COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Ludacris, Obama is Here. Black Values and the Culture War.


Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit." -Communist, Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to Obama

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism


Investors Business Daily


During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.

It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.

Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

Among his proposed "investments":

  • "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
  • "Free" college tuition.
  • "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
  • "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
  • "Free" job training (even for criminals).
  • "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
  • "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
  • More subsidized public housing.
  • A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
  • And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.

Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit."

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)

With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."

He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.

Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.

But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.


"Proud at last, proud at last, Thanks God Almighty, proud at last."

210 comments:

  1. Well, it figures. He looks to me to be left-handed as well, from the way he shot the basketball. And took a punch at the punching bag.

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  2. The allegations relate to Mr. Obama’s relationship, while a high school student, with Frank Marshall Davis. Mr. Davis, now deceased, was a prominent African American poet, journalist, and advocate for civil rights in the US.

    He was born in Kansas in 1905. Among his many accomplishments, Davis wrote and published four highly acclaimed collections of poetry and was editor of several Black-owned newspapers like the Atlanta World, the Chicago Evening Bulletin, the Chicago Star and others.

    He headed the Associated Negro Press organization, a press association serving the black press, in the 30’s and 40’s. He worked for the Republican National Committee in the Wendell Willkie campaign of 1940.


    Honolulu Community-Media Council Condemns Shoddy Journalism

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  3. Our government at work. Self Deport

    Pure genius.

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  4. He worked for the Republican National Committee in the Wendell Willkie campaign of 1940.

    Must have been as a mole.

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  5. Gary Stern, co-leader of an international research program on sea ice, said it's the same story all around the Arctic.

    Speaking from the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen in Canada's north, Stern said He hadn't seen any ice in weeks. Plans to set up an ice camp last February had to be abandoned when usually dependable ice didn't form for the second year in a row, he said.

    "Nobody on the ship is surprised anymore," Stern said. "We've been trying to get the word out for the longest time now that things are happening fast and they're going to continue to happen fast."


    Chunk Breaks Off Arctic

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  6. I think it was Doug that pointed out the other day that there has been some unusual volcanic activity under the ocean around the pole, which may be causing some of this.

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  7. Undersea volcanic activity has been blamed for a mass extinction in the seas 93 million years ago.

    ...

    Helped by a sudden sluggish shift in ocean circulation, the remains of these minuscule organisms littered the sea bed in thick layers, and over geological time became transformed into oil.

    ...

    The bed of the present-day Caribbean was formed by the huge lava flows thought to have been involved. However, the researchers say the flows would have preceded the extinction by up to 23,000 years.


    Sea Die-out Blamed On Volcanoes

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  8. Do you have a particular POV, sam?

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  9. Looking over that list of proposals, it looks like we're going to taken care of, folks, K-College, and beyond, right to the grave. All universal and free. Nobody to pay for anything. This looks to me to match Hillary's Christmas Tree, and go several presents better. Can one opt out of this system?

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  10. Some of the hurdles he'll have to overcome, as I've observed previously, include:

    • No Democrat who hails from north of the Mason-Dixon line has been elected since 1960.

    • No candidate in the modern primary era has ever been elected in November after failing to win more than one of the nation's seven largest states in either its pre-convention primary or, if the state didn't hold a primary, its caucuses.

    • No candidate in modern times has ever been elected president with a voting record that could be identified as his party's most liberal or conservative, yet in 2007 Obama was designated as the former (by the National Journal).


    Ain't Over Yet

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  11. It was entertainment night at the Senior Centre.

    Claude the hypnotist exclaimed: 'I'm here to put you into a trance; I intend
    to hypnotize each and every member of the audience.'

    The excitement was almost electric as Claude withdrew a beautiful antique
    pocket watch from his coat.

    'I want you each to keep your eye on this antique watch, it's a very special
    watch. It's been in my family for six generations'

    He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting,
    'Watch the watch, watch the watch, watch the watch...'

    The crowd became mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, light
    gleaming off its polished surface. Hundreds of pairs of eyes followed the
    swaying watch when suddenly, it slipped from the Hypnotist's fingers and
    fell to the floor, breaking into a hundred Pieces.

    'SHIT!' yelled the Hypnotist.

    It took three days to clean up the Senior Centre.

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  12. :)

    That senior center must not be able to afford Depend.

    I demand universal and free Depend coverage.

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  13. Is corporate welfare a better investment?

    It has distorted and deformed political governance, distorted and deformed political accountability, distorted and deformed economic and social accountability. In effect, to borrow dRat's words, the corporates socialized their corporate costs and while privatizing their profit.

    No Thanks.

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  14. ..the corporates socialized their corporate costs while privatizing their profit..

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  15. CERN FAILS

    This gives comfort to all us worried about black holes, er, white holes, , er, black and white holes, being created and swallowing us all up.

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  16. "Prominent evangelical leaders are warning Sen. John McCain against picking former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate, saying their troops will abandon the Republican ticket on Election Day if that happens."

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  17. Can one opt out of this system?

    I can only see secession and devolution to a very loose federal system. The American ideal has been lost and smothered, regulated, strangled and is entering the stage of wholesale taking by one class from another.

    The founders recognized it as a possibility. They were right.

    If you are a member of the extracted class, a person of non-color, a federal non-person, you will have one last time to possibly extract victory from certain defeat. Recognize your peril and vote and get the fellow fools in your life to register and do so as well. Ludacris and Obama are the real racialists. They recognize their tribe.

    With conviction and merciless application of power they are going to take from your sorry white asses one and all because they can. If you are white, you are not right. Pay up or move on.

    The racialists can disable your brain and freeze your will to resist by whispering or yelling the magic word "racists". They have paralyzed a generation with the word.

    When everyone is balkanized into special interest groups and granted privilege and rights by a federal bureaucracy,rights and property forcibly extracted from others, because they do not fit into that class, it is over.

    Diversity and multiculturalism, apology and reparations is change with consequences.

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  18. Sleazy Racebaiter '08!

    "SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama, the first black candidate with a shot at winning the White House, says John McCain and his Republican allies will try to scare them by saying Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." "

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  19. LA utility wary of California's emissions strategy

    At issue is a key strategy of creating a system in which high-polluting industries can buy credits from cleaner ones.

    The Department of Water and Power relies on cheap, out-of-state coal for some of its energy, which has helped keep its electricity rates among the lowest in the state.
    But it's one of the dirtiest ways to generate power, making coal-fired plants a major liability for the utility as California forges ahead with a strategy to cut carbon emissions dramatically under the greenhouse gas law Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed in 2006.

    Officials with the utility, which serves 4 million residents, project it will have to pay $700 million annually in fees for burning coal under the cap-and-trade system being considered. That will divert money it currently spends on expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, said David Nahai, the DWP's general manager.
    ---
    "The whole idea is we want to put a price on carbon so carbon-intensive power is more expensive to produce," said Frank Wolak, a Stanford University economics professor who specializes in energy.
    ---
    The Professor Absent a Mind

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  20. McCain or Obama, the difference is in the margins, not in their substance.
    The proof of that tasting, in the Housing Bill just passed and signed.

    The bill addresses that imbalance by creating a new program within the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The National Housing Trust Fund does not depend on annual appropriations by Congress, which might never arrive, given the size of the federal budget deficits, the costs of two wars and runaway health care programs.

    Instead, it taps a portion of the profits that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac make on their mortgage loans, estimated to yield at least $300 million a year and perhaps as much as $700 million.

    Fannie and Freddie have had a rough time in the current housing slump, but all the sponsors of this legislation told me they are confident the two big lenders will survive. In one of the compromises that cleared the way for passage of the housing bill, next year the profits of Fannie and Freddie will be held in reserve to offset any losses the government incurs in helping seriously strapped mortgage-holders. So it will be 2010 before the trust fund starts being funded.

    As the money comes in, the legislation provides that the trust fund will distribute it each year to the states, using a formula that measures the seriousness of their low-income housing needs. At least 90 percent of the funds must be used to construct or rehab rental units. All of the benefits are ticketed for very low- or extremely low-income households.


    The GOP signed on, along witj GWBush who did not make his veto threat stick.
    Neither will Maverick.

    You guys should have gotten motivated years ago, not waiting for Obama to pull your tail.

    But then you'd been outside the mainstream.

    The thousand points of compassionate light, you all jumped on board that "worthy" piece of Federal expansion.

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  21. "As to Trade Center 7, sure looks like a classic implosion demolition, to me.
    Certainly not a blazing inferno, from stem to sternum.

    Which is not the same as stating that Darth Cheney and his neo-con minions used mercenaries to do the deed, to provoke a war.

    That the Federals covered up the terrorists ability to strike the building in that manner, that is a scenario I'd believe.

    Even bet a couple of Ameros on it.
    "
    ---
    Them terrorists are CLEVER!

    ...I'll bet you can't find a professional demolition man in the country that can rig a building such that his setup weathers 8 hours of flame and then flawlesslessly performs to bring down the building.

    The terrorists would have to accomplish that with the added handicap of having to set it up and leave it all w/o being discovered!

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  22. That is right, doug.

    They'd had to have gotten into the building over the weekend.

    Pesky little terrorists.

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  23. Why you assume the set-up came after the air attack is beyond me.

    It would have been completed, prior to the strike.

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  24. ...and then the fuses, timers, and etc would be destroyed, or set off, by the fire.

    Randomly.

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  25. "Why you assume the set-up came after the air attack is beyond me."
    ---
    Constructing straw men out of thin air!

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  26. I'll bet the Russel Co hired them!

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  27. Not at all, doug.

    Military grade explosives do not explode, when lit afire.
    Though they will burn.

    Point of fact, amigo

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  28. ...and the fuses and timers?

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  29. How many Ameros do you have to place on that conjecture, doug?

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  30. Electronicly, with radio controlled detonators.

    Used them in Panama in 1981.

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  31. ...if they will burn, then they will not explode on schedule.

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  32. Fire proof receivers hidden throughout the building.
    Damn Clever Terrorists!
    (but the explosives would still burn)

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  33. Unfortunately, that did not occur. The fire was in the wrong locale, to effect the demo vharges.

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  34. The building was not engulfed in flame, doug.

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  35. No thanks, I've got to look up a green monkey alien for al-Bob.
    You conspiracy freaks are keeping me busy.

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  36. 55 years ago, world was awed — briefly — by Atlanta 'alien' ajc.com

    barbers and a butcher took a dead monkey in 1953, lopped off its tail and applied a liberal dose of hair remover and some green coloring to the carcass.

    Then they left the primate on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car.

    "If we had been five minutes earlier, we would have caught 'em in the act," said Sherley Brown, the officer who happened on the scene.

    The barbers, Edward Watters and Tom Wilson, and the butcher, Arnold "Buddy" Payne, told the policeman they came upon a red, saucer-shaped object in the road that night. They said several 2-foot-tall creatures were scurrying about and the trio hit one with their pickup before the others jumped back in the saucer and blasted skyward — leaving the highway scorched.

    Brown took down the strange account and filed a report at police headquarters before going home.

    Soon after his shift ended, he said, "the phone started ringing off the hook."

    "They had the Air Force and everybody else trying to find out about it," said Brown, since retired in 1985.

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  37. None so blind as those that will not see

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  38. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  39. Doug: At issue is a key strategy of creating a system in which high-polluting industries can buy credits from cleaner ones.

    There's also a new program whereby men who beat up their wives can buy credits from men who don't beat up their wives.

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  40. It's all a question of what is used for a stick.

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  41. What's the official explanation for how WTC 7 came down?

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  42. Does it matter? It never did before.

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  43. WTC 7


    It was ZOG...

    With the help of the Free Masons (they hated the layout of the ALL the buildings)

    With the help of the Mossad (they are Joos for Christ's sake)

    With the help of the CIA (they of course are a Fraternity of Yale "boners")

    With the help of the Jewish Land Owners (and designers, Joos redesigned the NEW one.. Job security ya know)

    With the help of the NSA (Ollie North still trying to excuse his "security fence against OBL)

    In the end, I take credit for everything...

    from killing the Christ's, to the sinking of Atlantis, to the Free Mason, to the Opium wars with China, and dont forget the Slave Trade & Prohibition All Joos all the time...

    BTW we we are so powerful how come we only have one tiny postage sized (oil free) piece of sand?

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  44. teresita said...
    Doug: At issue is a key strategy of creating a system in which high-polluting industries can buy credits from cleaner ones.

    There's also a new program whereby men who beat up their wives can buy credits from men who don't beat up their wives.

    Now that's quite the MAN hating bias...

    Now if you said:

    "There's also a new program whereby women who wear flannel can buy credits from real women who don't."

    That would MAKE SENSE, and guess what, No Anger!

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  45. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  46. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  47. Today is Milton Friedman's birthday.

    He would have been 96.

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  48. Expanding Trade Is a Key to Winning Presidency


    Republican John McCain's recent free-trade tour to Mexico and Colombia highlights the stark differences on international trade between the two major-party presidential candidates. While expanding trade would be best for America, there is resistance in states like Michigan and from Democratic hopeful Barack Obama.

    McCain describes himself as an unabashed free trader, and his record in Congress proves it. McCain has voted the free-trade position on almost 90 percent of the major trade bills that have come before the Senate in the past 15 years.

    McCain supports the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. He voted for a 2005 free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. He voted for permanent normal trade relations with China while opposing punitive tariffs against China over its currency. He opposed the protectionist and subsidy-laden farm bills of 2002 and 2008. He supports the proposed free trade agreement with our South American ally Colombia.

    While acknowledging that trade dislocates some U.S. workers, McCain argues that free trade fuels growth and innovation to the benefit of most Americans. Since the passage of NAFTA in 1993, the U.S. economy has added 26 million net new jobs, real wages and benefits for the average worker have climbed 23 percent, and manufacturing output is up more than 50 percent. Appealing to history, McCain points to the Great Depression that followed passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 and the deeper ties that free trade forged with our allies during the Cold War.

    In contrast, Obama has embraced a far more skeptical view of trade. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has supported free trade on four of 11 major votes. He voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement and in support of the China currency tariffs. He supported the 2008 farm bill and opposes the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. In a debate with Hillary Clinton before the March Ohio primary, Obama said he would "use the hammer of a potential opt-out" to force our two NAFTA neighbors, Canada and Mexico, to reopen the agreement to insert labor and environmental provisions.

    Obama's record and rhetoric are not uniformly opposed to trade liberalization. Along with McCain, he supported the Oman and Peru pacts. And in contrast to McCain, Obama actually wants to loosen the failed, 48-year-old trade and travel embargo against Cuba. In his best-selling book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama acknowledges that trade expansion can benefit the nation while rationalizing his opposition to major trade agreements such as CAFTA.

    At first glance, the politics of trade would seem to favor Obama. Most Americans tell pollsters they are wary of the impact of trade on jobs and manufacturing. But reservations about trade, though widely held, have not been decisive in presidential elections.

    John Kerry, Ross Perot, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale all tried to play the protectionist card, but none made it to the White House.

    Obama's skeptical line on trade contrasts not only with McCain but with the most recent Democratic president. Bill Clinton championed trade expansion as an important plank in his centrist economic program -- successfully championing NAFTA, the Uruguay Round agreements on world trade, the World Trade Organization and permanent normal trade relations with China.

    Obama and fellow Democrats like to point to the economic boom of the 1990s while rejecting the Clinton trade agenda that helped to fuel that growth.

    The bipartisan policy of trade expansion has served America's broader interests for the past half century. If Barack Obama wants to polish his presidential credentials, he should do the same.

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  49. From the Foreign Policy blog:

    Is T. Boone Pickens full of it?
    Thu, 07/31/2008 - 11:41am

    Short answer: yes.

    The longer answer is provided by Anthony Rubenstein in the LA Times:

    Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is pushing a national campaign to make the U.S. "energy independent" through wind power and vehicles that run on natural gas. His blitz of TV ads featuring his own down-home voice has picked up a lot of admiring news coverage. To date, Pickens has yet to explain whose dime will pay for this.

    Well, Californians can clarify exactly whose dime it will be: Ours. Along with being the country's biggest wind power developer, Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a natural gas fueling station company that is the sole backer of the stealthy Proposition 10 on California's November ballot. This measure would authorize the sale of $5 billion in general fund bonds to provide alternative energy rebates and incentives -- but by the time the principal and the interest is paid off, it would squander at least $9.8 billion in taxpayer money on Pickens' self-serving natural gas agenda.

    The initiative deceptively reads like it's supporting all alternative-fuel vehicles and renewable energy sources. But a closer read finds a laundry list of cash grabs -- from $200 million for a liquefied natural gas terminal to $2.5 billion for rebates of up to $50,000 for each natural gas vehicle.

    Pickens's ideas may have some merit -- at least the wind part anyway -- but his motives deserve much more careful scrutiny. Pickens shouldn't be getting a free ride (I'm talking to you, Reuters).
    Blake Hounshell

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  50. Doug will appreciate this:

    Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton released a statement saying:

    "As Barack Obama has said many, many times in the past, rap lyrics today too often perpetuate misogyny, materialism, and degrading images that he doesn't want his daughters or any children exposed to. This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics."

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  51. T. Boone Pickens deserves credit for raising awareness towards the seriousness of the issue. Which is more than can be said for McCain, who basically has been sleepwalking thru this.

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  52. Breibart reports "A passenger traveling on a bus across Canada's vast Western plains stabbed, gutted and decapitated a man seated next to him in an unexplained attack, a witness told media Thursday." and " "While we were watching ... he calmly walked up to the front (of the bus) with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stared at us and dropped the head right in front of us."

    Oh yeah. Mexico and now Canada. Them head choppers coming to a town near you soon.

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  53. Knife-wielding man beheads fellow passenger on bus

    Man Decapitates Passenger Aboard Greyhound Bus

    A passenger traveling on a bus across Canada's vast Western plains stabbed, gutted and decapitated a man seated next to him in an unexplained attack, a witness told media Thursday.
    The victim had been sleeping before he was repeatedly stabbed in the chest by a man with a large knife, witness Garnet Caton told public broadcaster CBC.

    The other 35 passengers and driver were jolted by "blood-curdling screams" and fled. "He must have stabbed him 50 times or 60 times," said Caton.

    When Caton and two others returned to check on the victim, he said they saw the attacker "cutting the guy's head off and gutting him."

    "While we were watching ... he calmly walked up to the front (of the bus) with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stared at us and dropped the head right in front of us."

    Police then surrounded the bus and arrested the man, he said.

    The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they were investigating a "major incident" that occurred at 9 pm Wednesday (0200 GMT Thursday) on a Greyhound bus traveling eastbound from Edmonton to Winnipeg, but offered no details.

    Let's look a the other throat slitting greyhound adventures...

    6 Killed in Greyhound Crash in Tennessee After Passenger Slits Driver's Throat
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    By SARA RIMER WITH KEVIN SACK
    Published: October 4, 2001
    A passenger on a Greyhound bus slashed the neck of the driver early this morning, and as the two men struggled for control of the steering wheel, the bus careered across two lanes of oncoming traffic on an Interstate highway and flipped over, killing the assailant and five other passengers, law enforcement officials said.

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation said late this afternoon that the attack, which occurred shortly after 4 a.m. on Interstate 24 near here, was an isolated incident not connected to any terrorist acts. But Greyhound Lines, the country's largest scheduled bus company, shut down all service for six hours in what the chief executive, Craig Lentzsch, called a precaution.

    ''The nature of the attack suggested that it could be terroristic in nature, and as a result, without having more specific information, I thought it was prudent to get everyone to a safe place until we could get more information,'' Mr. Lentzsch said in a telephone interview from Washington. ''We do have the events of Sept. 11, and everybody is in a heightened state of awareness on security related issues.''

    The F.B.I., which is handling the investigation, identified the assailant as Damir Igric, 29, a citizen of Croatia, who entered the country in Miami in March 1999 on a 30-day transit visa. Special Agent R. Joe Clark of the F.B.I., who spoke to reporters at the crash site, said he had no other details on Mr. Igric, except that he got on the bus in Chicago.

    The ambassador of Croatia, Ivan Grdesic, said an investigation by his government indicated that Mr. Igric ''was connected with crimes in Croatia.'' Asked to elaborate, Mr. Igric said, ''It was violent behavior and substance abuse.''

    The driver was in stable condition this afternoon at Manchester Medical Center after surgery for lacerations to his neck. Dr. Ralph M. Bard, who performed the surgery, said driver was Garfield Sands, who lives in Marietta, Ga., and drives a route between Indianapolis and Atlanta.

    Dr. Bard said Mr. Sands, 53, was ''amazingly calm.''

    ''He said that this fellow a couple of times, even after he made the announcement of when the next layover was, came up and asked him about routing and times,'' Dr. Bard said. ''Then the last time he came up again and this time without saying anything he just attacked him and cut his neck. Then he pushed the driver out of the way and took the wheel himself and drove it off the road.''

    Dr. Bard said Mr. Sands said he thought the weapon was a razor or a box cutter.

    F.B.I. officials, who interviewed passengers as well as the driver, said the driver had struggled with his assailant for control of the bus.

    Carly Rinearson, 19, who was traveling from Fort Wayne, Ind., to Conyers, Ga., was seated directly behind the driver, her father, Robert Rinearson, said in a telephone interview.

    ''She said this guy approached her and asked her what time it was and then asked for her seat,'' said Mr. Rinearson, the supervisor of safety and student management for the Fort Wayne Community Schools Transportation Department. ''When she refused her seat, he then went back to his seat at the back of the bus. Then an hour later he came up with -- she thought it was a small knife or pocketknife -- and he just reached around and slit the driver's throat.''

    Mr. Rinearson said his daughter had suffered a deeply bruised chest, and had jammed her wrist ''but other than that she's well.''

    The bus flipped over, with the driver's side on top. Mr. Igric was thrown through the windshield. The driver was able to crawl out the window.

    ''He ran up the highway about 200 yards to get help,'' Dr. Bard said. ''Couldn't get to anybody, went back to the bus, and there was an emergency vehicle there then.''

    The Manchester Medical Center chief of staff, Dr. Al Brandon, also spoke to Mr. Sands. ''The first thing he wanted to know was how were the passengers doing,'' Dr. Brandon said.

    Greyhound officials said there were 39 passengers on the bus, which was going from Chicago to Orlando, Fla. Twenty-one passengers were treated at hospitals and released, said Jamille E. Bradfield, a Greyhound spokeswoman. Nine were hospitalized in stable condition, and three were in critical condition.


    hmmmm....


    FRESNO BUS ATTACK: A passenger
    By Ed Driscoll · October 01, 2002 09:47 AM ·
    FRESNO BUS ATTACK: A passenger slashed the throat of a Greyhound bus driver as the bus traveled down a California freeway, causing it to careen out of control, authorities said. The driver survived but two other people died and dozens were injured.

    Curiously, according to the AP report:

    Almost exactly a year ago, on Oct. 3, 2001, a passenger on a Greyhound bus in Tennessee cut the driver's throat, causing a crash that killed seven.
    Two weeks later, passengers on another Greyhound bus were credited with averting disaster in Utah after they helped thwart an alleged hijacker. And in November, a Greyhound passenger angry that he wasn't allowed to smoke scuffled with a driver in Arizona, causing a crash that injured 33.

    Given the current environment, I'd have no problem with Greyhound drivers getting very rough with out-of-control passengers.


    hmmm

    ReplyDelete
  54. July 31, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

    Bad Trade
    Congress’s enforcement canard.

    By Daniel Ikenson

    Considering the disposition of the 110th Congress, it’s probably just as well that the Doha World Trade negotiations failed to produce any new agreements. Litigation and enforcement — not cooperation or negotiation — are in vogue with the trade leadership on Capitol Hill.

    Administrations and congressional majorities from both political parties have been supportive of trade liberalization for several decades. But that is no longer the case. Recently introducing the Trade Enforcement Act of 2008, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Sander Levin wrote: “America’s trading partners are running roughshod over our trade agreements [and] the Bush Administration has failed to insist that our trading partners abide by the same rules we do.” Last month, Levin attributed the large trade deficit to the “Bush Administration’s hands-off approach to trade enforcement,” and decried its adverse effects on economic growth and job creation.

    That is an alarmingly uninformed view to be held by the trade-subcommittee chairman, who really should know that the trade balance has virtually nothing to do with trade policy and everything to do with fiscal policy, monetary policy, and disparate patterns of savings and consumption around the world. Besides, as the trade deficit ballooned during the past quarter century, the U.S. economy grew by an average of 3.2 percent and added an average of 1.8 million net new jobs every year.

    Rep. Levin’s statement is consistent with the congressional leadership’s carefully cultivated message that trade has fallen out of favor among Americans because the Bush administration has failed to enforce existing agreements. The House enforcement bill joins a similar Senate version, introduced late last year by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

    Among other things, the enforcement bills require the U.S. Trade Representative to appoint a Chief Enforcement Officer who will identify, investigate, and prosecute cases of incompliance by our trade partners. The legislation undercuts the president’s discretion to block the imposition of trade barriers in so-called China Safeguard cases. The bills ease the evidentiary requirements for imposing antidumping duties against imports, and the Senate version calls for creation of a panel of judges to review adverse WTO dispute settlement decisions and advise Congress as to whether the United States should comply.



    Note the irony in that last provision. The bill would force our trade partners to toe the line with respect to every legal provision in every trade agreement, yet it blithely gives Congress carte blanche to regard U.S. commitments as optional.

    Some of the enforcement provisions make for bad policy and most are simply unnecessary. But the biggest concern is that the legislation confers priority status on enforcement, thereby reinforcing misconceptions about our trade partners and trade in general. This strategy is a sinister political play that serves a narrow set of interests at potentially heavy costs to the broader economy.

    About 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside of the United States. U.S. manufacturers have been availing themselves of those large and growing markets, achieving record exports and buffering their bottom lines from the effects of a slowing domestic economy. But Congress’s enforcement fetish ignores this trend and, indeed, threatens it.

    Rules are an important part of the trading system, but enforcement requires lots of discretion because violations are often inadvertent or inconsequential. Only a tiny fraction of trade violates the rules, and the cost of responding to breaches often exceeds any benefits.

    Reps. Rangel and Levin are right that Americans need to regain faith in the trading system. The polls speak of a growing antipathy toward trade. But Americans have soured on trade because they are routinely barraged with exaggerations about the costs.

    The media’s motive in scaring its customers is that fear sells advertising. In Congress, blaming foreigners for problems real and imagined provides the basis for press releases, photo opportunities and strident calls for action. And the fact that the most unpopular president in modern history is associated with trade liberalization makes it good politics to bash the policy.

    But the rationale for such opposition is untruthful. The congressional leadership has perpetuated this enforcement myth to legitimize the protectionist agenda of some of its biggest benefactors. Selling that myth has undermined Americans’ support for trade.

    — Daniel Ikenson is associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies.

    ReplyDelete
  55. What I want to know is...are these religion of pieces head choppers?

    Decapitations seem to be increasing, especially in Norte Amerigo. Seems like some folks admire the mujahadin's work.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Jay Nordlinger at NRO makes an observation for which I can vouch:

    [...]

    I’d like to say a little more here. In the above-quoted statement, Obama said, “It’s embarrassing when Europeans . . .” Some Americans will always be embarrassed, especially in front of Europeans — just as adolescents are embarrassed in front of their parents. But adolescents grow out of this. So do most Americans who are embarrassed by Americanness.

    But some never do. And, in a hundred ways, the Obamas, husband and wife, seem like unreformed college students, still slapping the Canadian maple leaf on their backpacks. Do you know what I mean?

    The embarrassed American says, “Oh, we’re so fat, we’re so loud, we’re so this, we’re so that! We use ketchup, we have the death penalty! We don’t learn foreign languages. It’s so embarrassing!”

    [...]

    ReplyDelete
  57. "But Americans have soured on trade because they are routinely barraged with exaggerations about the costs."


    Fine. Then let's see the benefits.

    Let's see some of that American corporate wealth being contributed to the welfare of American citizens.

    ReplyDelete
  58. The offical story, ash, is that after the debris from the twin towers hit #7 and caused some major damage, the emergency diesel fuel tanks, for electric power generation, kept pumping, even after the power was cut and pumped upwards of a thousand gallons of fuel into the fire, which so weaken the entire structure it collapsed.
    The problem with that scenario is the collapse started at pier #80, which supported the penthouse. Pier 80 was never in the fire.
    Was never compromised by the fire or the falling debris from the Towers.

    This 5 minute 42 seconds by the BBC gives a balanced view of the collapse.

    ReplyDelete
  59. The Elephant Bar

    Proudly siphoning off all the Buchananite hoople-heads and goofy conspiracy theorists from the Belmont Club since 2007

    ReplyDelete
  60. Or was it 2006?

    Time just flies in the Bush administration.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Want to screw China?

    Stop being CONSUMERS

    SEEK CRAFTSMANSHIP

    SEEK QUALITY

    and we shall leave China in the crapper..

    ReplyDelete
  62. Whose conspiracy, trish?
    The one hatched in the hills of Tora Bora or the one from Foggy Bottom?

    Who then what
    Surmise it was terrorists that dropped the building.

    To destroy or cover up just what, why who'd know that?

    That the terrorists can be assumed to be capable of delivering a nuclear device into any US port and cause havoc ...

    But couldn't hi-jack three planes and destroy a building in a coordinated attack?

    An the powers that be did not want the public to know of the level of capability the terrorists really were operating at.

    ReplyDelete
  63. DOS couldn't hatch a turd, much less a conspiracy.

    ReplyDelete
  64. What is "Occupation" said...
    > teresita said
    >> There's also a new
    >> program whereby men
    >> who beat up their
    >> wives can buy credits
    >> from men who don't
    >> beat up their wives.

    > Now that's quite the MAN hating
    > bias...

    I'm afraid you missed the satire inherent in my post.

    ReplyDelete
  65. But I've just come to the conclusion that you are sincerely bat-shit crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

    It's harmless, far as I can see.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Re: the DOS conspiracy.

    The conspiracy is that of obstructionism towards obtaining success and a deliberate effort to under perform in everything they do. A bureaucracy whose whole purpose is to create more and reasons to maintain and grow itself and siphon more and more resources for itself. This is not only true of the DOS, but the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon and most if not all government bureaucracies.

    ReplyDelete
  68. A bureaucracy whose whole purpose is to create more and ^more reasons to maintain and grow itself and siphon more and more resources for itself.

    ReplyDelete
  69. That's not a conspiracy, mat. That's the nature of government. To those displeased by it, my suggestion is always the same: Stop finding things for it to do.

    But that would require that we as a culture stop responding like Pavlovian dogs to the crises, real and imagined, that sell papers and draw viewers.

    (And I certainly wouldn't recommend, to anyone offended by government bloat or reach, that Obama is your man.)

    ReplyDelete
  70. iIf Obama gets in, we'll be able to hand the kids over to the government at age 4, then that's it, our job is done.

    ReplyDelete
  71. THe New York Times notices:

    July 31, 2008, 2:28 pm
    Racial Issues Return to the the Campaign
    By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
    The McCain campaign’s accusation that Senator Barack Obama is “playing the race card” brings the race issue out in the open while allowing the McCain team to say it has not made the first move — a strategy we saw to some degree in the Democratic primaries.

    Whether that works or not, this will mark the day that race officially became an issue in the 2008 general election.

    The McCain camp no doubt watched the evolution of race as in issue during the primaries, when the Clinton campaign also suggested that the Obama camp made it an issue after the Clintons made some indirect comments that angered many black voters and politicians. (more)

    ReplyDelete
  72. "If Obama gets in, we'll be able to hand the kids over to the government at age 4"

    Unless you're Obama and Michelle and your kids go to the Chicago (University) Lab School. At 18K per head per year.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Masab Yousuf, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, has converted to Christianity, and headed for the good ol' US of A., land of the Great Satan. Now Papa Sheik has a problem, and, what's more, Masab Yousuf has praised the Little Satan. What to do now, Sheik?



    "Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country," he says.

    "You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Muhammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."


    Conversion

    ReplyDelete
  74. "Stop finding things for it to do."

    Aha. Like bamboozling the public into supporting fighting fake wars?

    ReplyDelete
  75. No. You have to stop finding wars - and "wars" - for it to fight.

    ReplyDelete
  76. When that happens






    gimme a call.

    ReplyDelete
  77. lordy, "fake wars". I guess the dead people are just faking it...

    ReplyDelete
  78. No, Ashley. A fake is defined as pretense or trick. (Kinda like you). A fake war, is a false war, a trick war. A war fought under false pretense. Like the war on drugs. Like the Iraq war. Like the war on terror.

    ReplyDelete
  79. "gimme a call."

    You be in retirement.

    ReplyDelete
  80. The Rand corporation recently released a detailed document on Iran. Those keen on attacking Iran might especially find it interesting.

    Iran's Political, Demographic, and Economic Vulnerabilities

    ReplyDelete
  81. There's a small town, name Buchanan, in VA, that I've got my eye on.

    ReplyDelete
  82. That is the entire point, trish, as a straight up operation, dropping that building would not be hard. Almost anyone in the game, even the boys at Foggy Bottom, could hire it done.

    As you say there are many facets of the Colombian hostage story still underwraps.
    Secrets kept.
    It is possible, with the right team.

    Any team dispatched by the ISI would be capable and quiet.
    Especially if working on parallel tracks with, but unknown to, the Saudis on the planes.

    The right provocatour could have hired dual teams, the aircraft hijackers - the aQ muscle contingent that flew the planes, of course.

    Then a ground action, support and overwatch, to take out the primary target @ #7, in conjunction with the propaganda attack on the towers

    ReplyDelete
  83. "As you say there are many facets of the Colombian hostage story still underwraps."

    They don't contradict the events, Rat.

    ReplyDelete
  84. Trish said,
    "But I've just come to the conclusion that you are sincerely bat-shit crazy."
    ---
    Well then, it was worth the effort!

    ReplyDelete
  85. Then factor in bob's links to the pilot fellow, who may be a tad of center on aliens in Area 51, but has thousands upon thousands of passenger and cargo flight time.

    He put the odds of a student pilot even flying the approach to the Towers at slim to none. Let alone two student pilots.

    The talent pool was much deeper than was ever acknowledged by US.

    Kind of in the "lone gunman" motif.
    Done in by lucky amateurs

    ReplyDelete
  86. Funny how
    "Fire has never taken down a steel building before."
    ---
    Yet 8hrs before, two rather large buildings were taken down by fire.

    ...and all three collapsed in a similar manner, leaving many who would not listen to the straightforward explanation of HOW they came down, in various states of hysterics.

    ReplyDelete
  87. The offical story on #7 contradicts the events.

    That is the point, beyond that ...

    Anyone could have done it.
    But only the terrorists and their backers would have had cause.

    Diesel fuel, burning in the open air will not degrade an entire steel superstructure, especially when the building was not totally engulfed.

    The Twin Towers collapse, that is explained by the mass of the upper floors falling into the impact area, and continuing to the ground.

    That was not the case at #7.

    ReplyDelete
  88. If the debris strike had caused the collapse, the building would have fallen towards that area, where it was weakest or none existent. The building dropped like a bad souffle.

    The fact it was part of a greater 9-11 story just becomes part of the cover. Anyone who questions it, a truther, bat shit crazy, outside the lines.
    We all saw then come down!

    Hiding in plain sight

    ReplyDelete
  89. Destroy files, photos, documentations?

    Public or private, could have been either. But with the same political & ideolgical motivation as the hijackers, but with a more focused objective, the particulars of which are unknown to me.

    What could have been in that building that either the Pakistani or the Saudis wanted buried?

    A lack of the entire story does not invalidate the pieces of the puzzle available to be seen.

    ReplyDelete
  90. 'Major Discovery' Primed To Unleash Solar Revolution: Scientists Mimic Essence Of Plants' Energy Storage System

    ScienceDaily (July 31, 2008) — In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

    Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

    Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

    Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

    The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity — whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source — runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

    Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

    The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

    Giant leap for clean energy

    Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

    James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

    "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

    Just the beginning

    Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

    More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

    "This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-Director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

    Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

    This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080731143345.htm

    ReplyDelete
  91. There you go Mat. That sounds wonderful. Sounds like great news. How do I invest in it? Make hay while the sun shines.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Thu Jul 31, 8:18 AM ET

    LONDON (Reuters) - A mechanical brass calculator used by the ancient Greeks to predict solar and lunar eclipses was probably also used to set the dates for the first Olympic games, researchers said on Wednesday.

    .
    .

    The Antikythera Mechanism

    ReplyDelete
  93. Trish: Unless you're Obama and Michelle and your kids go to the Chicago (University) Lab School. At 18K per head per year.

    Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' ability to pay tuition.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Metuselah: LONDON (Reuters) - A mechanical brass calculator used by the ancient Greeks to predict solar and lunar eclipses was probably also used to set the dates for the first Olympic games, researchers said on Wednesday.

    The ancients could make something as complicated as that calculator, but no one ever thought of something as simple as hooking a paper cone to a wax cylinder with a sewing needle to record and playback voices and music, until Tom Edison came along.

    ReplyDelete
  95. Been there, done that.

    Thanks, clueless lesbian.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Tes,

    When you sit thru a live performance in an ancient Greek amphitheater with 5000 others, you'll understand how far we've "progressed".

    ReplyDelete
  97. Ash:The Rand corporation recently released a detailed document on Iran.

    Another study done by Rand recently on how terrorist movements terminate:

    43% by converting to mainstream political movements.

    40% by law enforcement apprehension

    10% by achieving their stated goals.

    7% by being neutralized through military action.

    Since 9-11 the entire focus of the United States has been on that 7 percent solution.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Trish: Been there, done that.

    No, really. It's a conservative value to extol personal achievement. It's a liberal value to express envy over unequal financial outcomes, such as what schools the Joneses' kids go to.

    Thanks, clueless lesbian.

    What does that have to do with anything?

    ReplyDelete
  99. DR wrote re. WTC 7:

    "Anyone could have done it.
    But only the terrorists and their backers would have had cause."

    All of the 911 conspiracy theorists I've had to deal with have alleged it was a US gov. plot in order to marshall support for the various wars since waged. Basic rationale is (working from memory here 'cause I don't have access to my 'source':

    US air force convienently way off on war game tasks.

    Been notified already of terror guys learning to fly.

    Pentagon hole to small for plane - musta been a missile.

    Local videotapes confiscated and never released.

    WTC fell but was never hit.

    All buildings fell looked just like controlled demolition. HOW COULD THAT BE??

    PNAC, before event, mused how a "Pearl Harbor" like event would be helpful to acheive American Hegemony.

    yada yada yada.






    Everything but actual evidence pointing to other perps....

    ReplyDelete
  100. Bobal quoted: They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Muhammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death.

    That's okay. The Japanese at Saipan and Iwo Jima also believed a tradition that they must fight U.S. Marines to the death, and the U.S. Marines stepped right up to the plate to accommodate their belief.

    ReplyDelete
  101. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  102. "That sounds wonderful. Sounds like great news. How do I invest in it?"


    Hmm,..
    The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal,..

    Bob, youz got 10 years to corner the market, so don't be blue.

    ReplyDelete
  103. Would you applaud when we achieve by Rand's indications what we oughta?

    ReplyDelete
  104. ms. T wrote:

    "Since 9-11 the entire focus of the United States has been on that 7 percent solution."

    makes me sad...




    ...hey


    let's attack Iran!!






    ...that'll be fun...





    right!?

    ReplyDelete
  105. "let's attack Iran!!"

    At least don't stand in the way.

    ReplyDelete
  106. be a foolish thing to do mattie lil' boy.

    ReplyDelete
  107. Foolish or not, that's the situation.

    ReplyDelete
  108. “It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days, first to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous; how the structure and habits of democratic states, unless they are welded into larger organisms, lack those elements of persistence and conviction which alone can give security to humble masses; how even in matters of self-preservation, no policy is pursued for even ten or fifteen years at a time. We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster…” Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, © 1948, Houghton Mifflin Company, pp. 17-18 stolen from BC

    ReplyDelete
  109. trish: Would you applaud when we achieve by Rand's indications what we oughta?

    It's not about what I would applaud, its not about what religion I believe, or where my father comes from or what gender makes me twitterpated. In fact, it's not about me at all. It's about what has always worked and what is most likely to work in the future. Its about what is true and what serves to further freedom. Its about what honors America and preserves our liberty and above all its about who we protect and how we protect them.

    ReplyDelete
  110. ISI Chief Lt Gen Mahmood, he was in DC on 9-10-01.

    Who does the ISI work for, really?

    We know they support the Taliban, now
    They did, then, too.

    What your friends think, ash, is part of the spin, the propaganda of the deception.

    ReplyDelete
  111. ..its not about..

    Actually, it is. What you are determines how you act.

    ReplyDelete
  112. PNAC, before event, mused how a "Pearl Harbor" like event would be helpful to acheive American Hegemony.

    jeez Ash I would have thought you might buy into that one. It's got some reality behind it.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Well if it's Tipsy Livny for awhile, almost anyone picked up off the street would be as good as Olmert.

    ReplyDelete
  114. strikingly similar to your theory rat.

    In any case, like all conspiracy theory, maybe, just maybe, it could be as you say, but without any decent evidence we must sit upon the fence.


    ...maybe it 'twas aliens havin' a bit o fun at our expense...really...could be true.

    ReplyDelete
  115. "maybe it 'twas aliens havin' a bit o fun at our expense...really...could be true."

    Bob, is what she says true?

    ReplyDelete
  116. bobal, the best conspiracy theories have loads of 'reality' behind them...

    ...I highly recommend you read Nial Ferguson's "Empire". There are striking similarities between the waning years of the British empire and what some of us see in today's American hegemony. Ferguson argues that there was a lot of good that came out of the British empire. I tend to agree.

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  117. "Somebody who is fighting against Israeli soldiers is an enemy and we will fight back, but I believe that this is not under the definition of terrorism, if the target is a soldier." Tzipi Livni 3/28/06

    Lovely, Metuselah. That suicide attack in Beirut, 1983, that killed 241 US troops and 58 French troops? Tzip says that wasn't terrorism. All's fair in love and war, she sez.

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  118. Interestingly with Livni at the helm, Rafi Eitan's political party is wiped off the map.

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  119. The answer to your question, Mat, is no. This is based on the recent statements of Edgar Mitchell, Moon Walker, Founder Of Noetic Sciences

    He said if they were hostiles, we'd "be toast" by now.

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  120. hey, all Israeli citizens are actually members of the army, ergo, no terrorism.

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  121. Eitan's getting pretty old anyway, isn't he Mat?

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  122. "Tzip says that wasn't terrorism."

    She's wrong.



    American Heritage Dictionary

    ter·ror·ism
    (těr'ə-rĭz'əm)
    n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

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  123. sounds alot like "Shock and Awe" doesn't it mattie?

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  124. Mitchell is open to some conspiracy thoeries. A person would nuts not to. You just got to chose which ones you want to back. I've been posting for a long time about space and the aliens and stuff, and along comes Edgar Mitchell to back me up. Talk about a government cover-up! Makes pikers out of the 9-11 conspirators. And for more than 50 years too!

    But, as the news is getting out, it does seem the 'diclosure event' is approaching now.

    Lest you get upset and lose your minds when this occurs, as that big study(dangit can't recall the name) said we would, try to recall Edgar Mitchell's words--if they had evil intent--"we'd be toast by now."

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  125. "Eitan's getting pretty old anyway, isn't he Mat?"

    Eitan: born November 23, 1926
    McCain: born August 29, 1936

    Yeah.

    Labor to drop to 14 seats. Likud and Kadima tied at 28 seats.

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  126. sounds alot like "Shock and Awe"

    Were they wearing military uniforms?

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  127. IONS’ statement regarding comments made
    by founder Edgar Mitchell on the existence of UFOs
    ______________________________
    (Petaluma, CA / July 28, 2008) Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth
    man to walk on the moon, founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973 and
    continues to serve on its board of directors. He recently made statements on UKbased
    Kerrang! Radio that evidence of UFO visitations has been and continues to
    be suppressed.
    These remarks have sparked considerable media interest and
    come on the heels of recent developments that include the release of UFO files by
    the governments of Brazil, the UK, and France, and ,the Vatican’s statement in
    May 2008 that the existence of extraterrestrial life “doesn’t contradict our faith”
    and would still be “part of creation.”

    The Institute does not study or conduct scientific research on these topics, we
    have no official position or opinion on the question of UFOs, and it is not our
    policy to judge the experiences and beliefs of individuals. As supporters of
    research and inquiry into the nature of consciousness and anomalous
    phenomena, we are open to information from all sources, first-hand accounts as
    well as laboratory findings.
    Dr. Mitchell’s credibility speaks for itself—he is a great American and a
    respected scientist.
    While the views he expressed are his alone and do not reflect
    those of the Institute, we will follow with interest further discussion and study of
    this paradigm-stretching issue.

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  128. Bobal, there's no space aliens. We would have heard their equivalent of the World Series and seen their version of "I Love Lucy" first, and then after setting up a two-way conversation over many years, teaching each other to speaka zee lingo, we would have made an appointment to meet in The Hague or something, where they would announce that Al Gore is right, and it would all be under the sunshine policy, out in the open, on CNN and no conspiracy stuff. It would NOT be just the UFO and some hayseed on his combine in Idaho or some shit like that.

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  129. nary a single little reference to uniforms in your definition of terrorism mattie little guy.

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  130. I don't believe we have been visited by aliens. Just for the record.

    What makes a man like Mitchell say something like that? What makes a man like Hoagland say the stuff does? Some of these people are intelligent. In fact, most of them are. Saying they like the attention doesn't cut if with a guy like Mitchell. These people are as mysterious to me, as the aliens might be.

    But then, maybe Mitchell is right. Hoagland probably would, though his ideas don't compute with Mitchell's. Hoagland's been saying for years there's a big coverup going on, over at NASA.

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  131. It would NOT be just the UFO and some hayseed on his combine in Idaho or some shit like that.

    That does it T., you and I are finished forever.

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  132. Well Ashley, why not check the GC as to what constitutes lawful and unlawful use of military force.

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  133. Bobal: That does it T., you and I are finished forever.

    I'm sorry Bobal.

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  134. "That does it T., you and I are finished forever."


    Har! Hehe.

    (But only Bob knows when the clock is reset on forever).

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  135. are you saying you're ready to toss out your definition of terrorism and you want to go with the Geneva Conventions as a guide?

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  136. and then after setting up a two-way conversation over many years, teaching each other to speaka zee lingo, we would have made an appointment to meet in The Hague or something

    Shows you've never lived on the farm. Where all good sense and informed discussion takes place.

    You see, that is exactly what the theory says has happened, more or less. The government knows, you don't. That's what this disclosure business is all about. Breaking it gently to the masses.
    --
    I was jokin' T, about that forever stuff.

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  137. "hey, all Israeli citizens are actually members of the army, ergo, no terrorism."

    You should try stand-up.

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  138. Ash, are the aliens covered under the Geneva Conventions? They may not have uniforms on, how do we know?

    What does the Convention say about unilateral surrender, which I advocate in the case of the aliens. Would they be bound by the some 'humaitarian' rules, if we raised the white flag?

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  139. "are you saying you're ready to toss out your definition of terrorism and you want to go with the Geneva Conventions as a guide?"

    Again, see: Thu Jul 31, 10:52:00 PM EDT.

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  140. "A well-known Israeli joke refers to civilians as soldiers on 11-month furlough."

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

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  141. Bobal: You see, that is exactly what the theory says has happened, more or less. The government knows, you don't. That's what this disclosure business is all about. Breaking it gently to the masses.

    It's always like that, these silly claims, whether they be religious ones or claims about UFOs or faces on Mars or grassy knolls or WTC #7s falling down, you name it. There's always a tidy explanation for the lack of evidence. God has to hide so people can believe in him rather than just look up and say, hey, there's God. The UFOs are covered up by the CIA because if the Russians knew we were getting all our technology from Alpha Centauri they'd initiate a nuclear first strike before our perfect reverse-engineered Centaurian missile shield was ready. One faction in NASA sent the Mars probe to cash in on the contracts, and the other one caused it to "fail" with buggy software to keep it from seeing the Martian monorail system, because if society saw how efficient mass transit worked on Mars, they'd demand it here on earth and the Oil Lobby mightn't like it.

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  142. "A well-known Israeli joke refers to civilians as soldiers on 11-month furlough."

    When is it that Jihadis go on furlough?

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  143. Bobal,

    I haven't noticed any 'aliens' signature on the treaty documents for the Geneva Conventions. The US has signed on and as a signatory, unless a competant tribunal determines otherwise (POTUS does not qualify) then all those captured must be treated under the convention.

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  144. When is it that Jihadis go on furlough?

    When they stumble into a boy scout camp?

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  145. "all those captured must be treated under the convention"


    They are.

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  146. "When they stumble into a boy scout camp?"

    :)

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  147. The Geneva Conventions didn't really foresee a situation like we have now, where an organized stateless group, with big money, might get ahold of weapons of mass destruction.

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  148. no, mats, they are definitely not being treated as per GC. hence the contortions going on over 'unlawful combatants' ect. Even the Supremes have weighed in on the compentent tribunal deal.

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  149. Good thing them Jihadis are not faggots. Err, wait.

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  150. But, the Supreme Court, as we all know, fixed it up so they all have Constitutional rights now.

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  151. true, bobal, the GC did not forsee that occurence, nor have we experienced it as of yet.

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  152. "no, mats, they are definitely not being treated as per GC."

    That's your misguided opinion.

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  153. Quinnipiac
    Florida: Obama 46, McCain 44
    Ohio: Obama 46, McCain 44
    Pennsylvania: Obama 49, McCain 42

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  154. Nite, Ash.

    Quinnipiac polls almost always are on the outside edge, for the dems. I don't trust Quinnipiac.

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  155. But, then, I always let my emotions be the judge in things political.

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  156. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxbFLYa0_bw

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  157. July 31, 2008, 11:01 am

    Senate Again Fails To Extend Solar Tax Credits
    Posted by Eric Savitz

    The U.S. Senate yesterday failed yet again to approve a measure that would extend solar tax credits, which are due to expire at the end of 2008.

    As Reuters notes, a measure which would have extended the tax credits for eight years failed a key procedural vote.

    ==

    I think it would be interesting for the public to know who voted against and why.

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  158. I think it would be interesting for the public to know who voted against and why.

    It would be. I want to know how Senator Byrd of W. Virginia voted on that.

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  159. I'd also be curious to know how that jive turkey Obama voted, not that McCain is any better.

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  160. "Already companies are putting projects on hold and preparing to send thousands of jobs overseas -- real jobs that would otherwise be filled by American workers. Failure to extend the solar tax credits is a severe blow to an industry that has proven to be an economic engine for the U.S. at a time when we need it most."

    Rhone Resch, President, SEIA

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  161. On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to Consider S.3335 )

    Votes by Senator
    Name Voted
    Sen. Daniel Akaka [D, HI] Aye
    Sen. Lamar Alexander [R, TN] Nay
    Sen. Wayne Allard [R, CO] Nay
    Sen. John Barrasso [R, WY] Nay
    Sen. Max Baucus [D, MT] Aye
    Sen. B. Evan Bayh [D, IN] Aye
    Sen. Robert Bennett [R, UT] Nay
    Sen. Joseph Biden [D, DE] Aye
    Sen. Jeff Bingaman [D, NM] Aye
    Sen. Christopher Bond [R, MO] Nay
    Sen. Barbara Boxer [D, CA] Aye
    Sen. Sherrod Brown [D, OH] Aye
    Sen. Samuel Brownback [R, KS] Nay
    Sen. Jim Bunning [R, KY] Nay
    Sen. Richard Burr [R, NC] Nay
    Sen. Robert Byrd [D, WV] Aye
    Sen. Maria Cantwell [D, WA] Aye
    Sen. Benjamin Cardin [D, MD] Aye
    Sen. Thomas Carper [D, DE] Aye
    Sen. Robert Casey [D, PA] Aye
    Sen. C. Saxby Chambliss [R, GA] Nay
    Sen. Hillary Clinton [D, NY] Aye
    Sen. Thomas Coburn [R, OK] Nay
    Sen. Thad Cochran [R, MS] Nay
    Sen. Norm Coleman [R, MN] Aye
    Sen. Susan Collins [R, ME] Aye
    Sen. Kent Conrad [D, ND] Aye
    Sen. Bob Corker [R, TN] Nay
    Sen. John Cornyn [R, TX] Nay
    Sen. Larry Craig [R, ID] Nay
    Sen. Michael Crapo [R, ID] Nay
    Sen. Jim DeMint [R, SC] Nay
    Sen. Christopher Dodd [D, CT] Aye
    Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R, NC] Aye
    Sen. Pete Domenici [R, NM] Nay
    Sen. Byron Dorgan [D, ND] Aye
    Sen. Richard Durbin [D, IL] Aye
    Sen. John Ensign [R, NV] Nay
    Sen. Michael Enzi [R, WY] Nay
    Sen. Russell Feingold [D, WI] Aye
    Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D, CA] Aye
    Sen. Lindsey Graham [R, SC] Nay
    Sen. Charles Grassley [R, IA] Nay
    Sen. Judd Gregg [R, NH] Nay
    Sen. Charles Hagel [R, NE] Nay
    Sen. Thomas Harkin [D, IA] Aye
    Sen. Orrin Hatch [R, UT] Nay
    Sen. Kay Hutchison [R, TX] Nay
    Sen. James Inhofe [R, OK] Nay
    Sen. Daniel Inouye [D, HI] Aye
    Sen. John Isakson [R, GA] Nay
    Sen. Tim Johnson [D, SD] Aye
    Sen. Edward Kennedy [D, MA] Abstain
    Sen. John Kerry [D, MA] Aye
    Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D, MN] Aye
    Sen. Herbert Kohl [D, WI] Aye
    Sen. Jon Kyl [R, AZ] Nay
    Sen. Mary Landrieu [D, LA] Aye
    Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D, NJ] Aye
    Sen. Patrick Leahy [D, VT] Aye
    Sen. Carl Levin [D, MI] Aye
    Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I, CT] Aye
    Sen. Blanche Lincoln [D, AR] Aye
    Sen. Richard Lugar [R, IN] Nay
    Sen. Mel Martinez [R, FL] Nay
    Sen. John McCain [R, AZ] Abstain
    Sen. Claire McCaskill [D, MO] Abstain
    Sen. Mitch McConnell [R, KY] Nay
    Sen. Robert Menendez [D, NJ] Aye
    Sen. Barbara Mikulski [D, MD] Aye
    Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R, AK] Nay
    Sen. Patty Murray [D, WA] Aye
    Sen. Ben Nelson [D, NE] Aye
    Sen. Bill Nelson [D, FL] Aye
    Sen. Barack Obama [D, IL] Abstain
    Sen. Mark Pryor [D, AR] Aye
    Sen. John Reed [D, RI] Aye
    Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] Nay
    Sen. Pat Roberts [R, KS] Nay
    Sen. John Rockefeller [D, WV] Abstain
    Sen. Ken Salazar [D, CO] Aye
    Sen. Bernard Sanders [I, VT] Aye
    Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] Aye
    Sen. Jefferson Sessions [R, AL] Nay
    Sen. Richard Shelby [R, AL] Nay
    Sen. Gordon Smith [R, OR] Aye
    Sen. Olympia Snowe [R, ME] Aye
    Sen. Arlen Specter [R, PA] Nay
    Sen. Debbie Ann Stabenow [D, MI] Aye
    Sen. Ted Stevens [R, AK] Nay
    Sen. John Sununu [R, NH] Nay
    Sen. Jon Tester [D, MT] Aye
    Sen. John Thune [R, SD] Nay
    Sen. David Vitter [R, LA] Nay
    Sen. George Voinovich [R, OH] Nay
    Sen. John Warner [R, VA] Nay
    Sen. Jim Webb [D, VA] Aye
    Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D, RI] Aye
    Rep. Roger Wicker [R, MS-1] Abstain
    Sen. Ron Wyden [D, OR] Aye

    http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/show/4940

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  162. Sen. Robert Byrd [D, WV] Aye

    Sen. Larry Craig [R, ID] Nay
    Sen. Michael Crapo [R, ID] Nay

    Sen. John McCain [R, AZ] Abstain
    Sen. Barack Obama [D, IL] Abstain

    Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I, CT] Aye

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  163. Sen. Elizabeth Dole [R, NC] Aye
    Sen. Jon Kyl [R, AZ] Nay

    ReplyDelete
  164. This is going to come back and haunt Republicans. They may have saved Bush the embarrassment a veto, but the Party will pay dearly for this. Their national security credibility is shot.

    ReplyDelete
  165. ..saved Bush the embarrassment of a veto..

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  166. A vote against cloture is a vote for the bill, isn't that right? My Idaho guys voted nay, which is for the bill.

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  167. "A vote against cloture is a vote for the bill, isn't that right? My Idaho guys voted nay, which is for the bill."

    Yes, that explanation might work. :)

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  168. You know, Bob, we used to joke that Gazprom is the Russian government, and that the Russian government is Gazprom. Now it aint so funny, is it.

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  169. - Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say -

    WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.

    The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

    The American officials also said there was new information showing that members of the Pakistani intelligence service were increasingly providing militants with details about the American campaign against them, in some cases allowing militants to avoid American missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
    ----
    American officials said that the communications were intercepted before the July 7 bombing, and that the C.I.A. emissary, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, had been ordered to Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, even before the attack. The intercepts were not detailed enough to warn of any specific attack.

    The government officials were guarded in describing the new evidence and would not say specifically what kind of assistance the ISI officers provided to the militants. They said that the ISI officers had not been renegades, indicating that their actions might have been authorized by superiors.

    “It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held,” one State Department official with knowledge of Afghanistan issues said of the intercepted communications. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.”

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