31 August 2009

August Ends With Near-Record Cold
Temperatures Close To Record Overnight Low Of 47 Degrees, Set In 1872
CHICAGO (CBS) ―  The skyline at sunrise on a cold August 31. Temperatures in the Chicago area sunk near the record of 47 degrees.

 
Usually, late August is time a when Chicagoans are thinking of hitting the beaches or lounging in the sidewalk cafes one last time, but this year, the temperatures have seemed more appropriate for Halloween.

 

The record low for Aug. 31 is 47 degrees, set in 1872. Overnight Sunday into Monday, the nippy readings were close, and in some areas even lower.

 

Overall in Chicago, this August has hardly been what one would call the dog days of summer. There was only one day where the temperatures reached the 90s. On Aug. 9, temperatures climbed into the mid-90s.

 

Typically, the city issues cautionary messages for heat several times each summer – stay inside, run your air conditioner, drink lots of water. But the weekend of Aug. 8 and 9 was one of the only times the city issued any such warnings this year.

 

In fact, Aug. 9 was only one of four days this summer where the temperature exceeded 90 degrees. Temperatures also reached the 90s in June 23, 24 and 25. July had no 90-degree days at all...
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/near.record.cold.2.1153693.html

It has been a cool summer in Alabama too.

 

Energy saving light bulbs offer dim future
Energy saving light bulbs are not as bright as their traditional counterparts and claims about the amount of light they produce are "exaggerated", the European Union has admitted.
 29 Aug 2009
Soon they will be the only kind of light bulb allowed, but now officials in Brussels have admitted that energy-saving bulbs are not as bright as the old-fashioned kind they are replacing.

From tomorrow a Europe-wide ban on traditional incandescent bulbs will begin to be rolled out, with a ban on 100W bulbs and old-style frosted or pearled bulbs.

Buyers of the main type of energy-saving bulb, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), are told on the packaging that they shine as brightly as an old-fashioned bulb. For example, an 11W CFL is labelled as being the equivalent of a 60W incandescent bulb.

 

However, the European Commission, which was responsible for the ban, has now conceded that this is "not true" and that such claims by manufacturers are "exaggerated".

 

The Sunday Telegraph has conducted its own tests on level of illuminance provided by light bulbs from different manufacturers to see whether their claims stand up to scrutiny.

 

We found that under normal household conditions, using a single lamp to light a room, an 11W low-energy CFL produced only 58 per cent of the illumination of an "equivalent" 60W bulb – even after a 10-minute "warm-up".
more at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6110547/Energy-saving-light-bulbs-offer-dim-future.html

 

Save the Light Bulb!
Compact fluorescents don't produce good quality light.
AUGUST 30, 2009
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2012-2014 in favor of compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs. Other countries around the world have passed similar legislation to ban most incandescents.

 

Will some energy be saved? Probably. The problem is this benefit will be more than offset by rampant dissatisfaction with lighting. We are not talking about giving up a small luxury for the greater good. We are talking about compromising light. Light is fundamental. And light is obviously for people, not buildings. The primary objective in the design of any space is to make it comfortable and habitable. This is most critical in homes, where this law will impact our lives the most. And yet while energy conservation, a worthy cause, has strong advocacy in public policy, good lighting has very little...

 

...Even without taking into account people's preferences, CFLs, which can be an excellent choice for some applications, are simply not an equivalent technology to incandescents in all applications. For example, if you have dimmers used for home theater or general ambience, you must buy a compatible dimmable CFL, which costs more, and even then it may not work as desired on your dimmers. How environmental will it be for frustrated homeowners to remove and dispose of thousands of dimmers? What's more, CFLs work best in light fixtures designed for CFLs, and may not fit, provide desired service life, or distribute light in the same pleasing pattern as incandescents. How environmental will it be for homeowners to tear out and install new light fixtures?

 

None of these and other considerations appear to have been included in the technical justification for this law. Instead, the decision appears to have been made entirely based on a perception of efficiency gains. Light-source efficacy, expressed as lumens of light output per watt of electrical input, has been used as a comparative metric justifying encouragement of CFLs. But this metric is flawed for one simple reason: It is a laboratory measurement and a guide, not a truth, in the field; actual energy performance will depend on numerous application characteristics and product quality.

 

If energy conservation were to be the sole goal of energy policy, and efficacy were to be the sole technical consideration, then why CFLs? If we really want to save energy, we would advocate high-pressure sodium lamps—those large bulbs that produce bright orangish light in many streetlights. Their efficacy is more than double what CFLs can offer. Of course this would not be tolerated by the public. This choice shows that we are willing to advocate bad lighting—but not horrible lighting...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377171050647330.html

Election Set To Fill Vacant Kennedy Seat: Reports
August 31, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO -- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick set a special election for Jan. 19 to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Sen. Edward Kennedy, according to media reports Monday. Patrick also said he supports a change in the law that would allow the governor to appoint an interim successor, according to reports.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/election-set-vacant-kennedy-seat-reports/
The funny thing is the Mass law use to have the governor appoint an interim successor but the libs changed it in 2004 when they thought John F Kerry was going to defeat President Bush and they didn't want Mitt Romney, a Republican Governor, to appoint the interim successor. Now that the libs have control of the governorship back they want to have the gov to appoint an interim successor... One would think the law should be the law regardless of the party affiliation of the governor...

 

Czar's 'communist manifesto' scrubbed from Net
Founded group with 'commitment to fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism'
 August 30, 2009
By Aaron Klein
JERUSALEM – How is this for a quick clean up job?

 

Last week, WND reported the official communist-oriented manifesto of a radical group founded by Obama's environmental adviser, Van Jones, was published in full on the Internet.

 

Just hours later, the manifesto was removed and the entire website was taken down.

It is, however, still available in web archives.

 

As WND previously reported, Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is an admitted black nationalist and radical communist.

 

Jones was the leader and founder of a radical group, the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM.

 

STORM's official manifesto, titled, "Reclaiming Revolution," had been published on the Internet.

 

A WND review of the 97-page treatise found that the manual describes Jones' organization as having a "commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism."
more at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108445

 

Gibbs: Obama has not yet read Afghan assessment
Aug 31
The White House spokesman says President Barack Obama has not yet seen a new assessment of the Afghan war.

 

Robert Gibbs said Monday that the report is making it's way "up the chain of command." Gen. Stanley McChrystal's report was delivered to NATO allies and the Pentagon earlier Monday.

Gibbs said the president had asked for the assessment of the 8-year-old war, realizing that the effort had been "under-resourced" for "the better part of a decade." Gibbs said that McChrystal's report was separate from any possible request for more troops that could come later.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9AE0UM81&show_article=1
The Commander In Chief is waiting for the report to filter to him? There are somethings that don't wait. Obama is realizing that the effort had been "under-resourced" for "the better part of a decade"??? Maybe he should ask people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid why that is…

State to probe if public is paying for mosques
The TiZA charter school threatens to sue for defamation.
August 29, 2009
State officials are examining whether public money has been improperly used to pay for Islamic mosques on charter school campuses in Blaine and Inver Grove Heights.

 

Chas Anderson, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education, said officials will study Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy's (TiZA) use of state "lease aid'' grants, which were created more than a decade ago to help charter schools rent adequate facilities.

 

"If it is subsidizing a mosque, in our view, that would be a violation of state and federal law,'' Anderson said.

 

The probe is the latest in a series of church-vs.-state conflicts involving TiZA and several Islamic nonprofit organizations with ties to the charter school.

 

Anderson said the inquiry was sparked by a lawsuit filed against the school this year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota, which claims taxpayer dollars paid to TiZA are unconstitutionally promoting religion...
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/56112882.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUX

 

Health-Care Secrets: Chris Dodd keeps his Senate bill under wraps
AUGUST 29, 2009
President Obama has promised a "new era of transparency" in Washington, so perhaps he should talk to the Senate about getting with his program. On July 15, six weeks ago, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed an amended $1 trillion health-care bill, with acting Chairman Chris Dodd calling it a "historic achievement." Too bad the committee won't reveal this history even to other Senators, much less to the public.

 

Three weeks ago Republicans on the committee wrote Mr. Dodd "to reiterate our request for a full copy of the bill as amended, in the four-week mark-up." Mr. Dodd has refused to comply. The Senate bill that is available on the committee Web site is 790 pages long. While that is some 300 pages shorter than the House health bill, that's in part because it doesn't include nearly 200 amendments that passed when the committee redrafted the bill. Amended sections of the bill might as well be written in invisible ink.

 

The whole process was so haphazard that at one point during the committee mark-up Barbara Mikulski, the Democrat from Maryland, declared: "Giving me language on little pieces of paper on which I'm going to commit the sacred fortunes and honor of the United States for decades, this is not the way to go. We can't do this on the backs of envelopes."

 

We called Mr. Dodd's committee office last week to ask why the bill isn't posted, and a spokesman explained that it is still being "worked on." Will it be ready by October? "Don't count on it," the staffer said.

 

Meanwhile, President Obama has been saying that critics are "misrepresenting" his proposals. But who's to know what's reality and what's a myth when the public and Members of Congress aren't able to read a bill that would restructure one-seventh of our economy. We don't have any idea what the bill will cost or how many people it will provide insurance for, because the Congressional Budget Office can't score it. No wonder the public is increasingly skeptical of this entire exercise.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574301050879872972.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

 

Ted Kennedy - A life of debauchery
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/ted_kennedy_a_life_of_debauche.html

 

The Kennedy Legend, RIP
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/the_kennedy_legend_rip.html

 

How sick was Ted Kennedy?
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108397

 

Kennedy and the KGB
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/kgb_kennedy_the_ted_kennedy_i.html

 

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html

 

Trustfund Ted
By Daniel J. Flynn on 8.28.09
...Despite ranking in the bottom half of his class at Milton Academy, Ted Kennedy matriculated into America's most prestigious university in 1950. Grades? He was a Kennedy. His three older brothers and father had graduated from Harvard. Why couldn't he? Unable to perform in the classroom as he performed on the football field, the youngest of the Kennedy brood hired a classmate to take his Spanish exam. Those who had bent the rules to admit him abided by them in expelling him. Joe Kennedy was furious -- that his son got caught, not that he cheated.

 

When the immature Kennedy impulsively enlisted in the Army to save face, he discovered that his contract obliged him to a longer period of service, and exposed him to the dangers of combat. An outraged Joe Kennedy responded, "Don't you even look at what you're signing?" His father, one of the richest men in America, "fixed" the matter with a few phone calls. Ted's four-year contract became a two-year stint, and the possibility of a soldier's life on the front lines in Korea was rectified with a posh assignment in Paris guarding NATO's headquarters...

 

...Ted Kennedy is perhaps the only senator who never -- save for his Army respite from Harvard -- held a steady paying job prior to landing one in that august body. This infuriated his opponent, Edward McCormack, in the 1962 Massachusetts Democratic primary. "If his name was Edward Moore, with his qualifications," the state's attorney general remarked in a debate, "your candidacy would be a joke." But starting at the top was the Kennedy way. If Joseph Kennedy could go from stock swindler to chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Robert Kennedy could become attorney general of the United States without ever having tried a case in court, then certainly President Kennedy's kid brother could, just three years out of law school, win a place in the U.S. Senate...

 

...A few years later, Ted Kennedy got away with it again. After finishing ninth in a field of 31 in a regatta, Kennedy spent a Saturday partying with six unmarried women and a group of married men. Pounding rum and cokes, Kennedy absconded from the booze barbecue with Mary Jo Kopechne, whom he drove to her death off a narrow, unlit bridge without guardrails. For almost ten hours, the senator dried out, called numerous acquaintances, and tried to get his cousin to go along with a cover story that Kopechne had been alone at the wheel -- but did nothing to alert authorities to his party companion's plight. Political fixers fixed him with a neck brace, produced a renewed driver's license for the unlicensed senator, and released incomplete phone records -- exposed by the New York Times a decade later -- that erased the calls he made between the time of the accident and the time of his reporting it. Characteristic of the treatment he had received his whole life, Kennedy avoided jail and overwhelmingly won reelection the next year. His mother responded by initially disinheriting Ted's cousin, her orphaned nephew, who refused to go along with her son's subterfuge...

 

...Like his previous mistakes, the accident did nothing to alter Kennedy's misbehavior. Here, caught in broad daylight in the marital act on the floor of a posh Washington restaurant. There, waking his son and nephew to carouse the Palm Beach bars on Good Friday -- leading to accusations of a rape occurring within earshot of the senator...

 

...Insulated by the consequences of his behavior, Kennedy was also shielded from the consequences of his policies. He was the champion of busing who kept his own children far from the public schools; an advocate of publicly funded campaigns who bankrolled his political career with his family's shadowy financing; an icon of feminists who used women like Kleenex, serially harassed members of the opposite sex, and spent ten hours attempting to rescue his political career as he denied the young women suffocating in an air pocket in his Oldsmobile professional rescue attempts; and the primary booster of socialized medicine who assembled a dream team of neurosurgeons to consult on his treatment for brain cancer. The proverbial limousine liberal was made real in Trustfund Ted.

 

Particularly galling to Senator Kennedy's amazed antagonists was the manner in which those that he wronged rewarded rather than punished their transgressor. Edward McCormack's family chose Kennedy to deliver a eulogy at his funeral. In anticipation of the 1976 race for the presidency, Joe and Gwen Kopechne offered that they would cast their votes for Kennedy should he run. More than a half century after expelling Ted Kennedy, Harvard awarded him an honorary degree and celebrated him at The Game, where Harvard Stadium's confused spectators were left wondering how Ted Kennedy '54 could have caught a touchdown pass in the 1955 Harvard-Yale game.

 

"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life," Ted eulogized slain brother Bobby in 1969. More than four decades later, Ted Kennedy's conservative detractors are wondering why the senator's admirers aren't heeding such advice.
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/08/28/trustfund-ted

 

It's going to get worse for Obama
August 31, 2009
More grim news for Obama from the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Net Approval (strongly approve minus strongly disapprove) index is minus 11. Overall, only 46% of the likely voters polled strongly or somewhat approve of Obama. AT political director Richard Baehr calls the chart below a "shockingly fast decline. It suggests this guy got elected because the stars were aligned, that plus 3/4 of a billion dollars and billions in free positive media coverage."

News editor Ed Lasky passes along this article by Jim McTague of Barrons, noting the damage that liberal Massachusetts is about the inflict on Obama, as the state appoints a Democrat to succeed Ted Kennedy in the Senate, necessitating a change in the state law that Kennedy engineered in order to assure a Democrat in the Senate the last a potential vacancy loomed with John Kerry running for President, with a Republican governor sitting in the State House on Beacon Hill...
more at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/08/its_going_to_get_worse_for_oba.html

 

White House Spokesman Uses Phrase "War On Terror"
August 31, 2009
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used the term "war on terror" at today's press conference.

The White House previously said that the "war on terrorism" was over.
video at
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/08/31/white_house_spokesman_uses_phrase_war_on_terror.html

White House: 'War on terrorism' is over
'Jihadists' and 'global war' no longer acceptable terms
By Jon Ward and Eli Lake WASHINGTON TIMES
August 6, 2009
It's official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" or in a "global war."

President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.

The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/white-house-war-terrorism-over/?feat=home_headlines

 

Fixing the Health-Care System Requires Market Changes, Not a Government Takeover, Major Economists Say
Friday, August 28, 2009
Fixing the main problems with the health-care system should not take a major overhaul or government-run health insurance, or even a 700-page bill. What is needed is some good old-fashioned competition, according to the authors of a new book on the subject -- two economists whose research is highly regarded in the academic world.
 
"If (some) pro-competitive adjustments are made, you could write a bill probably of 30 pages or less – a very short bill that would make the necessary changes and would accomplish the objective of getting everybody covered with adequate insurance," said Dr. Earl Grinols, distinguished professor of economics at Baylor University and co-author of the book, "Health Care for Us All: Getting More for Our Investment."

 

"It would cost probably far less than one-half of one percent of domestic gross national product," Grinols told CNSNews.com in a recent interview...

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53197

Federal Government Will Borrow 40 Percent of the Money It Spends Next Year, Says White House Report
August 31, 2009
(CNSNews.com) – According to the Obama administration's mid-session budget update, the federal government will have to borrow nearly 40 percent of its total expenditures in 2010.

The report, "Mid-Session Review, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010," shows that 39.9 percent of all federal income will be borrowed, making borrowing the single largest share of revenue in 2010. The next largest component of federal revenue is the personal income tax, which accounts for only 27.3 percent of federal funds...

 

...This level of borrowing is unprecedented even during recessions. During the long recession of the 1970's, federal borrowing never rose above 20 percent of total expenditures despite nearly a decade of sluggish economic growth, high inflation and an international oil crisis.
 
Debt as a share of the budget reached 15 percent during the 1987recession. Borrowing was generally high during much of the early Reagan administration, reaching a peak of 25 percent in 1983.
 
However, Obama's borrowing is 10 times greater than Reagan's, which was fueled largely by defense spending as America battled the Soviet Union for dominance in the Cold War...
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/53246
 

David Bennett <><

http://www.freewill-predestination.com