March 14, 2007

Federal Deficit Down Sharply This Period
Mar 12
The deficit for the first five months of the budget year is down sharply from a year ago as the growth in government tax collections continues to outpace growth in spending.

The Treasury Department reported that the deficit ...down 25.5 percent from the same period last year...

...The government had larger-than-expected surpluses in December and January.

For the budget year that began Oct. 1, (tax) revenues are up by 9.3 percent to a record $954.4 billion...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8NQPOCG0&show_article=1

3% unemployment rate, anyone?
...Friday's unemployment report demonstrates this trend (ight labor markets)-- the U.S. economy, once again, created less jobs and the unemployment rate continued to drop. One would expect as job creation slowed, unemployment would pick up, that is not the case anymore. The U.S. created a paltry 97,000 for February. Monthly job creation is averaging 122,000 so far in 2007, down from 190,000 last year. However, despite this weak showing, the unemployment rate actually dropped, from 4.6% to 4.5%. This means less people are coming into the job market...

...Even with February's paltry job growth, we could see unemployment drop way below 4.0%. I read an economist report years ago which said this population disparity between boomers and Generation X would drive the unemployment to 2.5%. It looks like we might be headed in that direction…

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/03/12/3-unemployment-rate-anyone/

The population of this country is 300 million.

160 million are retired.
That leaves 140 million to do the work.

There are 85 million in school.
Which leaves 55 million to do the work.

Of this there are 35 million employed by the federal government.
Leaving 15 million to do the work.

2.8 million are in the armed forces
Which leaves 12.2 million to do the work.

Take from that total the 10.8 million people who work for state and city governments.
And that leaves 1.4 million to do the work.

At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals.
Leaving 1,212,000 to do the work.

Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons.
That leaves just two people to do the work.
You and me
And there you are, sitting around, at your computer, reading my blog...
Nice. Real nice

Scotland: "symbolic gesture" fails…

March 13, 2007

A HIGH-PROFILE blitz on knife crime has failed to cut the number of people carrying lethal weapons on Scotland's streets.

The Safer Scotland anti-violence campaign was launched in March. At its centre was the country's first ever national knife amnesty, which saw almost 13,000 weapons handed in over five weeks last summer.

But an investigation by The Scotsman shows that the five-week amnesty made no impact on the number of people caught carrying a blade.

The amnesty ran from 24 May to 30 June. In the first half of the year, 1,910 offences of carrying a knife or other bladed weapon were recorded by police. But in the six months following the amnesty, the number of offences increased to 1,984...

...Mike Nellis, professor of criminal and community justice at Strathclyde University, said the event was worthwhile as a "symbolic gesture" designed to send out the message that knives were dangerous.

"I don't think we should be discouraged by the apparent failure of the knife amnesty to reduce the number of people carrying knives," he said...

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=393002007

Shedding light on concealed handguns

March 11, 2007

Today is the start of Sunshine Week, the annual week in which we reflect on the importance of open government and public records. To mark the occasion, I want to take you on an excursion into freedom of information land. We're going to find out who in the New River Valley has a concealed handgun permit.

I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat.

Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business.

There are good reasons the records are open to public scrutiny. People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box...

...This is not about being for or against guns. There are plenty of reasons people choose to carry weapons...There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership, too... (this is about journalistic malfeasance…)

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/wb/xp-108160

Publishing gun owners info could back fire on anti-gunners, if I was going to commit a crime it'd be nice to check and make sure my potential victim was not armed, heh, heh, heh...

The Roanoke Times Removes Database of Handgun Permit Holders

March 12, 2007

The Roanoke Times has decided to remove the online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders from its website.

The newspaper is requesting the Virginia State Police, which provided the information, verify the data.

“When we posted the information, we had every reason to believe that the data the State Police had supplied would comply with the statutes. But people have notified us that the list includes names that should not have been released,” said Debbie Meade, president and publisher of The Roanoke Times. “Out of a sense of caution and concern for the public we have decided to take the database off of our website.”

The database was posted on roanoke.com on Sunday as part of a New River Valley editorial page column about open records. This column, as well as others that will be published this week, is part of a special focus on Sunshine Week, a national initiative to raise awareness about open government and freedom of information.

http://blogs.roanoke.com/roundtable/columns/comment_on_trejbals_column_12.html

Cold Chills Global Warming Expedition
3/13/2007
An expedition designed to show how global warming is heating the Arctic had to be called off after one of the explorers got frostbite, thanks to incredibly frigid temperatures that got as low as 100 degrees below zero...

...According to The Associated Press, they had planned to call in regular updates to school groups by satellite phone and had planned online posts with photographic evidence showing the alleged effects of global warming on the Arctic regions....

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/3/12/230500.shtml?s=ic

Frostbite ends Bancroft-Arnesen trek
Mar 12,
MINNEAPOLIS - A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite. The explorers, Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, on Saturday called off what was intended to be a 530-mile trek across the Arctic Ocean after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment...

...here was the cold — quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said...

The explorers had planned to call in regular updates to school groups by satellite phone, and had planned online posts with photographic evidence of global warming. In contrast to Bancroft's 1986 trek across the Arctic with fellow Minnesota explorer Will Steger, this time she and Arnesen were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.

Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.

"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability." (OK so which was it? It was either predicatable or it wasn't. Clearly i wasn't if these veteran experts got caught short by the extreme cold. These Gorebal-warming types always want it both ways...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_sc/polar_trek_1

'Execute Republicans,' says college prof
March 13, 2007
A professor at North Idaho College says it's all right to talk about executing "anyone who's ever voted Republican" ...

... student, Linda Cook...Cook wrote to the school asking for a refund on fees she paid for a course taught by Bryan, after she withdrew because of the instructor's comments. Cook told the Spokane Spokesman-Review that Bryan used every class period in the English composition course to criticize and disparage Republicans, including the suggestion of the death penalty for everyone who chooses to support a Republican with a vote.

"I signed up for an English composition course but was dismayed to receive a level of political vitriol that I believe was strictly extracurricular," Cook said her in letter to the school...

...Among the allegations: Bryan reported President George W. Bush won the election "because people … can't read," and, regarding the death penalty: "First we line up everyone who can't think and right behind them, anyone who's ever voted Republican."

"Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that anyone would take it seriously," Bryan, who doesn't deny making the statements, told the newspaper...

...Bryan said she thought Cook had enjoyed the "debate" of the classroom, but Cook said she chose not to confront the teacher during class time. "If someone's suggesting you just be killed you don't sit down and say 'let's talk,'" Cook said.

Bryan's perception is that she was the one who was hurt.

"I do see it as an insult, personally and professionally," she said. Bryan told the Sentinel she believes Cook is making a "mountain out of a molehill."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54670
When some people say things like this it's food for thought, when others say it, its "hate speech"...

Much ado about nothing…again

Much is being made over President Bush wanting to fire eight US Attorneys for cause. The fact of the matter is The U.S. attorneys, the chief federal law enforcement officials in their various districts, typically are appointed to four-year terms by the president on the recommendation of state political leaders, but serve the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time – like the attorney general and other Cabinet officers.

Senator Schumer (D) called it “almost unheard of” for a federal prosecutor with favorable reviews to be fired...

“The more we learn, the more it seems that people at high levels in the White House have been involved in the U.S. attorney purge,” Schumer said Monday.

The maimsteam press seems to have forgotten that in 1993 the Clinton White House fired "all" United States Attorneys... It was no big deal then...

How The NYT Covered Impeached-President Clinton’s 1993 Firing Of All US Attorneys
03/13/2007:

ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS RESIGNATIONS FROM PROSECUTORS
March 24, 1993

Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States Attorneys, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton.

Jay B. Stephens, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is a Bush Administration holdover, said he had advised the Justice Department that he was within 30 days of making a "critical decision" in the Rostenkowski case when Ms. Reno directed him and other United States Attorneys to submit their resignations, effective in a matter of days.

While prosecutors are routinely replaced after a change in Administration, Ms. Reno's order accelerated what had been expected to be a leisurely changeover...

...All 93 United States Attorneys knew they would be asked to step down, since all are Republican holdovers, and 16 have resigned so far...

http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/flashback-attorney-general-reno-seeks-resignations-from-prosecutors-nyt-1993

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00612F73C540C778EDDAA0894DB494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fC%2fClinton%2c%20Bill

Notes in the Margin: A Meteorologist's Observations from Northeast Kansas

NYT to Al Gore: Stop the Global Warming Hype: http://www.notesinthemargin.com/

David & Karen Bennett <><

http://www.freewill-predestination.com