26 August 2009
Cons cash in on stimulus money
August 25, 2009
Federal economic stimulus cash was handed out to cons behind bars in Bay State prisons after a bureaucratic snafu resulted in $250 checks being sent to some inmates - and now red-faced feds want it back.
"Taxpayers already believe the inmates are running the asylum in Washington," U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in a statement. "Now it appears they are being compensated for their efforts."
Not only did the feds send the cash to incarcerated cons, but they failed to respond to state officials who sounded the alarm about the inmate windfall - now the subject of a national probe.
The state Department of Correction initially withheld stimulus checks mailed to 23 inmates because prison officials believed the convicts were not entitled to the cash, said DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.
The DOC said it released the funds after the federal government ignored several requests for guidance...
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1193194
yeah, let them run health care...
U.S. adds clerks to clear clunkers
Volunteers include FAA
August 22, 2009
The U.S. Transportation Department, billions of dollars behind in paying "cash-for-clunkers" rebates, has hired private contractors and solicited volunteers from the Federal Aviation Administration and its own executive ranks to work overtime to clear the backlog.
Employees of the FAA's air-traffic-control unit were asked to help, but the Transportation Department stressed Friday that essential safety personnel were not diverted from their duties.
A total of 1,200 workers, including about 300 contractors from Citigroup, the financial services giant, are now working seven days a week to review applications and reimburse auto dealers for rebates advanced to customers, officials said.
The department tripled its program staff to 1,100 last week, and recently added another 100 headquarters employees...
...Planners who expected to sell 250,000 cars in three months are now deluged with nearly twice that many applications seeking more than $2 billion in rebates after less than one month. Only 7 percent of the rebates have been paid, leaving many auto dealers out millions of dollars. Dealers were supposed to be repaid within 10 days...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/22/us-adds-clerks-to-clear-clunkers/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_photo_feature
Maybe the FAA coukd managehealth care...
Government (And Car Dealers) Hose You Again
Aug. 25, 2009,
…But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.
"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said.
When you buy a new car you pay tax on the difference between the new car's purchase price and the trade-in you present to the dealer. This is an intentional distortion in the law that is intended to favor dealers over private-party used car sales; if you sell your used car privately the new buyer pays sales tax but you do not get the offset on the purchase of your replacement vehicle - the only way to get that is to trade the car.
Dealers use this, of course, in negotiations, effectively pocketing the sales tax - and why not? It's a real difference to you!
But the "cash for clunkers" is not a trade-in. That's a $4,500 check from the government, basically.
So you get nailed at least once and possibly twice. Specifically, you pay sales tax on the full vehicle price (effectively paying sales tax on the $4,500!) and what's worse those states that tax income (that would be most of them!) might wind up counting this as income for state income tax purposes too, effectively taxing you twice.
I should have probably done a Ticker on this originally, but I (naively) believed that most people understood how the tax system works when it comes to new and used car transactions. Apparently, from the referenced news article, this is not the case, and I bet the car dealers, incredibly ethical people that they are, were fully informing their suckers, er, clients of this little "feature" of that government handout too.
PS: I have also received several emails informing me that dealers had customers so giddy over the "free cash" that they were selling cars at full sticker price besides - effectively, in many cases, turning the entire "cash for clunkers" money into pure dealership profit and managing to charge you tax (twice) on it as well. Ain't car dealers grand (several grand out of your pocket, that is!)
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1371-Government-And-Car-Dealers-Hose-You-Again.html
Whoops! Cash For Clunkers Payments Are Taxable!
Aug. 25, 2009,
Keloland Television: But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.
"They didn't realize that would be taxable. A lot of people don't realize that. So they're not happy and kind of surprised when they find that out," Nelson said.
We imagine that MOST people didn't know the rebates were taxable. We certainly didn't.
U.S. Education Secretary Dodges Question on Whether Martin Luther King's Views on God's Law Should be Taught in Public School
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Washington (CNSNews.com) – On the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington, Education Secretary Arne Duncan declined to say whether King's view that just laws are based on God's law should be taught in public schools.
In his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail," King expressed his classical belief, based on the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as well as the Founding Fathers, that a just law is a law that comports with the law of God and an unjust law is a law that does not comport with the law of God.
"How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust?" King asked in the letter, which he wrote in the Birmingham jail after being arrested for marching without a permit.
"A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law," the civil rights leader said.
Citing St. Thomas Aquinas, King wrote, "An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust."
At a press conference Tuesday publicizing the Kids for King education initiative, which aims to get children to learn about King's teachings, CNSNews.com asked Duncan whether he thought the content of King's letter should be taught in public schools.
Duncan did not directly answer, saying only, "I think there is so much to learn from Dr. King."
Without speaking specifically to King's concept of law "under God," he seemed instead to point to lessons of secular morality. Duncan said kids can learn "the life lessons of valuing everybody, treating everybody the way they should be treated, (and) protesting but doing so in a non-violent manner."
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53061
ACLU: Spying for America's Enemies
Michelle Malkin: Savor the silence of America's self-serving champions of privacy. For once, the American Civil Liberties Union has nothing bad to say about the latest case of secret domestic surveillance -- because it is the ACLU that committed the spying...
more at http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/08/26/aclu_spying_for_americas_enemies
ACLU fails in demand to jail child's mother
Mom refused to deliver 6-year-old for unsupervised visit with lesbian
August 25, 2009
An effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to have a judge jail the mother of a 6-year-old child for not delivering her daughter to another state for unsupervised visitation with a lesbian has been foiled.
Lawyers with the Florida-based legal advocacy group Liberty Counsel today appeared in court in Winchester, Va., to defend Lisa Miller from a complaint from the ACLU on behalf of Janet Jenkins.
The ACLU had wanted Miller jailed after she refused to deliver her daughter, Isabella, to Vermont for an unsupervised visit with Jenkins, a lesbian who has stated she believes it is not good for a child to be raised in a Christian atmosphere.
The ACLU also asked for a court order for Miller to pay for its attorneys.
But no jail time was ordered, and the court rejected the ACLU's request for money, Liberty Counsel confirmed. Further, the court decided that future issues in the case would be handled in Bedford County, Va., where Miller and her daughter live, not Vermont.
The dispute is over Jenkins' demands for custody of Isabella, with whom she has neither a blood nor an adoptive relationship...
...WND previously has reported on the same-sex "marriage" of Miller and Jenkins in Vermont. But Miller's daughter was born in Virginia, and both states have issued custody dispute decisions.
Miller later left the homosexual lifestyle and became a Christian when her daughter was 17 months old. But Jenkins, Miller's same-sex partner when she gave birth to Isabella, has been seeking full custody of the girl, claiming she was a parent even though she is not biologically related and never sought to adopt her...
...The case earlier was complicated when Jenkins' Virginia attorney withdrew "after he was indicted for obstructing justice and tampering with evidence regarding a murder that occurred in his home, where his college male friend was sodomized and killed," Liberty Counsel said...
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107923
U.N. Agency Calls for Teaching Children 5-to-8 Years of Age about Masturbation
August 25, 2009
(CNSNews.com) – A June report from the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) suggests children of all countries and cultures are entitled to sexual and reproductive education beginning at age five...
...In its rationale for creating the guidelines, the UNESCO report said it is "essential to recognize the need and entitlement of all young people to sexuality education." An appendix backed that claim by pointing to a 2008 report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation that argued governments "are obligated to guarantee sexual rights," and that "sexuality education is an integral component to human rights." (sex-ed is a human right?)
For those aged 5 to 8, some key concepts to be discussed are:
-- "Touching and rubbing one's genitals is called masturbation" and that "girls and boys have private body parts that can feel pleasurable when touched by oneself."
-- That "people receive messages about sex, gender, and sexuality from their cultures and religions."
-- That "all people regardless of their health status, religion, origin, race or sexual status can raise a child and give it the love it deserves."
-- "Gender inequality," "examples of gender stereotypes," and "gender-based violence."
-- Description of fertilization, conception, pregnancy, and delivery.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52988
The UN is powerless or unwilling to stop war and the Islamanization of the world and the torture and starvation caused by it, but they dang well can teach 5 year olds how to get off...
'Christians' celebrating Ramadan?
August 25, 2009
As the Islamic observance of Ramadan begins this year, an increasing number of Christians will also be entering into 30 days of prayer and fasting. Across the world, a growing number of Christians have been joining the movement led by the 30-Days Prayer Network, which calls Christians to pray and fast for Muslims during the month of Ramadan. The focus of their prayers is the increase of the ongoing revival among Muslims converting to Christianity. In recent years, a historically unprecedented number of Muslims have come to Christ, many through divine dreams and visions. The 30-days website describes the genesis of this movement:
The origin of this international prayer network came about as a group of Christian leaders were praying during a meeting in the Middle East in April 1992. God put a burden on the hearts of these men and women to call as many Christians as possible to pray for the Muslim world.
But a smaller left-wing Christian sect, often referred to as "the emerging church," is now also taking a very different approach. This year, a group of emergent Christians led by one of the United States most influential pastors, Brian McLaren, has announced that it will actually be "observing" the Muslim holy month, along with a Muslim "partner." Ramadan is the month that Muslims thank Allah, their god, for revealing the Quran to Muhammad, their prophet. On McLaren's personal blog, he recently announced his intentions: "We, as Christians, humbly seek to join Muslims in this observance of Ramadan as a God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness." But does such an interreligious observance go beyond mere "neighborliness" and cross the line of religious compromise and syncretism? Does observing the religious holy month of Ramadan create the impression of an endorsement of Islam?
...McLaren, a leading voice in the growing left-wing Christian movement, wants everyone to know that he has not converted to Islam, but is a "deeply committed Christian." But McLaren is not fasting for the salvation of his Muslim friends. Instead he is seeking through the practice of this Islamic ritual to promote "the common good, together with people of other faith traditions...
Our main purpose for participating will be our own spiritual growth, health, learning, and maturity, but we also hope that our experience will inspire others to pray and work for peace and the common good, together with people of other faith traditions … as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them. Just as Jesus, a devout Jew, overcame religious prejudice and learned from a Syrophonecian woman and was inspired by her faith two thousand years ago (Matthew 15:21 ff, Mark 7:24 ff), we seek to learn from our Muslim sisters and brothers today."
Christian theologians have pointed out that the notion that Jesus had to overcome his own personal prejudices is contrary to fundamental Christian belief. Such a notion could only be considered if Jesus were merely a human prophet, as Islam teaches...
...Although McLaren has said that he and his followers "will seek to avoid being disrespectful or unfaithful to our own faith tradition in our desire to be respectful to the faith tradition of our friends," some have expressed that the very act of observing a Muslim religious season is itself highly unorthodox and contrary to historical Christian practice. While loving and befriending others is paramount to the Christian faith, the Bible is clear that Christians are to avoid actually participating in their religious ceremonies:
"Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?" (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)
...While Jesus was adamant that adherence to the Christian message would cause a measure of division between peoples of differing religious persuasions, Campolo staunchly disagrees. Speaking on the relations between Muslims and Christians, in an interview by Shane Claiborne, Campolo demands, "We cannot allow our theologies to separate us."
...The corrosive nature of this liberal and somewhat experimental approach to Christianity has taken on even more significant expressions in recent years. In 2007, Episcopal priestess Rev. Anne Holmes announced that she had become a Christian-Muslim. The Christian Post reported the story:
A Seattle priest has become a Muslim while also retaining her clergy status in the Episcopal Church. Her local bishop has described the development as "exciting." "I look through Jesus and I see Allah," explained the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding to the "Seattle Times," which reported that Redding puts on her Islamic headscarf on Fridays and her clerical collar on Sundays. … she still sees Jesus as her Savior, even if not divine, and plans to remain both a priest and an Episcopalian. Bishop Vincent Warner of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia told the Seattle Times that Redding's embrace of Islam has not been controversial in his diocese.
As in Seattle, so also now in Nigeria and China, there is a small but growing movement of what some are calling "Chrislam," [Reminds me of C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle when the true Christ figures Aslan was merged with the false god Tash to become Tashlan]a movement that seeks to combine Christianity and Islam, preaching from both the Quran and the Bible. One Chrislamic gathering brings in roughly 1,500 adherents each week.
Each year, tens of thousands of Americans convert to Islam, including many who were raised in a Christian church. Many students of Bible prophecy see all of this as part of the fulfillment of what the Bible predicted long ago when it described the "great falling away" (1 Timothy 4:1, 2; Thessalonians 2:3)...
more at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107812
Media Lies About Rifqa Bary
August 25, 2009
The court ruling on Friday that allowed Rifqa Bary, the teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her Muslim family in fear for her life, to stay in Florida rather than return to her parents, was unexpected. The media shills and Islamic machinery in the U.S. never expected that G-d, Rifqa and the people would prevail upon the powers that be in Florida. So now they are in overdrive.
One egregious example is an almost incomprehensible, misogynist column at the Orlando Sentinel. It is so inaccurate, so misinformed, and so dangerous, that if Rifqa Bary is harmed, "columnist" Mike Thomas could rightly be charged with incitement to violent honor killing. Thomas got nothing right. Not one detail. Further, at no point did he consider Rifqa's testimony. At no point did he consider the consequences of Rifqa's testimony. At no point did he consider the risk to Rifqa's life.
Thomas says, "Left unanswered is what business Florida has involving itself in this matter. The people best suited to determine the threat level to Rifqa are the cops and social workers in Ohio familiar with the Bary family and the Muslim community."
Why does Florida need to be involved? The Sentinel reported Friday: "There is no evidence, according to Columbus-area authorities that her father poses any threat." But a police officer from Columbus who involved in Rifqa's case told a source close to the case that he had talked to 20 people who knew Rifqa, and almost all 20 said she was in fear for her life. And one of Rifqa's teachers said she knew Rifqa's life was in danger, but became very frightened when told by the school to "stay out of this."
Thomas observes that Rifqa was a cheerleader and says: "Somehow I can't imagine a Muslim extremist allowing his daughter to wear short skirts and shake pompoms in front of a crowd of infidels."
more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/media_lies_about_rifqa_bary.html
Killing Rifqa
August 24, 2009
Rifqa Bary faces death for her apostasy from Islam, while the media ignores the solid religious and institutional grounding for the practice. Today. In America.
Magdi Allam, is an intrepid Egyptian-born writer and vociferous critic of jihadism who was publicly converted to Christianity from Islam by Pope Benedict XVI during an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica broadcast worldwide, Saturday March 22, 2008. Writing at the time of his public apostasy, Allam highlighted the West's weakness and flaccidity, foremost, its stifling multiculturalism.
Allam decried the multicultural ethos for blandly asserting the "equality" of cultural and religious mores, even abjuring rational criticism of Islamic religious bigotry -- such as authoritative Islam's living, consensus jurisprudence that those who apostasize from Islam must be killed -- lest the tender sensibilities of Muslims be offended. He noted how in his adopted homeland of Italy, every Muslim can go to a mosque, but in the Muslim world there is ongoing and long-standing discrimination against religious minorities -- notably Christians -- entirely ignored by Western multiculturalists, of all ilks. Allam observed, moreover, the perverse phenomenon that in Western countries,
"When a Westerner decides to convert to Islam, that's fine, but when a Muslim converts to Christianity, it is suddenly the end of the world. Everyone condemns him, as though he has done something of which he should be ashamed."
And Allam concluded with this appropriately stern warning:
"I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. If in Italy, in our home, the cradle of Catholicism, we are not prepared to guarantee complete religious freedom to everyone, how can we ever be credible when we denounce the violation of this freedom elsewhere in the world."
The unassuming and previously unknown Rifqa Bary, has now become, arguably, America's most conspicuous apostate from Islam to Christianity. Truncated, grossly warped media depictions of her plight demonstrate that the American chattering classes remain stubbornly unwilling to even acknowledge, let alone confront Islam's malevolent doctrinal intolerance, ignoring Magdi Allam's plaintive appeal.
Rifqa Bary is a 17 year-old Sri Lankan native who was living in New Albany, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus) until recent dramatic events precipitated her flight to Orlando, Florida. An excellent student and High School cheerleader, Rifqa apostasized from Islam, clandestinely practicing Christianity for some 4-years by her account. Hard evidence, i.e., a FaceBook webpage captured by Pamela Geller -- consistently ignored by the media, including Fox News -- clearly documents that she was a professing Christian over two years ago, at any rate...
more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/killing_rifqa.html
'Apostate' Girl's Father: The Unreported Story
August 26, 2009
Rifqa Bary, the Ohio girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her family in fear for her life, prevailed. She will not be sent back to her father who threatened her life. But she got no help from the mainstream media. Either they didn't report her story or when they did, they printed half-truths and deceptions to whitewash Islam. The media demonized Christianity ("brainwashed by a cult") while inaccurately reporting the facts in order to avoid reporting about the violent ideology of Islam. They have become almost as depraved as the murderers they cover for. And in doing so, the mainstream media has missed quite a lot that is crucial to Rifqa's story.
Rifqa's parents, Mohamad and Aysha Bary, signed affidavits declaring themselvesindigent. That's why the Florida court appointed a lawyer for the father and a lawyer for the mother. Both their lawyers are being paid by the taxpayers of Florida. Worse still, Aysha and Mohamed Bary's lawyer asked the court for more money at Rifqa's custody hearing last Friday, so that they could wage a campaign to get Rifqa back home -- a campaign involving depositions, legal docs, filings etc.
Yet in a Dunn and Bradstreet report filed by Mohammad Bary himself for his business, Bary Gems, he states his business does $237,561 per annum. The wife, Aysha Bary, makes high-end bridal gowns (that income may be off the books, but she works every day). It would appear that she works for Custom Bridal Veil -- a company owned by a Risana Bary, who works with Mohamad Bary at Bary Gems.
Bary Gems offers some high ticket items. You can get a genuine blue sapphire for a mere $2,900. And if Mohamad Bary dissolved the business in early July, where are the proceeds? Where is the inventory? They owned a gem import business. If they liquidated, they must have had some inventory or orders or cash on hand.
The Barys live in a very affluent neighborhood in Westerville, Ohio, in a house they rent. They rent because pious Muslims aren't supposed to take on mortgages -- that would be usury, and is forbidden in the Koran.
Things began to disintegrate at home fairly rapidly once the parents were aware that Rifqa had converted to Christianity (watch her here). Her parents threatened her, but she never left Christianity. In mid-July her mother went through Rifqa's private things and found her journal. It was then revealed to her mother that Rifqa was a practicing Christian. Aysha called Mohamad and alerted him that Rifqa was still practicing Christianity in secret. Mohamed cut his business trip short in order to return home immediately while Aysha packed the family's bags to go back to Sri Lanka. Whether Rifqa would have been honor murdered before or after they returned to Sri Lanka is known only to the Barys.
It was very clear that Rifqa Bary's father was planning on fleeing the country with his threatened daughter. According to very recent documentation, Muhammad Bary dissolved his business on July 29,2009 -- after Rifqa ran for her life (fearing an honor killing for her apostasy) and was discovered in Florida.
more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/apostate_girls_father_the_unre.html
Africa wants $67 bln a year in global warming funds
Mon Aug 24, 2009
ADDIS ABABA, Aug 24 (Reuters) - African leaders will ask rich nations for $67 billion per year to mitigate the impact of global warming on the world's poorest continent, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Monday.
Ten leaders are holding talks at African Union (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital to try to agree a common stance ahead of a U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December.
Experts say Africa contributes little to the pollution blamed for warming, but is likely to be hit hardest by the droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels forecast if climate change is not checked... (except there is no man-made gorebal warming)
Earlier this year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi called on rich countries to compensate Africa for warming, arguing that pollution in the northern hemisphere may have caused his country's ruinous famines in the 1980s. (the famines were wither caused or exascerbated by islamist, communists and other totalitarian dictators whose policies prevented sound natural resources utilization)
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLO544093
Every Critic a Racist
08/24/2009
John Stossel's Take: Commentary from Co-Anchor of ABC News' "20/20"
http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/08/every-critic-a-racist.html
Dinkins: NY Gov Should Watch Race Remarks
August 25, 2009
NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City's first black mayor says Gov. David Paterson should be more careful when discussing racial issues...
...he tells The New York Times that Paterson ''should get off the racist thing.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/25/us/AP-US-NY-Governor-Racism.html?_r=1
Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'
8/26/09
ENGLAND-- After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out.
Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home.
But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance.
To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured - a potentially fatal complication.
In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.
The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him.
Mr Wattson told of the moment he realised there had been a serious mistake.
'I was lying on a stretcher in terrible pain and a doctor came up to me and said that my appendix had burst,' he said.
'I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told these people I had my appendix out just four weeks earlier but there it was on the scanner screen for all to see.
'I thought, "What the hell did they slice me open for in the first place?"
'I feel that if the surgery had been done correctly in the first place I wouldn't be in the mess I am today. I'm disgusted by the whole experience.'
Following the second operation his incision became infected and he was admitted to hospital for a third time for treatment.
He said: 'I had a temporary job at a sports shop but when I took in two medical certificates saying I had my appendix out twice they didn't believe me.
'Now I'm helpless. I can't go out and find a job, I can't go to interviews, I can barely walk and am in constant pain. Before the first operation they told me I had to have my appendix removed and when I woke up afterwards they said it had been a complete success.
'But then I keeled over in agony one month later and when they did some tests at the hospital we could see the appendix was still there on the scans.
'As far as I was aware they took my appendix out and no one told me any different.
'I have no idea what they did take out, but I want to find out what went wrong.'
A spokesman for Great Western Hospital confirmed that a representative had met Mr Wattson and that an investigation had been started.
He was unable to confirm what, if anything, was removed in the first operation.
Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases.
'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208970/Man-collapses-ruptured-appendix--weeks-NHS-doctors-took-out.html#ixzz0PHQrc7UG
The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets
26th August 2009
ENGLAND-- Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.
The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.
Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.
Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:
63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;
117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;
115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;
399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas.
Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year.
Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services.
One woman gave birth in a lift while being transferred to a labour ward from A&E while another gave birth in a corridor, said East Cheshire NHS Trust.
Others said women had to give birth on the wards - rather than in their own maternity room - because the delivery suites were full.
Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas.
Mr Lansley said: 'New mothers should not be being put through the trauma of having to give birth in such inappropriate places.
'It shows the incredible waste that has taken place that mothers are getting this sort of sub-standard treatment despite Gordon Brown's tripling of spending on the NHS.
'Labour have let down mothers by cutting the number of maternity beds and by shutting down maternity units.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1209034/The-babies-born-hospital-corridors-Bed-shortage-forces-4-000-mothers-birth-lifts-offices-hospital-toilets.html#ixzz0PHRW1eTb
Audio flashback : CIA probe was always part of the Obama agenda By Kerry Picket on Aug. 25, 2009 into
It is amusing to see media outlets display shock over the Obama Justice Department's announcement regarding an appointment of a prosecutor to probe CIA interrogation tactics. Back in 2008, I blogged at Newsbusters that Mr. Obama told a radio interviewer in 2007 that his Attorney General would investigate Bush executive orders. Naked Emperor News first uncovered the the KJFK radio interview between then Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and host Christiane Brown. Here's an excerpt(emphasis is mine:)
BROWN: And when you are... if you were to be elected president of the United States, Senator Obama, do you feel that we need to look back if the investigations have been done on this administration find out what happened, because there's a fear there's a dangerous precedent being set... the CIA interrogation tapes missing, warrant-less wire tapping, all of these are violations of the Constitution, and people can be forgiven for thinking that it seems like we only enforce the Constitution when its politically expedient.
OBAMA: Well one of things that I've said, and I've said this repeatedly publicly, since I taught constitutional law for ten years is that...one of my first acts as president is going to be call in my new attorney general to review every single executive order that's been issued... to overturn those that are undermining the Constitution, undermining our civil liberties, that are promoting this cockamamie theory of Unitary government, that says that somehow the executive branch does not need to obey the Constitution…uhh
BROWN: But, but Senator Obama forgive me…
OBAMA: Let, let me finish…and during that process of review, if it's determined that laws have been broken, then obviously accountability would be part of my Attorney General's job.
BROWN: Why, Senator, would it energize them if crimes were revealed? I think it would weaken the Republican Party.
OBAMA: You are assuming that we are not currently trying our best to document and investigate problems that are out there.
Why is Mr. Obama all of a sudden switching gears from health care to this issue? Could it be that he was saving this little nugget for a time he found himself and his agenda sinking in the polls? This is quite the gamble, as the American people are outraged over the release of the Lockerbie bomber and the first thing on their minds is how to pay the bills not CIA interrogators facing down dangerous terrorists immediately after 9/11.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2009/aug/25/audio-flashback-cia-investigations-was-always-part/
August 25, 2009
Categories: Congress
King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they're on'
A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.
"It's bulls***. It's disgraceful. You wonder which side they're on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."
"It's a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he's lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday.
"You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said. "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed."
"When Holder was talking about being 'shocked' [before the report's release], I thought they were going to have cutting guys' fingers off or something — or that they actually used the power drill," he said.
Pressed on whether interrogators had actually broken the law, King said he didn't think the Geneva Convention "applies to terrorists," and that the line between permitted and outlawed interrogation policies in the Bush years was "a distinction without a difference."
"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior.
"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said.
King faulted his own party leaders for an insufficient response to yesterday's announcement.
"They've declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/King_on_Holder_You_wonder_which_side_theyre_on.html
My Global Warming Epiphany
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/my_global_warming_epiphany.html
Government Agencies Would Need $16.6 Billion in New Tax Revenue to Buy Carbon Allowances Under Global Warming Legislation
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
(CNSNews.com) - A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) study says that all levels of government – federal, state, and local – will have to come up with a total of $16.6 billion in additional revenue to purchase carbon allowances, if cap-and-trade – to allegedly combat global warming -- is enacted into law. Experts say this could prompt increases in taxes...
...Brian Johnson, federal affairs manager for Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a free market policy group, explained that state governments may have to raise their tax rates to buy carbon permits.
"In order for the states to raise this money [for carbon allowances], they're going to have to increase utility costs and/or just increase direct taxes on their citizens," Johnson told CNSNews.com. "There's going to be no way to raise these funds without doing that."
...Adele Morris, policy director of the climate and energy project at the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank in Washington, D.C., told CNSNews.com that to cover high energy costs the federal government would potentially have to appropriate additional funds.
"It's possible that, yes, the government would have to have some kind of appropriations in order to buy [allowances]," Morris said.
"Even if they don't buy allowances, it's [climate-change legislation] going to include higher costs," she said. "So it's going to have [to have] appropriations to fund those higher costs."
The higher costs that result from the climate legislation are going to affect all levels of governments, she explained.
"The government is a big user of energy and that means everything from our fleet vehicles and the fuel they use to the heating and lighting of buildings that the government uses," Morris told CNSNew.com.
"In those expenditures, part of the carbon price is going to be passed along to the government, just like it would any other enterprise, and that's going to be across-the-board in all federal government activities -- and not just the federal government for that matter, it is going to be state and local governments as well," she said.
Morris said one option for governments – especially the federal government – faced with the question of how to raise revenue to offset energy costs might be to raise deficits.
"One option is to raise revenue, another option is to cut spending, another option is to raise debt," said Morris...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53039
Inspired by Saul Alinsky, FCC 'Diversity' Chief Calls for 'Confrontational Movement' to Give Public Broadcasting Dominant Role in Communications
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
(CNSNews.com) – Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called for a "confrontational movement" to combat what he claimed was control of the media by international corporations and to re-establish the regulatory power of government through robust public broadcasting and a more powerful FCC.
Lloyd expressed his regulatory call to arms in his 2006 book, "Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America" (University of Illinois Press).
In the book, Lloyd also said that public broadcasting should be funded through new license fees charged to the nation's private radio and television broadcasters, and that new regulatory fees should be used to fund eight new regional FCC offices.
These offices would be responsible for monitoring political advertising and commentary, children's educational programs, number of commercials, and content ratings of the programs.
Frequently referencing one of his heroes, left-wing activist Saul Alinsky, Lloyd claims in his book that the history of American communications policy has been one of continued corporate control of every form of communication from the telegraph to the Internet...
...To combat the control of international business and restore government to what he sees as its rightful place in managing public communications, Lloyd calls for a "confrontational movement" to protest the present order and organize a political movement that could force government to rein the businesses in.
"If our republican form of government is perishing because communications – the infrastructure of that republic – is under the yoke of international business how, at last, do we save it?" he asks. "We must build a confrontational movement to reclaim our democracy, a movement committed to active and sustained protest against the present order."
To do this, Lloyd draws on his experience lobbying the FCC during the Clinton administration, counseling would-be revolutionaries to follow the tactics used by other left-wing movements, such as the followers of radical Saul Alinsky and the people who ran the campaign to block Republican Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork.
Drawing heavily from Alinksy's book Rules for Radicals, Lloyd outlines nine "lessons" that people can draw on...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53055
College kids recruited to join Obama's 'army'
Earn credit for pushing 'change,' working on president's 'agenda'
August 25, 2009
President Obama's army of citizen volunteers is now actively recruiting college students in states across the country to "build support for President Obama's agenda" – and earn college credit while advocating for "change."
Obama for America, Obama's 2008 political campaign, merged with the Democratic National Committee in January and is now known as Organizing for America, or OFA. The movement some call "Obama 2.0" is now recruiting students and offering to provide credits toward degree plans in exchange for their advocacy skills.
A message from OFA national volunteer coordinators announcing the recruitment campaign and internship opportunities has been posted on several websites and on Facebook...
...Volunteers must commit to working at least 12 hours a week from Sept. 1 to Dec. 11 and, according to the OFA website, may receive college credit from their schools for doing so.
The Omaha World-Herald reported that OFA workers have been knocking on doors and making phone calls in Iowa and Nebraska to garner support for Obama's health care initiative.
"It is the first time in recent memory that a presidential candidate has maintained an active, grassroots presence in either state after an election," the newspaper reported.
"Iowa has almost nonstop presidential activity," said Norm Sterzenbach, executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party. "But the idea of having a sitting president continuing an organization is fairly unusual."
According to the Washington Post, Obama used the same standing political army earlier this year to gather signatures in support of his economic plan. The president asked his supporters to go "block by block and door by door" in every state.
In March, when volunteers canvassed high-traffic locations in Birmingham, Ala., to support Obama's health care, education and energy policies, one event organizer told the Birmingham News, "We are looking for supporters. We're not looking for a fight. That will come later, when we have an army."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107357
Obama: Boys from Brazil better than U.S.
President blocks oil drilling at home, funds exploration abroad
August 24, 2009
A controversy developed when it was revealed the Obama administration is willing to spend billions of dollars to fund offshore drilling in Brazil while blocking U.S. development of oil and natural gas resources by continuing environmental objections to opening U.S. offshore drilling, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Underlying the controversy was the disclosure that Obama-supporter and billionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros bought a $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding.
The sparks began flying when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote on her Facebook page: "So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources?"
Corsi noted that Palin was particularly frustrated because she had campaigned for the White House with Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008 partially on the theme "Drill Now," and she has experienced decades of living in Alaska where environmentalists have blocked drilling in ANWR.
"I'll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards that America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America," Palin wrote. "Come to Alaska and witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-systems."
Within hours of Palin's posting, the White House hit back.
Ben Smith of Politico wrote that the U.S. Export Import Bank disputed Palin's attack, noting that the $2 billion loan to Brazil's state-owned energy conglomerate Petrobras would not come from tax dollars.
What set off Palin was a Wall Street Journal editorial that lead with the headline, "Obama underwrites offshore drilling," followed by the subtitle, "Too bad it's not in U.S. waters."
What underscored the controversy was that Petrobras notified the country's National Petroleum Agency late Monday that the company had made yet a third huge oil find in the Campos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the Atlantic Ocean, as reported by the Wall Street Journal...
...Red Alert has consistently argued that U.S. energy policy makes no sense when blocking offshore oil and natural gas exploration dooms the U.S. to continued dependency on foreign oil – especially at a time when the nation's negative balance of trade and trillion-dollar deficits have caused the U.S. to hemorrhage the outflow of dollars when the nation can ill-afford the loss of foreign exchange reserves.
Red Alert has also consistently argued that oil is an abiotic product that should be found in abundance as drilling technology becomes affordable at deeper levels, especially offshore.
A key theme of "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil," the book Corsi co-authored with Craig Smith, CEO of Swiss America, was that Russian geologists at the end of World War II advanced deep-earth theories of oil.
According to deep-earth theories, oil is abiotic, a natural product of the earth created in the earth's mantle on an ongoing basis, not a biological product or "fossil fuel" created by biological debris, including dinosaurs, ancient forests or small biological agents such as plankton...
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=107810
David Bennett <><
posted by David Bennett | 3:22 AM
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