islam that would lead to this end.

Sixteen buildings, including mosques and prayer rooms, were searched in different German cities and nine men between the ages of 25 and 47, all German citizens, were arrested, three of them German converts to Islam. According to news reports, the arrestees will be charged with forming a terrorist organization and with inciting hatred, in this case against Jews and `infidels'. Many documents and video tapes were also confiscated.

But what is noteworthy in this case on a continent where discoveries of Islamist networks and arrests of terrorists occur almost weekly is that the men taken into custody are all former members of the Multicultural House mosque in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm that German security officials closed down in 2005.

As reported in FrontPageMagazine at the time, the Multicultural House mosque was one of the most important centers of radical Islamic activity in Germany. Its network spanned the country. Among other illegal activities, the 24 people arrested in the 2005 country-wide raid, in which 700 security officials took part, were known to have recruited people for `Holy War' and of raising money for that obscene purpose, sometimes by criminal means.

The mosque's membership reflected its hate-filled mission. One member, a native of Egypt, was suspected of participating in the Bali terrorist bombing plot of 2002 in Indonesia that killed 202 people. The mosque's former imam, also an Egyptian, had been deported back to his homeland for calling for jihad in his sermons and describing the United States and Israel as Satan. His replacement, a German convert, spent two weeks in jail after the raid.

The mosque member suspected of participation in the Bali bombing was arrested in the raid last week. Prior to Bali, he had been in Bosnia where he had filmed the execution of a captured Serb at a supposed Koran reading meeting, capturing how those present played with the corpse afterwards. His ex-wife, a German convert who witnessed the unfortunate Serb's death and the barbaric indignities inflicted on his dead body, related this horrific incident in an interview with the German newspaper, Die Welt.

She also recounted how her husband's brutality towards her increased the more religiously radical he became. Her sadistic spouse also took a second wife when she couldn't have babies, eventually divorcing his non-progeny producing German wife.

But the most famous German converts to have been associated with the radical Neu-Ulm mosque were the ones arrested last year with CIA help. Known as the `Saurland cell', its members, two of them converts, were planning to bomb American military installations and places where there might be American citizens, such as bars and schools.

When they occurred last summer, President Bush was immediately informed of the terrorists' arrests, which were publicised worldwide. In breaking up the plot, Secretary Chertoff said the co-operation between the American and German intelligence services had never been closer, a fact that is lost on German leftists opposing the March accord.

However, the question remains regarding how so many members of the Multicultural House mosque, most known already to terrorism investigators, were able to regroup so easily and carry on their dangerous activities for almost another three years?

The answer most likely has to do with the fact that this crucial European country's laws are too weak regarding Islamist terrorism. One German intelligence official, who is also an Islamic scholar, confirmed this after the 2005 raid on the Neu-Ulm Multicultural House mosque when he said Germany could no longer deal with the Islamist threat by the current legal means.

According to one German newspaper, the Federal Crime Office (Germany's FBI), has a list of 890 Islamists living in Germany who are prepared to use violence. Two hundred are so dangerous they are kept under constant observation, while German intelligence services are also monitoring 30 Muslim prayer houses.

All of which, besides indicating the weakness of Germany's anti-terrorist laws, demonstrate the size and scope of the Islamist threat as well as the contempt in which the Islamists hold Germany's legal system.

Even the Bali bombing suspect, regarded as a key Islamist who is suspected of radicalising the German converts arrested in last summer's anti-American bombing plot, showed his contempt for Germany, her values and her legal system when he appeared in court last year to have his son named `jihad' (Germany has a law that forbids parents giving a name to a child that may be detrimental to its future).

Britain's Home Secretary Jaqui Smith indicated the situation is similar in her country. Smith said British security forces are now being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Islamist danger and will not be able to cope within a year.

The British Home Secretary backed up this frightening warning with examples, saying anti-terror officials seized and analysed only one computer in 2001 but confiscated 400 last year along with 8,000 computer discs. As well, 57 people have been convicted in Great Britain on terrorism charges since the beginning of 2007.

"There are 2,000 individuals being who are being monitored. There are 200 networks involved and 30 active plots," she said.

But unlike Germany, where the left in the name of `human rights' and a barely concealed anti-Americanism stands in the way of any stiffening of legal system to deal with the Islamist danger, Smith wants British laws changed to help police in their anti-terrorism efforts.

Due to the obvious danger they are facing, Germans should simply ignore the left's tiresome anti-Americanism and bleating about human rights where Islamic extremism is concerned. Germany must get its priorities straight in order to protect its citizens, who have a right to that protection, and follow America's and Britain's lead in devising very tough anti-terrorism laws to defeat and deport its Islamist enemies. The West is at war with militant Islam, and unfortunately in wartime sacrifices in the certain fields, like human rights, have to be made. After all, Islamist bombs do not care about the sexual orientation and union membership of the people they kill.

http://www.aina.org/news/20080507164731.htm

Chinese urge anti-west boycott over Tibet stance
By Andrew Jacobs and Jimmy Wang

Sunday, April 20, 2008
BEIJING: Armed with her laptop and her indignation, Zhu Xiaomeng sits in her dorm room here, stoking a popular backlash against Western support for Tibet that has unnerved foreign investors and Western diplomats and, increasingly, the ruling Communist Party.

Over the last week, Zhu and her classmates have been channeling anger over anti-China protests during the tumultuous Olympic torch relay into a boycott campaign against French companies, blamed for their country's support of pro-Tibetan agitators. Some have also called for a boycott against American chains like McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

On Friday and Saturday, protesters gathered in front of a half-dozen outlets of the French retailer Carrefour, including a demonstration in the central city of Wuhan that reportedly drew several thousand people, according to Agence France-Presse. On Saturday, about 50 demonstrators carrying banners held a brief rally at the French Embassy here before the police shooed them away.

For the moment, however, most of the outrage is confined to the Internet. More than 20 million people have signed online petitions saying they plan to stop shopping at the Carrefour chain, Louis Vuitton and other stores linked to France because of what they see as the country's failure to protect the torch during its visit to Paris two weeks ago. In a survey released on Friday, China's state news agency, known as Xinhua, said 66 percent of those who responded said they would stay away from Carrefour during a monthlong boycott planned for May.

Public indignation has also been directed at Western news outlets, which are blamed for one-sided coverage of the torch relay and for anti-Chinese bias in their reporting on the disturbances in Tibet. In recent days, foreign news outlets here have been swamped by angry phone calls; two music videos circulating on the Internet blast CNN with expletives and lyrics like, "Don't think that repeating something over and over again means that lies become truth."

Like many young people, Zhu, a student at Beijing's prestigious Foreign Studies University, said she had been infuriated by what she described as unfair attacks on the country's image. "China used to be known as the sick man of Asia," said Zhu, 19, who has been sending out tens of thousands of pro-boycott messages through QQ, a popular online chat service. "We were separated like sand. But this worldwide show of support by Chinese all over the globe illustrates we have solidarity on this issue. After 5,000 years, we're not so soft anymore."

The boycott call, spread through millions of text messages and postings on the country's most heavily trafficked Web sites, provides a window into the technology's growing power to mobilize a country whose political passions are usually kept in check by tight government control.

Although Communist Party officials have the ability to block text messages and Internet traffic they find objectionable, the censors have until now allowed more leeway for boycott organizers. In many ways, they have been feeding the outrage by publicizing the threat by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to skip the opening ceremonies and by repeatedly calling on CNN to apologize for remarks made by Jack Cafferty, a commentator who called the Chinese government "goons and thugs." The network has expressed regret for offending the Chinese people, but officials here have dismissed the response as insincere.

But in a sign that the government may now be worried about the intensity of popular passion, the official news agency, Xinhua, said on Friday that it was time to curb nationalist zeal. While it lauded the boycott crusade, it advised people not to complicate the government's aim of encouraging foreign investment in China.

"Patriotic fervor should be channeled into a rational track and must be transformed into real action toward doing our work well," the agency said.

On Saturday, it issued a stronger warning, highlighting government concern that anti-Western sentiment could affect public attitudes during the Olympics, when 1.5 million people are expected to arrive. "Every son and daughter of China has the responsibility to show to the world in real action that China welcomes friends from all countries with open arms and will deliver an outstanding Olympics," it said in an editorial.

In the past the government has encouraged nationalistic outbursts and then quashed them when passions grew too inflamed — or when the protests had achieved the political purpose officials envisioned. In 1999, the authorities gave free rein to a brief spasm of anti-American protest after the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia; in 2005, they allowed even larger anti-Japanese demonstrations, which were fueled by anger over textbooks glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities in China.

During marches in several Chinese cities that year, the police stood by as eggs and rocks were thrown at Japanese consulates. A few weeks later, officials pulled the plug by shutting down the organizers' Web sites and filtering out anti-Japanese messages.

Mindful of how a public grief after the death of a party official morphed into the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government recognizes that vitriolic campaigns against outsiders could easily pivot toward the Communist Party.

Fang Xingdong, who runs blogchina.com, a hub for Chinese bloggers, said that he thought the government would not stand in the way of the boycott but that it would intervene if the anti-Western campaign became too disruptive. "If the irrational mood and behaviors among netizens are getting more and more intense, it will be very dangerous," he said, using the term for the community of bloggers and message-board users. "But I think this will not be beyond government's control."

If the protests on Saturday are any indication, official tolerance for unsanctioned demonstrations is wearing thin. According to witnesses and news reports, most of the Carrefour protests were quickly dispersed by the police. In Beijing, a rally that drew about 50 people to the French Embassy and a nearby French school lasted an hour before riot police forced them to leave. By 3 p.m., dozens of uniformed officers had sealed off access to the streets surrounding the embassy.

In a country where the press is tightly controlled, the growing popularity of high-tech communication has made such protests possible. Some 229 million people have Internet access in the country, and usage in China is growing by 30 percent a year, according to BDA China, a research firm. Cellphone text messaging is ubiquitous here, with more than 98 percent of the country's 400 million cellphone owners regularly using text messages. Another 300 million people are registered on instant messaging networks like MSN and QQ.

Zhu, for one, says that instant messaging is an effective way to reach thousands of people with a few keyboard strokes. "I don't send e-mails to individuals," she said. "It's inefficient — you can reach a lot more people by e-mailing groups on QQ."

In a demonstration of the Internet's viral prowess, some 2.3 million MSN users have attached "I Love China" icons to their online profiles as an expression of solidarity against "Tibetan separatists." A Google search for "Carrefour Boycott" in Chinese yielded over 2.4 million Web pages, most of them created in the last week.

Many of the messages accuse Carrefour executives of providing financial support to pro-Tibetan advocates, a charge the company denies. Others say American fast-food chains should be boycotted as a punishment for the recent meeting by the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, with the Dalai Lama.

In the past, boycott campaigns in China have largely come to naught.

On Wednesday afternoon, as she sat in a café sipping a can of Coca-Cola, Zhu said she thought the boycott would be a success. "Tibet is our country's territory. You have no right to interfere in our interior affairs," she said, adding, "A boycott may not be the right long-term solution, but we have to give the French people a lesson."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/20/asia/20china.php

So how bad is Bush?? Not bad at all. Republican vs. Democrat

Subject: taxes..very import read

Taxes...Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics
enlightening and amazing.
<http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html>
www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
Taxes under Clinton 1999 Taxes under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $8,400 Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $14,000 Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $23,250 Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K - tax $16,800 Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $21,000 Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $38,750 Married making 125K - tax $31,250

It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush
is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama
or Hillary is elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and
a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait
for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you
scam somebody out of some money and they don't even know what happened.
You can go to the Tax Foundation web site and check tax rates back to about
1913

Staying Iraq is policing Iraq. Can you show ONE instance that the effort to police the world hasn't destroyed the nation doing the policing? If it's not policing- what is it and when does it end?

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Henry Ford

http://blog.myspace.com/ronpaul2008

RUSSIA CHOOSES CHAINS
By RALPH PETERS


March 4, 2008 -- RUSSIAN paranoia is im measurable, with malice toward all and charity toward none. And outgoing President Vladimir Putin has been an exemplary Russian, his suspicions of the West intensified by his vocation as a secret policeman.
We'll have to see if presidential-election "victor" Dimitri Medvedev shocks his sponsor by becoming his own man, or just plays the czarina to Putin's Rasputin.

The most striking aspect of Russia's phony election last weekend wasn't that it was so ham-handedly rigged, but that Putin, Medvedev & Co. weren't the least bit ashamed of the blatant rigging. It was a time-trip back to the Soviet heyday that Putin misses so.

The only positive thing about the no-real-choice vote is that today's Kremlin crowd had the restraint to hold down the we-love-Medvedev tally to 70 percent, rather than the 95 percent-plus demanded by the old USSR's gerontocrats.

The truth? Russian citizens are content to be led like sheep. As long as there's a bit more fodder in the trough than there was yesterday, Russians won't protest against being herded around: Their primary characteristic over the centuries has been the determination to avoid responsibility.

It's incomprehensible to us, but most Russians want a good-but-strong czar to make their choices for them. (Oh, and they'd rather not work too hard, thanks.)

I almost wrote that Russia isn't a banana republic - despite its execution of journalists, the imprisonment of political opponents, state theft of property, the Kremlin's sponsorship of domestic terrorism (Stalin's stage-managed murder of Sergei Kirov comes to mind) and belligerence toward its neighbors.

But I would've been wrong - not only because Russia isn't a republic of any sort, but because Putin's Russia is headed for exactly the fate that's gutted so many developing countries: the crash after the boom.

Despite the toxic purring of its spokesmen abroad, the Russian Federation isn't diversifying its industrial base, overhauling its decrepit education system or building the human and material infrastructure to guarantee it a future beyond energy revenues.

Russia's going through the same it'll-never-end boom cycle that left one Latin American state after another with a handful of super-rich citizens, a glut of show-off architecture, hollow militaries in shiny boots and economies that disintegrated when the one-trick pony died.

Despite the glitz on display in the heart of Moscow, Russia remains a tragically underdeveloped country. It's Bolivia with Bentleys.

Will President Medvedev change anything after he takes office? Will he disappoint Putin and prove himself more than a puppet?

We can't say. Human beings can surprise the devil out of us all. But, given that Medvedev's ties to Putin go back decades to a murky past in St. Petersburg, an outburst of optimism may not be warranted.

The saddest thing of all is that the civilized world wants to embrace Russia as a constructive partner. But Russians just don't, won't and can't get it. To Ivan on the street, life's a zero-sum game, with everybody else determined to steal his sausages.

That characteristic, above all others, keeps Russia in the underdeveloped category.

Well, I've had my say. But, for all my decades of studying Russia and countless visits to that authority-addicted land, I never suffered under the Kremlin's tyranny, never sat in an East-Bloc prison and never endured up-close-and-personal secret-police brutality.

So it's useful to listen to someone who did: Vaclav Havel, one of the very few truly great men of our time, small in physical stature but so great of heart he forced the Russian bear back into its fouled cage.

I had the honor of meeting Havel last week at NATO headquarters, where this lifelong advocate of nonviolent resistance stressed the vital nature of the military alliance.

Havel - the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic - is a very old 71, a frail survivor of cancer and years in Communist cells. But he's as passionate as ever about freedom. The climax of his speech to NATO's military and civilian leaders was a stark warning about Russia:

"A dictatorship of a fairly new type is coming into existence to the east of the area under NATO protection. All basic human and civic freedoms are gradually and quietly being suppressed under the banner of the aggrieved ideology that everybody is doing Russia wrong or that they are all covert enemies.

"The system of formal democracy and one-party rule familiar to us from Communist times is being revived. The secret police is becoming all-powerful. The nation's enormous wealth is passing into the hands of the powerful or their friends . . .

"Everything that is free and has major influence is destroyed in subtle ways . . . Troublesome people disappear or are mysteriously murdered. Political murders and even major terrorist operations are never properly investigated.

"An enormous nation inhabiting enormous territory is lapsing into apathy and adapting to the status quo. It is accepting the propaganda-fed cult of the leader, that is sometimes reminiscent of the cult of Stalin . . .

"Russia is once more losing its awareness of where it begins and where it ends . . . as if it still thought that what once belonged to it will do so for all time."

Havel summed up: "I believe none of us has the right to remain silent and pretend . . . that we can't see these things. Politeness and falsehoods have never yet preserved the peace."

Moscow never got its own Havel. It just got pseudo-Soviets in better-tailored suits. Welcome to the new, old Russia.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/03042008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/russia_chooses_chains_100372.htm

Russia – Again America’s “Dark Twin”?
By David S. Foglesong
Mr. Foglesong is an Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University and author, most recently, of The American Mission and the "Evil Empire": The Crusade for a "Free Russia" Since 1881 .

After years of ambivalence about post-Soviet Russia, many Americans appear to be reverting to the historic habit of treating Russia as America’s shadow self and its leader as the prime villain on the world stage.

In December, indignant at political manipulation of parliamentary elections that gave an overwhelming majority to the party endorsed by President Vladimir Putin, the Washington Post condemned “the backward march to czarism” and urged that Russia be thrown out of the club of Western democracies. Only a little more temperately, the New York Times declared that “The United States and Europe must let Mr.Putin know that his days of respectability are fast running out.” In the same vein, Senator John McCain vowed that he “would seriously consider saying the G-8 should not invite [Putin] to its next meeting.”

McCain earlier grabbed the media spotlight by repudiating President Bush’s embrace of Putin, announcing that when he looked into Putin’s eyes he “saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B” (an allusion to Putin’s first career as an intelligence officer). This month Hillary Clinton gave McCain’s remark a theological twist, proclaiming that since Putin was a KGB agent “by definition he doesn’t have a soul.” At the same time, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a prominent supporter of Senator Clinton, proclaimed that “a real danger exists that the world will again be split by competing ideologies, not communist versus capitalist but democratic versus autocratic.” Among the many “top-down” rulers around the world, Albright singled out Putin as the chief potential challenger to America’s championing of democracy.

It is not a novel tactic for American politicians to try to score points by excoriating Russian leaders. In a 2004 debate with President Bush, for example, John Kerry blasted Putin for putting “his political opposition in jail” (though Kerry stumbled over whether the headquarters of the KGB was in the Lubyanka or “Treblinka”). What makes such electionering ploys more troubling now is that for the first time in years they may resonate with a wider popular animosity to Russia and its leader.

When Time recently named Putin “Person of the Year” it provoked a minor furor. Hundreds of outraged readers posted irate comments on the magazine’s web site. A Massachusetts woman denounced the publication for choosing “to glorify evil.” A man in Utah declared that Time’s winner was “the devil” and urged others not to buy the issue. “Dino” in Las Vegas went further: he proposed that likeminded people “go out and buy as many copies of the magazine” as they could afford, then “burn the magazine, tape it and post it on You Tube.” At a time when American troops were fighting for freedom, many readers demanded, how could Time select a dictator who “scoffs at freedom”? “Shame on You!” shouted a Bakersfield woman, who added: “THIS IS AMERICA!”

Explaining the selection of Putin, Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel observed that “throughout much of the 20th century, the Soviet Union … was the U.S.’s dark twin.” The numerous vehement objections to the Person of the Year suggest that for many Americans post-Soviet Russia is again a “dark double,” a foil for the affirmation of American virtues.

To understand the persistence and resurgence of the American tendency to view Russia as a country that must either emulate the United States or be condemned as its evil opposite, it is important to recognize that this habit developed earlier than Stengel realized and that it does not stem simply from abhorrence of communist ideology or wicked Soviet behavior. Although some American critics of Putin have compared him to Soviet leaders – even to the arch-villain Joseph Stalin – the closest parallel to the contemporary vilification of Putin is the way that Americans demonized the last Tsar of Russia a century ago.

Until the late nineteenth century most Americans viewed Russian Tsars as distant friends of the United States who were extending Christian civilization to heathen lands and ruling illiterate peasants unfit for democracy. Then, between the 1880s and 1905 American journalists and politicians increasingly depicted Imperial Russia as a barbarous menace to American commerce in Manchuria, a brutal oppressor of political dissenters, and a savage persecutor of religious minorities who should be thrown out of the club of civilized countries. In the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, political cartoonists portrayed Nicholas II as a lying culprit in demonic caricatures that foreshadowed the ways cartoonists have depicted “Tsar” Putin. When Nicholas’s soldiers slaughtered peaceful demonstrators in the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905 he was condemned -- even more vehemently than Putin has been -- as a murderous medieval despot who had to be overthrown.

The highly charged demonization of Nicholas II and Imperial Russia served cathartic purposes for Americans who had been divided over a savage war in the Philippines and who were troubled by domestic problems such as the lynching of blacks. It also contributed to some serious miscalculations. Although many believed that the ouster of the autocrat would bring to power liberal admirers of the United States, by the end of 1905 revolutionary turmoil seemed to be yielding more widespread pogroms and violent socialist uprisings. While most Americans ardently sympathized with modern, “civilized” Japan in its war against backward Russia, after Japanese forces thrashed the Russian Army and sank its fleets it became clear that Japan was the greater threat to America’s “Open Door” policy in the Far East. Although repudiating the U.S. commercial treaty with Russia seemed in 1911 an emotionally satisfying blow to haughty Russian anti-Semitism and an affirmation of American idealism, as New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson declared, two years later President Wilson dispatched a new ambassador to Russia to beseech the Russians for a new commercial agreement.

If the contemporary vilification of Putin is not checked it also may have adverse consequences. Contrary to Albright’s pronouncement, neither Putin’s anointed successor as President, Dmitry Medvedev, nor Putin himself champions an autocratic ideology as an alternative to a democratic future, but demonizing and ostracizing Russia may fuel the xenophobic ultranationalists who are more popular across the country than the few liberal democrats in the major cities. Certainly the castigation of Putin as a soulless KGB agent will do nothing to facilitate future interaction between a President McCain or Clinton and a Prime Minister Putin when the United States seeks Russia’s cooperation on real problems such as securing energy supplies and checking nuclear proliferation

http://hnn.us/articles/46462.html

JOE LIEBERMAN: MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT
By JOE LIEBERMAN


February 3, 2008 -- On Tuesday, New Yorkers will go to the polls to vote in a highly tightly contested election that will help determine who will be the next president of the United States.
In this election, we are not just choosing our next president. We are also choosing our commander-in-chief - the person whose responsibility will be to defend our nation at a time of war.

And have no doubt: We are at war.

Our enemy in this struggle is the latest in a long line of totalitarians that Americans have been called on to fight throughout our history: a loose alliance of terrorists and tyrants, bound together by the fanatical ideology of Islamist extremism

Terrorism is the preferred weapon of these Islamist extremists, but it is not their ultimate aim. Their vision is far more ambitious and threatening: a vision of conquest in which huge swaths of the world fall under their vicious and repressive rule.

The Islamist extremists are plotting attacks against us and our allies every day - from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, from London and Madrid to Jerusalem and Islamabad - and, if given the chance, right here at home in America.

From the moment the next president steps into the Oval Office, he or she will face life-and-death decisions in this war. That is why we need a president who is going to be ready to be commander-in-chief from day one - a president who won't need on-the-job training.

And that is why I have decided to cross party lines to endorse Sen. John McCain for president.

I know that it is unusual for someone like me - an Independent Democrat - to support a Republican candidate for president. But the dangers we face as a nation are too profound, and the challenges we face too real, for us to let partisan politics decide who we will support.

After all, the Islamist extremists we are fighting in this war don't distinguish between Democrats and Republicans. They want to kill all of us, because we are all Americans.

That is why we need a leader who can bring us together again as Americans, and who can rally us to stand in solidarity against our enemies. John McCain is that leader.

When others were silent, John had the courage and the conviction to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq, and to call for more troops and a new strategy there.

And when others waivered, and were fleeing the field of battle, John had the courage and the conviction to stand against public opinion and fight for the surge in Iraq - where, at last, today the forces of Islamist extremism are on the run, and we are winning.

This is the kind of wartime leadership we as a nation desperately need in the years ahead - and it is the kind of leadership that you can expect when John McCain is in White House.

Although security in Iraq has improved dramatically thanks to the surge, this is not a moment for complacency. From terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan to the resurgent and aggressive nationalism we are witnessing in Russia, to the petroleum-funded extremism of Hugo Chavez in our own hemisphere, the fact remains that we live in a very dangerous world.

Consider the threat posed by the extremist regime in Iran, which continues to sponsor a rogue's gallery of terrorist proxies across the Middle East and which is zealously working to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is one of the biggest security challenges that the next president is going to face - and there will be no room for error.

Many fine people are running for president this year. But when it comes to keeping our nation safe and solving the problems we face at home, John McCain is the one with the experience, the determination, and the character to lead America forward to a safer, better future.

That is why I hope, next Tuesday, New Yorkers will go to the polls and help make John McCain - a great American patriot - our next great American president.

Joe Lieberman is an independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/02032008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/joe_lieberman__mccain_for_president_657093.htm

I'm for Ron Paul because I believe in American principles and freedom from governmental invasion of privacy and tyrannical foreign policy.

He is the only man willing to speak the truth, come what may.

If you understood human nature, you would know this and could not disagree.

Have an enjoyable 2008.

It portends to be chock FULL of surprises.

No concrete details, IxCimi.

That's why you're for Ron Paul. Paul is a surrender monkey that would reward the terrorists. Barak's middle and last names are the nearly the same as two prominent Muslim terrorists, so draw your own rational conclusion on him.

The Obama plan and Ron Paul's are hardly similar.

With Obama you will get the destruction you seek.

With Paul you would have seen America go up a few notches and regain her footing.

Ron Paul will indeed help the Muslim.

After all, Barack Hussein Osama and Ron Paul have been calling for surrender and retreat for a few years. Just what America needs! Cowardice and support for the enemy! That indeed is Ron Paul's America! I guess I'll have to vote McCain in this election. Atleast he's not for surrender.

Yes, it is. And that's OK.

Actually we are just the last sane and just people left.

The whole cult theme of rushing to online polls for a win is insane and irrational. It seems like the Ron Paul followers have more time than brains. But, that's my opinion.

WIthout Paul, Obama will take the Presidency.

I'll be leaving you to that travesty.
At least you got that right.

Freddy? Nah, I was disappointed.

He was like a corpse. He never got it together. I'm not really happy with these "conservatives". The three that are left are posers, imo, but better than Hillary and the Muslim (imo).

Actually we are just the last sane and just people left.

We don't like liars and cheats.

We don't like the idea of our nation being submerged into a world government without our blessings.

Pretty crotchety of us.

Yeah, I didn't think Ron Paul would

have a chance in hades. The cult-like following scares people.

Well,... that was never much of a concern.

And in your world, Obama will be President.

Thank yourself early and often.

Been too busy... :)

Just wanted to remind how full of sh*t I really am. :)

Somehow, my predictions are accurate. I saw Ron Paul losing huge, but I didn't think McCain would make a good comeback. I just hope the Muslim (imo) doesn't get the DNC Nomination.

Did you get a chance to vote for Freddy before he bolted?

No. Actually, you are the final loser. You will have the pleasure of enjoying the loss of your Republic...

http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/us-troops-asked-if-they-would-shoot-american-citizens1994-combat-arms-survey/

What does this mean to you?


And France is pretty conservative now.

Where ya been?

Dr Paul has more supporters (very active ones at that) than anyone

LMAO.. Funny stuff from the blind side.

Looks like France is calling for IxCimi..

Ron Paul... BIGGEST LOSER with "most money"

Ron Paul flushed again!

See what happens when you're rational like myself? You tend to fire on all cylinders. The Ron Paul cultists are firing on 1 cylinder if any at all.

Oh I know, It's all a conspiracy! It's Diebold part III! LMAO..

"Legalize freedom with Ron Paul!" ...Except on his iHub joke board! If you don't pump Ron Paul on the Ron Paul board, you're off to the chambers!

Chavez’s 21st Century National Socialism
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, January 31, 2008

Hugo Chavez has long vowed to turn Venezuela into a laboratory for “21st century socialism.” But if the latest bully-boy tactics of the Chavez government are any guide, the better name for his platform might be 21st century National Socialism.

Most telling in this regard are the ruling regime’s rapidly deteriorating relations with Venezuela’s Jewish community. As reported recently in the Jewish Forward, it was only last month that a goon squad of government police swarmed down on the Hebraica Jewish community center in the capital of Caracas. Officially, the police had been searching for signs of “subversive activity,” the term’s definition having been expanded under Chavez’s ten-year reign to include any and all dissent from the government’s growingly authoritarian line. In the event, they found none, leading Venezuelan Jewish leaders to protest, compellingly, that the raid was little more than an act of state-backed intimidation and harassment aimed at the Jewish community.

Lending heft to the charge is a disquieting recent history. Hardly a unique event, last month’s raid darkly echoes the November 2004 storming of the same Hebraica community center by armed police thugs. Then as now, the pretext for the operation -- a search for evidence supposedly related to the murder of a local prosecutor -- was tenuous. Then as now, the police presence seemed calculated to put the fear of “Chavismo” into the country’s vulnerable Jewish community.

Back in 2004, apologists for Chavez insisted that the police had acted independent of the government. Chavez, it was claimed, could bear no personal responsibility for their actions. Never convincing, the defense is even more strained in the context of the most recent raid. Particularly notable is that the police force that conducted the raid was under the control of the Interior Ministry; the ministry, in turn, is under the direct command of Chavez himself. The idea that he was unaware of its conduct is too preposterous to credit. (In this connection, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the deputy head of the ministry is one Tarek al-Assaimi, an erstwhile leftist student leader whose father had the dubious honor of serving as the Venezuelan representative of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party.)

To dismiss the targeted crackdowns on the Jewish community as isolated incidents is to ignore just how poisoned Venezuelan politics has become against the country’s Jewish residents. On Chavez’s indulgent watch, the state-sponsored press churns out a steady stream of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel invective and conspiracy theories. One television program in particular, called the “The Razor,” has alleged repeatedly that Mossad agents in Venezuela are working in the shadows to undermine Chavez’s government -- a sinister charge that would not have embarrassed the editors of Nazi gazette Der Sturmer. Denunciations of supposedly subversive “Zionist” influences within Venezuela have become routine.

Lest one discount these attacks as the work of marginal extremists and nativists, it bears noting that many originate with Chavez himself. Having ascended to power on the strength of his racially charged populism, with its caustic attacks Venezuela’s largely white economic elite, Chavez has proven all too willing to discriminate against disfavored groups. Thus, in the course of a Christmas speech in 2006, Chavez took a special opportunity to vilify “the descendants of those who crucified Christ,” a “minority” that has “taken ownership of the riches of the world.” Friendly journalists on the Left rushed to contend that Chavez wasn’t necessarily talking about Jews, but the Venezuelan media, seething with contempt for “Zionists… the destructive sect of radical Jews,” weren’t fooled. They knew precisely which despised “minority” the president had in mind.

It little helped his defenders’ case that just a few months earlier, in September of 2006, Chavez openly had declared his solidarity with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, pledging to stand beside the man best known for his fanatical promise to wipe the Jewish state off the global map. If that was insufficient to demonstrate which way his sympathies inclined, Chavez also embraced the terrorist cause of Hezbollah, reportedly devoting $1 million of the Venezuelan treasury to print up posters of himself alongside Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, these to be displayed in a “victory” rally in Beirut. (Contrariwise, Chavez deplored Israel’s retaliation to Hezbollah aggression in the summer of 2006, likening the Jewish state to the Nazis and promptly recalling Venezuela’s diplomatic representatives in Tel Aviv.)

The hateful message has not been lost on Venezuela’s Jewish community. When Chavez was first elected to office in 1998, that community numbered between 16,000 and 20,000. Since then, it has dwindled to just over 12,000. Within the community itself, moreover, the tone has changed dramatically. Conscious of their minority status, Venezuela’s Jews initially sought to downplay their difficulties with the Chavez government, even chiding American-Jewish organizations for intervening on their behalf. No longer. In the wake of the most recent raid, prominent Jewish leaders in Caracas unabashedly described the Chavez regime as the “first anti-Jewish government in our history.”

And Jews aren’t the only targets of Chavez‘s political thuggery. Incompetent or ideologically unwilling to address any of Venezuela’s systemic problems -- be it runaway inflation, which topped 22 percent for the last year, or food shortages caused by ruinous price controls -- Chavez has embarked on a nationwide search for scapegoats.

Ironically, the latest to incur Chavez’s wrath are the poor farmers and agricultural workers the self-styled populist claims to champion. Last week, Chavez proclaimed that his government will seize the farms and milk-producing plants of Venezuelans who dare to sell their products abroad.

And yet, one of the main motivations for selling products abroad are the price controls instituted by the Chavez government. Artificially reducing the price of foodstuffs, these controls have, as anyone with even a basic economics training might have predicted, ushered in food shortages and fueled food smuggling. But where a wiser leader might have eliminated price controls, Chavez has preferred to denounce small producers as traitors to their country while threatening to dispossess them of their businesses. Banks have been promised similar punishment unless they make government-approved loans at government-approved interest rates. Meanwhile, opposition is not an option. Media outlets that fail to toe the government’s line -- such as the popular but politically independent RCTV, shuttered by Chavez last May -- already have been silenced.

The December defeat of a referendum that would have eliminated presidential term limits, effectively enthroning Chavez as president-for-life, has been widely interpreted as a humbling experience for the aspiring dictator. In reality, it seems to have made him more brazen. And if it is the case that Jews are the canary in the coal mine of civilization, then recent events provide every reason to think that far worse is in store for Venezuela under Chavez’s one-man rule.

http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=645B7996-707E-45CF-8CF0-CEBADBE777E5

HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great one!!!!!!!!!!!

Bishop warns of 'Islamic areas'

Dr Nazir-Ali criticised the 'multi-faith' agenda
Islamic extremism has turned some communities into no-go areas for people of a different faith or race, a Church of England bishop has said.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said non-Muslims may find it difficult to live or work in some places.

He said there was "hostility" in those areas and described the government's multicultural policies as divisive.

Muslims and some politicians have accused the bishop of scaremongering.

But other politicians agreed with the bishop, saying he had highlighted a real problem.

It comes as the government said Muslim women would be offered assertiveness training in an attempt to fight extremism in their communities.

The courses will form part of a campaign to get more Muslim participation in UK civic life.

'Christian cause'

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Dr Nazir-Ali said there had been a worldwide resurgence of Islamic extremism, leading to young people growing up alienated from the country they lived in.

Not only locally, but at the national level also the establishment of the Church of England is being eroded

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali
Bishop of Rochester


Profile: Michael Nazir-Ali
Women 'to fight extremism'

It had also turned "already separate communities into 'no-go' areas".

He said there had been attempts to "impose an 'Islamic' character on certain areas", for example, by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques.

The Muslim Council of Britain said the mosque call was no different from church bells ringing.

Naved Siddiqi, of the Islamic Society of Britain, said: "It seems like Dr Nazir-Ali is really looking for someone else to blame for the declining church attendances in Britain, and aims fire at another faith group."

He added: "As for these 'no-go' areas, Dr Nazir-Ali hasn't named one that we can assess, and nor can I.

"Yes, there will be many spots of social deprivation but these cut across ethnicity and faith, so religion doesn't come into it."

If there is no evidence he can put forward then it boils down to simple scaremongering

Ibrahim Mogra,
Muslim Council of Britain

Dr Nazir-Ali warned of a multi-faith "mish mash" as the government promoted its integration policy. He said it was "an agenda which still lacks the underpinning of a moral and spiritual vision".

He said the role of chaplains in such places as hospitals, prisons and educational establishments was in jeopardy "either because of financial cuts or because the authorities want 'multi-faith' provision, without regard to the distinctively Christian character of the nation's laws, values, customs and culture".

"Not only locally, but at the national level also the establishment of the Church of England is being eroded," Dr Nazir-Ali said.

He added: "If it had not been for the black majority churches and the recent arrival of people from central and eastern Europe, the Christian cause in many of our cities would have looked a lost one."

'Gross caricature'

The new leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, was highly critical of the bishop's claims, describing them as "a gross caricature of reality".

He told Sky News: "I strongly disagree with him. I don't think he has produced any evidence that there are really no-go areas - that is an extraordinarily inflammatory way of putting it."

He added: "Clearly there is a legitimate debate to be had there, because of the rise of extremism, particularly for young men in these communities."

But Conservative home affairs spokesman David Davis said the bishop had rightly drawn attention to a "deeply serious problem".

He said: "The government's confused and counter-productive approach risks creating a number of closed societies instead of one open cohesive one."

We need to keep this issue in its proper context

Communities and Local Government spokesman

He said Labour's support for multiculturalism risked creating a situation of "voluntary apartheid".

A Communities and Local Government spokesman said: "We need to keep this issue in its proper context.

"The overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful, make a huge contribution to British life and find the views of a small minority of violent extremists completely abhorrent. Britain also has a proud tradition of different communities living together side by side.

"But we are not complacent - the government has completely rebalanced its community cohesion strategy putting far greater emphasis on promoting integration and shared British values (as the Bishop acknowledges in his article)."

Scaremongering

Muslim youth organisation The Ramadhan Foundation said it was disturbed at the bishop's comments and urged him to step down, saying it was against the tolerant teachings of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain's inter-faith relations committee, described the bishop's comments as "alarming".

He said: "If there is no evidence he can put forward then it boils down to simple scaremongering.

"It is very worrying if parts of our country become no-go areas for anybody, and it is not acceptable.

"To suggest that a handful of people are beginning to create such areas where nobody else can go unless they are Muslim needs evidence to back such claims."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7173599.stm

Top economist says America could plunge into recessionSuzy Jagger in New York
Losses arising from America’s housing recession could triple over the next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the United States, one of the world’s leading economists has told The Times.

Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.

Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller house-price index, said: “American real estate values have already lost around $1 trillion [£503 billion]. That could easily increase threefold over the next few years. This is a much bigger issue than sub-prime. We are talking trillions of dollars’ worth of losses.”

He said that US futures markets had priced in further declines in house prices in the short term, with contracts on the S&P Shiller index pointing to decreases of up to 14 per cent.

Related Links
Middle America will continue to feel the pinch
Wall Street braces itself for more sub-prime misery
“Over the next five years, the futures contracts are pointing to losses of around 35 per cent in some areas, such as Florida, California and Las Vegas. There is a good chance that this housing recession will go on for years,” he said.

Professor Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, a phrase later used by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said: “This is a classic bubble scenario. A few years ago house prices got very high, pushed up because of investor expectations. Americans have fuelled the myth that prices would never fall, that values could only go up. People believed the story. Now there is a very real chance of a big recession.”

He pointed out that signs at the beginning of 2007 that had indicated that some states were beginning to experience a recovery in house prices had proved to be false: “States such as Massachusetts had seen some increases at the beginning of the year. Denver also looked like it had a different path. Now all states are falling.”

Until two years ago, each of America’s 50 states had experienced a prolonged housing boom, with properties in some – such as Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada – doubling in price, fuelled by cheap credit and lax lending practices to borrowers who ordinarily would not have been able to secure a mortgage. Two years ago, the northeastern states of America became the first to slide into a recession after 17 successive interest-rate rises between June 2004 and August 2006 hit the property market.

Last week, new numbers from the S&P/Case Shiller index showed that house prices had declined in October at their fastest rate for more than six years, with homes in Miami losing 12 per cent of their value.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3111659.ece

A Liberal Christmas

That's right. Buy gifts for everyone with the taxpayers money and act like you are the generous one.

Really? How?

Totally different indeed...

Inept and his followers are cult-like.

LOL! Apples and Oranges.

Ron Paul is very different kind of man.

Keep tryin!

See you Nov 5th! ; )

this is why we fight

Suicide bomb DVD targets children
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
July 7 bomber Sidique Khan came from the same area A children's DVD which appears to glorify suicide bombing was being investigated by police today after being found on sale.

The disc, filled with haunting images and dramatic music, features a young girl proclaiming that she will follow in the footsteps of her suicide bomber mother.

The DVD, which was purchased in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is set to music sung by children in Arabic with English subtitles.



West Yorkshire was home to three of the suicide bombers responsible for the July 7 London bombings - Mohammad Sidique Khan, from Dewsbury, and Hasib Mir Hussain and Shehzad Tanweer, both from Beeston in Leeds.

The first video shows an Arab woman playing with her two children before leaving her home with dynamite tucked into her dress.

She is approached by uniformed soldiers and the camera pauses on her thoughtful expression before a large explosion blazes across the screen.

After finding out about the suicide on television, her small daughter finds a stick of dynamite in her mother's wardrobe and turns to the camera with the subtitles: "My love will not be by words. I will follow my mother's steps."

The head of Leeds counter terrorism unit (CTU), Detective Chief Superintendent John Parkinson, said: "We can confirm a DVD has been passed to the CTU for further investigation.

"The DVD has been initially reviewed and officers are carrying out further inquiries regarding its content to establish whether or not any offences have been committed."

The material was uncovered by the Yorkshire Post and passed to the police, who were unable to say where in Bradford the DVDs were being sold.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=80511&in_page_id=34

seems to me perot had money too, didn't work out so well for him

Yes, I imagine you could.

You like cryptic. It feeds your urge to irk.

Well, sorry.

I'm not really interested in playing a silly game.

Dr Paul has more supporters (very active ones at that) than anyone and certainly more cash coming in than any other Republican. That money to him is like 4 times as efficient than any other candidate.

Fiscally responsible!

We will cruise to the finish line, the winners.

Thanks, Ixcimi - I thought it was just another ordinary post ....