Thank you, Andrea Mitchell. No, really, I mean it. Thank you for providing some of the clearest evidence yet of just how much the press corps following Barack Obama has blinders on for its man. Mitchell has let it be known that "the people covering the campaign" don't think Obama played the race card with his currency crack.
Conservative bloggers aren’t waiting for The One Who Is The Change He Seeks. No, they’re doing it for themselves.
Doing what, you ask?
Doing the job Barack Obama wasn’t willing to do: Helping out a little school in Kenya that bears Obama’s name and which he promised to assist.
"Sorry...I'm too busy to care..." Which points up the problem with "hope". Even when specific promises are made, "hope" is just a word. You can't deposit hope. It doesn't earn compound interest, it won't buy a water pump, a desk, or a chalk board. Hell, it won't buy chalk. Obama was happy to give the school hope. Why wouldn't he be? It cost him nothing.
Note to prominent Democrats, if you're going to promise children and their families all this great charitable aid, you may want to, oh, I dunno, follow through? Kinda makes you look like a total dick when you don't keep your promise.
Have you heard about this? In a 59-page report titled, A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. (PDF), the left-leaning Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies tries to make the case that global warming disproportionately impacts black people...
...I grabbed the bait, and now I’m stuck on the hook. Help!...
...“African Americans are thirteen percent of the U.S. population and on average emit nearly twenty percent less greenhouse gases than non-Hispanic whites per capita. Though far less responsible for climate change, African Americans are significantly more vulnerable to its effects than non-Hispanic whites. Health, housing, economic well-being, culture, and social stability are harmed from such manifestations of climate change as storms, floods, and climate variability. African Americans are also more vulnerable to higher energy bills, unemployment, recessions caused by global energy price shocks, and a greater economic burden from military operations designed to protect the flow of oil to the U.S.”
What we still don't know as the years drift by since September 11, is how deep the psychoses of jihadism reach within Islam in general, and the West's Muslim populations in particular. How many are revolted by the slaughter of those Beslan schoolchildren, or the beheading of Daniel Pearl and other hostages, and how many are willing to rationalize it? More to the point, of those Muslims who are affronted by what is done in the name of their religion, what percentage are prepared to do anything about it? How many Western Muslims have formed "Not in Our Name" groups and marched to protest the bombings of their fellow citizens in New York, Madrid or London? How many have joined "Islam Against Suicide Bombing" or banded together to force jihadist imams out of their mosques? How many are prepared to stand up and say they didn't come to America or Europe to raise their children as Saudis?
Hello? Anyone out there?
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A jaw-dropping political miracle may be on the horizon. No, I’m not talking about the second coming of the Obamessiah. I’m talking about the long-deserved comeuppance of troop-smearing, pork-feasting, scandal-tainted Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania.
The 18-term congressman’s challenger, staunch conservative Republican newcomer William Russell, raised nearly $670,000 in the second fundraising quarter. Earmark king Murtha scraped together a measly $119,000. Russell’s underdog campaign bested Murtha without the perks of incumbency, national name recognition, big PAC donations or mainstream media support.
Even more amazing: The 45-year-old Russell, a Desert Storm veteran, former Army lieutenant colonel and Army reservist who survived the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, was not even publicly campaigning during the quarter. He is on active duty with the Army until after Aug. 1 and is barred from actively campaigning until then.
Cynthia McKinney-Prince?
At least he admits he has a problem.
On Wednesday, presumptive Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama blamed his wife's high negative ratings on "the conservative press—Fox News and the National Review" as well as "rants by Sean Hannity."
He also said, "And you know, the problem is that rarely do these folks have the guts to say it to your face."
The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it's more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don't buy extras like ice cream anymore. Instead, they eat a lot of starches like potatoes and noodles.
WASHINGTON — Poverty, poor health and plenty of school dropouts have put the San Joaquin Valley's 20th Congressional District dead last in a new national scorecard that ranks the overall well-being of residents.
Even notoriously grim Appalachia fares better than the congressional district that sweeps in Fresno, Kings and Kern counties, the study, which was released Wednesday, shows. The assessment of health, education and income ranks the district 436th out of 436 districts nationwide.
In 2003 in Stockton, California, 70 percent of the 2,300 babies born in San Joaquin General Hospital's maternity ward were anchor babies, and 45 percent of Stockton children under age six are Latino (up from 30 percent in 1993). In 1994, 74,987 anchor babies in California hospital maternity units cost $215 million and constituted 36 percent of all Medi-Cal births. Now they account for substantially more than half....
Cristobal Silverio emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker.
He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 – all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" – an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently.
But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa had yet another child, Cristian.
The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another $12,000 for their two "anchor babies."
In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease."
"We have significant issues in the Valley that reflect rural inequality," said Adela de la Torre, a University of California at Davis professor and adviser for the new study. "The Valley has always been an area that's underserved."
"We have difficult challenges; there is no doubt," acknowledged Rep. Jim Costa, the Fresno Democrat who has represented the 20th Congressional District since 2005.
Costa, echoing de la Torre, stressed that "we lag in terms of dollars spent in the Valley, compared to other parts of the United States." The non-partisan Congressional Research Service likewise noted in a December 2005 report requested by Costa and other Valley lawmakers that the region "received fewer federal funds" than other parts of California or the United States overall.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to do all it could to halt the imminent executions of five Mexicans until the court makes a final judgment in a dispute over suspects' rights.
NEW YORK -- Convicted steroid distributor Kirk Radomski handed over shipping receipts to federal investigators for a package of human growth hormone that he claims he sent to Roger Clemens' home in Texas in 2002 or 2003, the New York Daily News reported late Tuesday night on its website.
Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner, is under investigation for perjury after telling Congress he never used steroids or human growth hormone. Brian McNamee, Clemens' personal trainer, told Congress that Clemens used performance-enhancing drugs and that he provided them to the 300-game winner.
The Daily News reported, according to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, that Radomski is also believed to have provided the government with new information and receipts for drug shipments to other players.
Radomski is a former New York Mets clubhouse employee whose allegations formed much of former Senate majority leader George Mitchell's report on steroid use in major league baseball. Radomski was sentenced to five years of probation in February after cooperating with government investigators.
McNamee's allegations about Clemens in the Mitchell Report led to Senate hearings with Clemens.
The Daily News reported, according to the sources, that the package Radomski sent was addressed to William Roger Clemens, in care of Brian McNamee. The Daily News' sources said McNamee did not sign for the package.
According to the sources, the timing of the shipment to Clemens' Houston home coincides roughly with the dates when Clemens' wife, Debbie, used human growth hormone in preparation for her participation in a pictorial in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. They also expect the evidence to corroborate McNamee's claims that Clemens was behind his wife's use and was present when McNamee injected her just after the drugs arrived at the couple's home.
Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he wasn't aware of the government receiving the receipts from Radomski.
"I can't imagine that there's any truth to that at all," Hardin said. "We'll find out one day Roger never received or took the stuff."
Team owner Bill Ford had put together the perfect team for the Detroit Lions.
The only thing missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he Couldn't find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl victory.
One night while watching CNN, he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan.
In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghani soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand grenade straight into a window from 80 yards away. Then he threw another from 50 yards down a chimney, and finally hit a passing car going 80 miles per hour.
"I've got to get this guy!" Lurie said to himself " He has the perfect arm!"
He brings the young Afghan to the States and teaches him the great game of football ...sure enough the Lions go on to win the Super Bowl.
The young Afghan is hailed as a hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants to do is call his mother. "Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl.
"I don't want to talk to you," the old Muslim woman says. "You deserted us. You are not my son."
"Mother, I don't think you understand," pleads the son, "I've just won the greatest sporting event in the world!"
"No! Let me tell you," his mother retorts, "At this very moment there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!"
The old lady pauses then tearfully says,"I will never forgive you for making us move to Detroit!
GOODBYE air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That's been the trend in Europe for the past three decades - but unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more of the sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.
Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measured between 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar-radiation measurements over the same period. Aerosol concentrations dropped by up to 60 per cent over the 29-year period, while solar radiation rose by around 1 watt per square metre (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL034228).
"The decrease in aerosols probably accounts for at least half of the warming over Europe in the last 30 years," says Rolf Philipona, a co-author of the study at MeteoSwiss, Switzerland's national weather service.
While it's not California's tallest mountain, the tongues of ice creeping down Shasta's volcanic flanks give the solitary mountain another distinction. Its seven glaciers, referred to by American Indians as the footsteps made by the creator when he descended to Earth, are the only historical glaciers in the continental U.S. known to be growing.
With global warming causing the retreat of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades, Mt. Shasta is actually benefiting from changing weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean.
"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean."
Authored by Ian Joughin, a geologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and Slawek Tulaczyk, a professor of earth sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz, the study found that the ice sheet is gaining 26.8 billions tons of ice a year.
Much like Doran, Joughin sounded almost regretful about his scientific findings, recognizing that it contradicts the global warming orthdoxy.
"It could be this part of the ice sheet is not necessarily sensitive to global warming," he said.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- California is making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores, figures that take into account emissions from vehicle use and fuel production.
The law requiring the labels goes into effect at the start of next year for all 2009 model cars, though its expected the labels will be popping up on cars in the coming months.
The labeling law forces cars for sale to display a global warming score, on a scale of one to 10, which is based on how vehicles in the same model year compare to one another. The higher the score, the cleaner a car is. The score takes into account emissions related to production of fuel for each vehicle as well as the direct emissions from vehicles.
Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.
Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.
They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.
Deputy headmaster Keith Plant said: "It's difficult to know at the moment whether this was part of the curriculum or not. I am not an RE teacher, I am an English teacher.
"At the moment it is our enterprise week and many of our members of staff are away.
"The particular member of staff you need to speak to isn't around. I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the Press before coming to me.
"I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events, but that is all I can give you at the moment."
