Ingineers Ramblings

Looking for an excuse

2010-11-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today from the Christian Science Monitor:

Did Jon Stewart hurt the Democrats in Election 2010?

Comedians like Jon Stewart took aim at candidates like Christine O'Donnell in Election 2010, and sharp political satire may have led to cynicism, suppressing the youth vote, experts say.

That is right find an excuse. It couldn't possibly be that the voters disagree with the Democrat agenda. Or that people do not like the President, the Congress and the Senate all to be from the same party. Nope there must be some other reason that people across the country voted out Democrats and voted in Republicans.

Let's be more like France

2010-10-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

France: Strikes costing up to $557 million per day

21 votes

Play VideoReuters – The growing costs of French strikes

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AP – Piles of garbage, in front of a clothes shop in Marseille, southern France, Monday, Oct. 25, 2010. France's …

By ELAINE GANLEY, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago

PARIS – France's massive strikes are costing the national economy up to euro400 million ($557 million) each day, the French finance minister said Monday as workers continued to block trash incinerators to protest a plan to raise the retirement age to 62.

Rotting piles of garbage — now at nearly 9,000 tons — are becoming a health hazard in the Mediterranean city of Marseille, which has been hit hard on land and at sea. Striking dockers at France's largest port are intermittently blocking ships trying to unload fuel there.

Twelve striking refineries have been shut down for nearly two weeks, but the protest movement appeared to weaken Monday after workers at three refineries voted to end their walkout. The French oil refineries' body, UFIP, said all the country's oil depots had also been unblocked.

The oil worker's return to work is likely to ease the ongoing gasoline shortages, which on Monday still had about one in four gas stations in France shuttered.

Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that the left in this country said they wanted us to be more like France? Well there is a big reason that we are not France and it is in the news now. Why don't I hear any politicians saying we should have this going on here? I guess that wasn't such a great idea after all.

Wikileaks Founder needs to go

2010-08-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

WikiLeaks Founder Describes Possibility of Casualties as Acceptable Risk

Published August 16, 2010

| FoxNews.com

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Any U.S. and allied casualties that result from the publication of classified Afghan war documents would be an acceptable risk, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested Monday, saying "such information is also likely to save a great many lives."

U.S. military officials have warned about the danger posed to Afghan informants and others since Assange released 76,000 once-secret war documents. The founder of the whistleblower website says he will publish the remaining 15,000 documents within a month despite more warnings from the U.S. government.

This guy needs to catch an iridium pellet from a Soviet umbrella gun, if you know what I am saying. I think you do.

6 Americans on medical team killed in Afghanistan

2010-08-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan war: Deadly ambush of medical mission roils one of safest provinces

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the ambush of a medical mission that killed six Americans, one Briton, one German, and two Afghans. The attack highlights the difficulty of limiting the reach of insurgent activity in the Afghanistan war.
The six Americans, one Briton, one German, and three Afghans, were returning from a two-week mission providing eye treatment in Nuristan Province. All were found shot in Badakhshan Province except for one of the Afghans, who escaped.
It is time to shit or get off the pot in Afghanistan. All of the money and lives that we have spent there trying to gain the hearts and minds of the people and this is what we get. I say we either send Osama Bin Ladin a CNN reporter to tell him he won and we are giving up or we cut the binders off our military and send them in to fight a real war and we will worry about rebuilding the country when we are done. Line up every single person in the country and ask them if they support the Taliban or if they want to send their daughters to school and have clean drinking water. If they say Taliban then shoot them. It may take 300,000 troops and a bunch of airplanes and bombs but this letting the locals fight our fight for us so we don't piss anybody off is just going to extend our misery and cost us more money and more US boys lives.
We whipped Germany and Japan at the same time within 4 years and now after 9 years we can't even hunt down and kill a rag tag group of people that most of the local population does not even like? WTF? We weren't worried about offending Buddhist sensibilities when we bombed Japan. This whole politically correct half hearted war is not doing anybody any good. The only thing these people understand is brute force and that is what we need to show them if we really intend to win this war.

Global Warming Alert

2010-07-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

More proof that maybe we do not know as much as we thought and that we don't have as much control as we thought over the atmosphere.

Hundreds of dead penguins dot Brazil's beaches

12 votes

By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 22, 3:08 am ET

SAO PAULO – Hundreds of penguins that apparently starved to death are washing up on the beaches of Brazil, worrying scientists who are still investigating what's causing them to die.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Scientists are investigating whether strong currents and colder-than-normal waters have hurt populations of the species that make up the penguins' diet, or whether human activity may be playing a role.

"Overfishing may have made the fish and squid scarcer," Nascimento said.

Nascimento said it's common for penguins to swim north this time of year. Inevitably, some get lost along the way or die from hunger or exhaustion, and end up on the Brazilian coast far from home.

But not in such numbers — Nascimento said about 100 to 150 live penguins show up on the beach in an average year, and only 10 or so are dead.

"What worries us this year," he said, "is the absurdly high number of penguins that have appeared dead in a short period of time."

You read that correctly folks. Colder than normal waters may have played a role in the Penguins starving to death. So I guess the polar ice caps are not in danger of coming to a boil any time in the next 20 minutes so maybe we will survive as a species for a little while longer.

The headline here could have just as easily said, Hundreds of penguins wash up on shore, Scientists have no clue why.

Obama's selective modesty

2010-07-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

I got this from Face Book, where a friend had "Liked" it. Interesting stuff.

Obama's selective modesty

By C. KRAUTHAMMER
07/11/2010 23:48

The president is convinced of his own magnificence, yet not of his country’s.

Talkbacks (23)

Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Barack Obama’s vision of NASA’s mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden: “One was he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”

Apart from the psychobabble – farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer – what’s the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far – but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.

Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence – lauding, for example, Russia’s contribution to the space station.

Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the US to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the US cannot get to Mars without international assistance.

Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of president John F. Kennedy’s pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade.

There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy’s. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in Strasbourg, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and theGreeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Which of course means: If we’re all exceptional, no one is.

TAKE HUMAN rights. After Obama’s meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we too are working on perfecting our own democracy.

Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America.

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with Chinaabout human rights, the US side brought up Arizona’s immigration law – “early and often.” As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents, suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama’s modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America’s alleged failing – from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11.

It’s fine to recognize the achievements of others and be nonchauvinistic about one’s country. But Obama’s modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.

It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America’s sins and the world’s to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the first-person pronoun – I.

Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to cabinet members and other high government officials as “my” – “my secretary of homeland security,” “my national security team,” “my ambassador.”

The more normal – and respectful – usage is to say “the,” as in “the secretary of state.” These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution – not just the man who appointed them.

It’s a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama’s exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies – both about himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama’s modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence – yet not of his own country’s.

Welfare State Coming Home to Roost.

2010-07-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Amazing that nobody was reporting this before the Health Care Bill was passed and signed. Not really a big shock though to those of us that knew it was going to be a mess. First insurance premiums are skyrocketing in response to the new law and now the report that one of the things that supporters said would get better is going to actually get worse.

Health overhaul may mean longer ER waits, crowding

104 votes

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By CARLA K. JOHNSON, AP Medical Writer – Fri Jul 2, 7:31 am ET

CHICAGO – Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can't find care elsewhere, may grow even more crowded with longer wait times under the nation's new health law.

That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding. It would seem these patients would be able to get routine health care by visiting a doctor's office, as most of the insured do.

But it's not that simple. Consider:

_There's already a shortage of front-line family physicians in some places and experts think that will get worse.

_People without insurance aren't the ones filling up the nation's emergency rooms. Far from it. The uninsured are no more likely to use ERs than people with private insurance, perhaps because they're wary of huge bills.

_The biggest users of emergency rooms by far are Medicaid recipients. And the new health insurance law will increase their ranks by about 16 million. Medicaid is the state and federal program for low-income families and the disabled. And many family doctors limit the number of Medicaid patients they take because of low government reimbursements.

The Earth does take care of itself

2010-06-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

I found this story this morning about another oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that was much worse than what we are experiencing now. It spilled oil for 11 months before being contained. I know it is not good, but it is not the end of life as we know it.

The Ixtoc Spill 30 Years Later

June 25, 2010 - 11:24 AM | by: Adam Housley

Amidst the thick mangroves, under the turquoise tranquil waters and along the shoreline of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the world's worst peacetime oil spill once hit here and more than 30 years later, there are still a few signs of Ixtoc.

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The massive spill in June of 1979 bares striking similarity to the BP Horizon Spill still gushing into the Gulf as a blowout preventer malfunctioned failing to stop the flow of oil that would eventually dump nearly 3 and a half million barrels into the Bay of Campeche. The oil wouldn't just blanket the coastline here in Mexico, but eventually it would cover more than 160 miles of Texas beaches.

"It was a fairly similar to the one today as we understand. It too was a blowout preventor that malfunctioned 50 miles north of the Mexican coast in the city of Ciudad Carmen in about 170 ft of water. Ixtoc blew from the 3rd of June 1979, to the 23rd of March 1980, almost 10 months. It was 140 million gallons in total the largest peacetime spill that has ever been recorded in history," says Dr. Wes Tunnell a marine biologist at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

Dr. Tunnell was a new professor on the Texas coast at the time and has studied the aftermath over the coarse of the last 30 years. "I feel that learning from the past that we know the sandy beaches will recover from 2 to 3 years, or maybe a little longer. The ones that I’m worried about are the salt marshes of the Mississippi Delta, particularly the eastern side, where the oil is starting to come in now. Those salt marshes are a ten on a scale on a 1 to 10, they will be the most damaged and the toughest to clean up."

If the aftermath from Ixtoc is any indication, the environment and its recovery process will surprise many worried about the future. Marine biologists feared the Gulf would be ruined from the oil, but much of it repaired itself within two or three years.

Cheney Hospitalized

2010-06-25T19:45:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Cheney Hospitalized

URGENT: Former VP is hospitalized after experiencing discomfort, the latest health scare for the 69-year-old GOP leader who has had four heart attacks since the age of 37.

Experiencing Discomfort. Hell a whole lot of the country experienced discomfort while he was Vice President. I am not a Dick Cheney fan, so I couldn't help myself on this one.

See Rain I can make fun of Republicans too.

Carbon Footprint

2010-06-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

The earth is trying to balance out the Carbon situation and take care of "Global Warming" on it own and the Chinese are doing their best to stop it. They actually send ships out to clean it up. They must not have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol.

Where is Al Gore when we need him? Oh thats right he is defending himself for groping the woman that came to his hotel room late at night to give him a massage.

Big algae bloom expanding off China's east coast

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Fri Jun 25, 5:24 am ET

BEIJING – A huge bright green algae bloom is blanketing the sea off China's east coast and wind is driving it closer to land, an official said Friday.

Cui Wenlin, an official with the State Oceanic Administration, said the slimy bloom is the biggest China has seen since a huge outbreak in 2008 threatened to disrupt sailing events during the Beijing Summer Olympics. Before the games, thousands of soldiers, volunteers and fishing boats were recruited to clean up that bloom, which sailors took to calling "The Fairway" and "The Carpet."

The current outbreak has nearly doubled in size since it was first spotted June 14 near eastern China'sShandong province and now measures about 110 square miles (300 square kilometers), said Cui, who works at the administration's North China Sea Environmental Monitoring Center.

Winds are pushing the mass toward the resort city of Qingdao, and it was 6-12 miles (10-20 kilometers) from shore late Friday, he said.

It wasn't immediately clear what caused the outbreak, Cui said.

So far, the bloom has not had any effect on the local fishing industry because of a routine fishing suspension that is in force to allow fish to repopulate, said Wu Wei, an official with the information office of the Qingdao Oceanic and Fishery Bureau. He said preparations were being made to clean up the algae when it reached the coast.

"We've taught people how to do the cleaning and have prepared over 60 vessels and other equipment for the cleaning," Wu said. "We're ready."

Gaza Flotilla

2010-05-31T09:55:00.000-07:00

This mess with the Gaza Flotilla is not going to go well for either side. Of course everyone is mad at Israel, but what other country, besides maybe the US would let a bunch of ships come into their territory without being inspected. The Israeli government offered to have the humanitarian cargo be delivered to a port and inspected and then delivered to Gaza, but that was not good enough for these people. They had to make a statement and now they have learned that when you attack the Israeli military they do not like it and they actually fight back.

I would like to see what would happen if a group of ships tried to bring supplies to the rebels in Chiapas Mexico or Columbia or even to the Basque Separatists without the government inspecting it. Those governments would probably not play as nice as the Israelis did and the world wouldn't even bat an eye.

Obama is such a bitch

2010-05-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

President Obama's schedule 'doesn't allow for a meeting' with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as she requests to speak with him as tensions mount over immigration law.

President Obama has turned down Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's request to meet while she's in Washington next week as tensions mount between his administration and Arizona over the state's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants.

Brewer will be in Washington to meet with other governors. She said Friday that she had asked to meet with Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to discuss border security and immigration but Obama's schedule "doesn't allow for a meeting" with her, White House spokesman Adam Abrams said, adding that the president "does intend to sit down with the governor in the future."

So the President has time to fly out to San Francisco last week to attend a fund raiser for Barbara Boxer, and he can go on vacation instead of going to Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day, but he doesn't have time to meet with a governor on the front lines of the southern invasion while she is in D.C. How lame is that?

Obama breaks another pledge

2010-05-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

Yet again when it comes to actually being President instead of just running for the office, Obama changes his tune again. If a sentence starts with “Obama said”’ it likely is going to be about something that is not true.

From not closing Gitmo to not ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, to changing timelines for withdrawing from Iraq to appointing lobbyists to his administration, pretty much anything Obama said during the campaign has changed dramatically now that he is President and gets to actually make the decisions that he derided the previous President for.

From Fox News:

A year after President Obama pledged to end the practice of funding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with "emergency" spending bills, the Senate is taking up a $60 billion request that would do exactly that.

The spending bill, which includes $33 billion for the two wars in addition to disaster relief funds and aid for Haiti, is running headlong into concern from war-weary Democrats and deficit-conscious Republicans.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called the bill a "heavy lift" in her chamber. But the Senate, which is taking up the request first, could be the scene of a spending stand-off between Democrats and Republicans.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., plans to offer an amendment requiring Congress to offset the cost of the package with spending cuts elsewhere. He slammed the administration for continuing to use the "emergency" supplemental to fund the wars -- by designating the spending bill as "emergency," Congress avoids having to find a way to pay for it.

"The last day war funding was unforeseen was September 10, 2001," the first-term senator said in a written statement. "This legislation is designed to bail out career politicians who want to avoid the hard work of prioritizing spending."

The Bush administration routinely used supplemental spending bills to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama criticized the practice as a candidate and when he came into office pledged to keep war funding within the traditional budget request.

"For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price," he said in his February 2009 address to a joint session of Congress.

When Obama requested $83 billion in additional funding last spring for the wars, he said he would draw the line there.

"This is the last planned war supplemental," he wrote in April 2009 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling for "an honest, more accurate and fiscally responsible estimate of federal spending" after years of "budget gimmicks and wasteful spending."

But while Congress provided $130 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of last year as part of the traditional budget process, Obama this year came back to Capitol Hill for the additional $33 billion -- mostly to cover the cost of sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

"The irony certainly isn't lost on us," a Senate GOP aide told FoxNews.com. "Obviously they stuck with that pledge about as well as they stuck with most the other pledges they made."

Mountain Climber needs rescue

2010-02-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

Climber Falls Into St. Helens Crater; Rescue Underway

Monday, February 15, 2010

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. — A climber has fallen into the crater at Mount St. Helens and a rescue is under way.

The Skamania County sheriff's says it received a 911 cell phone call for help about 1 p.m. Monday.

Undersheriff Dave Cox says a helicopter that does contract work for the U.S. Geological Surveyspotted the climber on a steep slope near the bottom of the crater but was unable to pick him up because of high winds and whiteout conditions.

Cox says a Coast Guard rescue helicopter has been called but it's uncertain if the climber can be rescued before dark. A ground rescue team is being organized.

WTF? Normally it is Mt. Hood, this time St. Hellens. What is the deal with these people that go mountain climbing in the middle of winter? I say if you are dumb enough to climb a snow covered mountain in the Pacific Northwest between Thanksgiving and Easter then good luck. We will send a nice flower arrangement to your funeral. Or if you happen to make it out, we will gladly send an ambulance to the end of the paved road, but that is about it. The cost and risk and sometimes loss of lives of the rescuers is too much to come get your dumb ass if you attempt foolish ventures.

Fiscal Responsibility

2010-02-12T14:52:00.000-08:00

So Obama is now talking about how he is worried about the deficit. But in 15 months he has increased the debt more than Reagan or George W. Bush did in 8 years in office. With his budget by 2015 our national debt will be 103% of our GDP. Most economists agree that the maximum debt that a nation can survive is 90% of GDP. Something needs to be changed and it looks like it will be mine and my children's generations that will have to pay to clean up the mess left by the baby boomers.

Over the Top

2010-01-31T10:33:00.000-08:00

I got this from Rainy Day Thoughts. For some reason I feel like answering, but I do not like picking other blogs to answer so if anyone wants to answer feel free to do so.

1. Where is your cell phone? kitchen counter
2. Your hair? Short
3. Your mother? Disapeered
4. Your father? Good Hearted
5. Your favorite food? Steak
6. Your dream last night? Vivid
7. Your favorite drink? Diet Pepsi
8. Your dream/goal? being comfortable
9. What room are you in? Home Office
10. Your hobby? Travel
11. Your fear? Loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Right here
13. Where were you last night? Crab Feed
14. Something you aren’t? Out going
15. Muffins? blue berry
16. Wish list item? Cabin
17. Where did you grow up? Red Bluff
18. Last thing you did? clean kitchen
19. What are you wearing? sweats
20. Your TV? off
21. Your pet(s)? dogs
22. Your friends? caring
23. Your life? monotonous
24. Your mood? contemplative
25. Missing someone? yes
26. Vehicle? white
27. Something you’re not wearing? coat
28. Your favorite store? costco
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? last night
31. Last time you cried? last weekend
32. Your best friend? wife
33. One place that you go over and over? gym
34. One person who emails you regularly? Aunt Mary
35. Favorite place to eat? Round Table Pizza

Good to Know that Some Things Never Change

2010-01-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

It will be interesting to see if this is a chant on every talk show for the next 5 years like Haliburton was. I bet not. And this looks worse than anything the Bush Administration did about war zone contracts. There are very few companies that provide logistics and support in the Persian Gulf area so you are likely to get Haliburton for some of the work no matter what. This one looks pretty bad.

Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

By James Rosen

- FOXNews.com

The Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

Despite President Obama's long history of criticizing the Bush administration for "sweetheart deals" with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.

Here is the shady part:

The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. "They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year," a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.

"That's kind of weird," said another source, who has worked on "rule of law" issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, about the no-bid contract to Checchi & Company. "There's lots of companies and non-governmental organizations that do this sort of work."

America back to a 2 party system

2010-01-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

One of the most liberal states in the union decided they have had enough change and are returning America to a 2 party system. It looks like the people in the Bay State have demonstrated what many of us across the country feel. That America should be a 2 party system and the one party, dictatorial rule that we have had for the past 12 months was not working for us.

Hopefully now we can get some "Open" debate and bipartisanship going in the Congress and Senate for things like Healthcare reform and Cap and Tax.

Speaking of Nutbars

2010-01-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

Cindy Sheehan Leads Protest at CIA, Dick Cheney's Home

Saturday, January 16, 2010

LANGLEY, Virginia — A group led by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has protested near the CIA's headquarters and former Vice President Dick Cheney's home in northern Virginia.

They were protesting the use of unmanned drone aircraft to attackal-Qaida and Taliban targets.

WTF? Does she know that Cheney has been out of office for nearly a year? And I thought Obama said Afghanistan was the just war that we should be fighting? And didn't all the anti-Iraq war democrats in Congress say these unmanned drones were the way to fight a war without putting thousands of American soldiers on the ground. Apparently this lady did not get the memo from the DNC that all of this was OK now that the One is C in C.

Nutbars of the World Unite

2010-01-16T12:39:00.000-08:00

Maybe we could put Danny Glover on the same spaceship with Pat Robertson and send them to Mars. First Robertson says the Haitians brought the earthquake on themselves and now this:

Danny Glover's Bizarre Explanation for the Haiti Earthquake

Friday, January 15, 2010
By Jim Angle

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Fault Line

Actor Danny Glover says the earthquake in Haiti is a result of global warming. Glover told GRITtv that it could have happened to any of the Caribbean island nations: "They are all in peril because of global warming."

Then, he lamented the failure of the climate summit in Copenhagen. As a result of that failure, he says, "this is what happened."

I know Glover is a wacko extreme lefty, but this is just crazy. Especially considering that it has been one of the coldest winters on record in the Caribbean region.

You're doing a heck of a job Nappy.

2009-12-29T14:47:00.001-08:00

I was going to post on this topic earlier in the week, but didn't get to it. But today I saw this article so I decided why not.

Analysis: Many question 'system worked' comment

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By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent – 22 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration claim that "the system worked" after a failed aircraft bombing wasn't quite as jolting asPresident George W. Bush's "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" when New Orleans was sinking under deadly Hurricane Katrina. Both raised disturbing questions about presidential response in a time of crisis.

Bush's praise for his beleaguered FEMA director, Michael Brown, came while storm evacuees remained trapped in the Louisiana Superdome and victims' bloated bodies floated in the flooded streets. It became a clarion call for all his administration did wrong during the 2005 calamity — and a larger symbol for all people disliked generally about Bush.

Obama is dealing with a crisis of a different sort, Friday's attempt by a 23-year-old Nigerian to blow up a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam. It ended with only a quickly extinguished fire, no lives lost and the man in custody.

Still, the close call prompted alarm.

• How did airport security, improved at much cost after the 2001 terrorist attacks, miss the bomber's concealed explosives?

• How did the terrorist watchlist system allow Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to keep his American tourist visa and avoid extra flight screening despite his father telling authorities his concerns about the younger man's radicalization?

• Why didn't Abdulmutallab's lack of luggage, and cash purchase for an international flight, raise suspicions?

• Why was the plot thwarted only by an apparent explosive malfunction and fellow passengers' quick action?

Amid those questions, administration officials' repeated statements that "the system worked" were jarring. They made it sound like the administration doesn't get it, like it is paying too much attention to political fallout and too little to public fears.

Officials insist the assertion, made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Sunday on television talk shows, referred only to heightened security procedures scrambled into place after the incident.

They say it is being purposely taken out of context by partisans playing politics with near-disaster.

They note Obama ordered two reviews, of the nation's multilayered terrorist watchlist system and of airport security procedures, something he clearly wouldn't do if he believed there were no flaws.

Gibbs and Napolitano also were hoping, with the busy holiday travel season still in full force, to instill confidence in air safety.

"The system worked," Napolitano declared on CNN during questioning about the lapses. Gibbs used nearly the same language on CBS, saying that "in many ways, this system has worked," without elaborating.

Later that same day, Napolitano put it differently on ABC, saying "once the incident occurred, the system worked." She tried again on Monday, saying in a round of TV interviews that "our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that."

But the damage was done.

Members of Congress — Republicans, but some Democrats too — were incredulous that "the system worked" was used in any context to describe what happened. "It is insulting that the Obama administration would make such a claim," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee — who is running for governor in Michigan — said in a campaign e-mail.

The other thing I find interesting about this story. After the Fort Hood massacre nobody from the Obama administration wanted to call it a terrorist attack. They seem so worried about offending someone by not being politically correct. They have tried to turn it into a non-story even though some of the Bush era policies that Obama changed when he took office may have contributed to the FBI not being able to prevent the attack. But on the Christmas day attack it was immediately called terrorism by the administration.

Balloon boy parents get jail time, tough probation

2009-12-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The parents who carried out the balloon boy hoax were sentenced to jail Wednesday and given strict probation conditions that forbid them from earning any money from the spectacle for four years.
Richard Heene was sentenced to 90 days in jail, including 60 days of work release that will let him pursue his job as a construction contractor while serving his time. His wife, Mayumi, was sentenced to 20 days in jail.

This sentence sounds about right to me. It also includes paying restitution to the agencies that responded to the hoax. The bill could be up to $50,000. That probably does not include the costs because of the delays at Denver International Airport, where planes were delayed and diverted away from the balloon.

I happened to be home for lunch when the balloon finally came down and I watched live on the internet as they discovered that the little boy was not in the balloon. The whole thing was really scary and captivated the nation for the short time it played out.

More Government Transparency from the Obama Administration

2009-12-20T11:15:00.000-08:00

So much for Obama having openness in his administration. His Attorney General is promoting racism and obstruction of justice and some in Congress are not happy about it. I wonder what bribe will be offered these representatives to drop their investigation. One thing did catch my eye in the following article. The New Black Panthers advocate violence against Non-Blacks and Jews. It is probably OK with many people in America to discriminate against White Christians, but if you mess with Jews then some folks may have a problem with that.

Civil Rights Panel Subpoenas Justice Department in New Black Panthers Case
By Stephen Clark
- FOXNews.com

The United States Civil Rights Commission, an eight-member agency that investigates accusations of discrimination, has launched its latest offensive against a most unusual target: the Justice Department.

The United States Civil Rights Commission, an eight-member agency that investigates accusations of discrimination, has launched a new offensive against a most unusual target: the Justice Department.
The commission is investigating why the Justice Department dropped charges in May against three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in a voter intimidation case that the government won.
The Justice Department has defended its actions, saying it obtained an injunction against one member while dismissing charges against the others "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."
But that explanation hasn't satisfied the commission or Republican lawmakers, who say the dismissal could lead to an escalation of voter intimidation.
Three members of the radical group were accused of trying to threaten voters and block poll and campaign workers by the threat of force in November 2008 -- one even brandishing what prosecutors call a deadly weapon.
The three black panthers, Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson were charged in a civil complaint in the final days of the Bush administration with violating the voter rights act by using coercion, threats and intimidation. Shabazz allegedly held a nightstick or baton that prosecutors said he pointed at people and menacingly tapped it. Prosecutors also say he "supports racially motivated violence against non-blacks and Jews."
The Obama administration won the case in April but moved to dismiss the charges in May without explanation.
After Republican lawmakers pushed in the summer for an internal investigation, the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility obliged, starting a probe that the department has said should conclude before it cooperates with the commission's investigation.
Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., announced Thursday that he had inserted language into the annual Justice funding bill that requires the OPR to provide results of its investigation -- a resolution that has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and must be voted on within 14 legislative days.
"I regret that Congress must resort to oversight resolutions as a means to receive information about the dismissal of this case, but the Congress and the American people have a right to know why this case was not prosecuted," Wolf said in a written statement.
"Time and again over the last year, the department has stonewalled any effort to learn about the decision to dismiss the case," he continued. "I have written Attorney General (Eric) Holder on six occasions asking for an explanation for the dismissal of this case. To date, I have received no response from him."
The commission feels it is being stonewalled, too, and has filed subpoenas with the department for the information as well as to interview career attorneys that handled the case.
"They've never given a satisfactory answer," said Todd Gaziano, a member of the commission and director of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. "There is a heavy burden on the Justice Department to explain why those facts in the complaint do not constitute voter intimidation."
When asked about the commission's repeated requests for information, Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said, "We're reviewing the commission's request."
She told FoxNews.com that the civil division at the department reviews "these types of requests in accordance with longstanding guidelines governing the disclosure of internal department information."
The commission is likely to hold a public hearing on the case early next year and could have a report out by September, Gaziano said.
The commissions sent two inquiries into the Justice Department's dismissal of the case in June and received what it called a "largely non-responsive letter" from the Justice Department in July and none of the documents requested. The commission sent another inquiry in August and September when it said it received notification from the Justice Department that it would not provide any information until its internal investigation was complete.
That prompted the commission to issue subpoenas and send its latest missive this month, a response to a Justice Department letter in November that that the commission said challenged its authority to subpoena the department or its employees.
"While your letter refers to an ongoing 'dialogue' between the Department and the Commission, it is the dearth of cooperation on the part of the Department that has resulted in the Commission's need to issue subpoenas," David Blackwood, general counsel for the commission, wrote.
"We are both mindful of the sensitivity of the subject matter involved and aware that, in response to similar requests, the department has raised various concerns and matters of privilege," Blackwood wrote. "While such considerations carry weight, cooperation with commission investigations is a mandatory statutory obligation."
"Moreoever, due to the unique investigative role of the commission -- akin to that of a congressional committee - -disclosure to the commission of the information sought it is both proper and required,' he added.
Wolf said in his written statement that the attorney general has instructed his department to ignore the subpoenas.
"The nation's chief law enforcement officer is forcing these career attorneys to choose between complying with the law and complying with the attorney general's obstruction," he said, adding that one of the attorneys has been compelled to obtain private counsel.
"The House must not turn a blind eye to the attorney general's obstruction," he said. "He has an obligation to answer the legitimate questions of the House and the Civil Rights Commission."

Government Contractor Fraud

2009-11-17T22:35:00.000-08:00

This one is for Rain, since she mentioned this type of thing in her comment on the last post.

US Attorney: Scammed While Feeding Troops

November 17, 2009 - 7:34 AM | by: Brooks Blanton

A logistics and warehousing company is in hot water for allegedly overcharging taxpayers tens of millions of dollars for feeding US Troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan. The United States Attorney announced a six count indictment against Kuwait-based Public Warehousing Company (PWC Logistics) at a press conference in Atlanta today. PWC, which changed their name to Agility in 2006, is a Department of Defense contractor. According to the 60 page indictment obtained by Fox News, PWC is accused of making false statements, submitting false claims and wire fraud. Investigators estimate the loss to U.S. taxpayers exceed $65 Million so far, but expect that number to grow as the investigation continues.

“This indictment is only the first step needed to address the fraud that has led to the massive overcharging of the United States,” said Acting US Attorney Gentry Shelnutt. “This office and the federal investigative agencies have dedicated ourselves to continue to pursue related serious allegations of fraud and abuse.”

The government paid PWC more than $8.5 Billion in defense contracts for supplying food to troops on the ground in the Middle East since 2003. But investigators say they discovered the company was overcharging for food and services by hiding discounts, concealing rebates and marking up the cost of food above retail prices in local markets. According to US contracts, vendors are required to pass along any rebates or discount savings to the US Government, something they say PWC intentionally failed to do.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Nelan said that PWC initially submitted false invoices and grossly undervalued quotes during the bidding process to win the contract. But federal investigators didn’t start looking into the companies actions until a civil lawsuit was filed in 2005 and someone tipped them off to the alleged overbilling.

Amazingly, despite on-going criminal investigations and today’s fraud indictments, PWC still has contracts with the government through the end of next year. Nelan and Shelnutt referred questions about PWC’s on-going defense contracts to the Department of Defense, saying it is out of their reach.

“What happens on the civil side of contracting with PWC is really beyond the scope of the criminal indictment,” Nelan says. “It is not something we are concerned with, we are just concerned with the criminal.”

A representative of the company will make an initial appearance in Federal Court in Atlanta to answer the charges on Friday.

PWC released a statement this afternoon saying "the prices it charges have been negotiated with, agreed to, and continually approved as by the U.S. government ... The government has consistently found PWC's prices to be fair and reasonable." The statement went on to say that an indictment is an allegation and they are confident the US Attorney's charges will be found to be without merit.

Is the Honeymoon Over?

2009-11-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

It looks like the media and the Congressional leaders may start treating Obama like a President and not like the chosen one. First the President was asked a question by a reporter about his lack of a decision on Afghanistan and now a Democratic Congressman is is questioning Recovery.gov.

It will be interesting to see how this administration acts when they are treated more like every other administration in the last 40 years. But I think we already know the answer to that based on Obama's response to the AP reporter that asked the Afghan question.

This one is more funny than that though.

Congressman Blasts White House for Faulty Job Data on Government Web Site

FOXNews.com

The government Web site -- Recovery.gov -- is under fire for posting a number of jobs created in congressional districts that don't exist and for accepting unrealistic data from several reporting outlets.

The Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is demanding greater accountability from the the Obama administration after gross inaccuracies were found on a government Web site that tracks jobs purportedly saved or created by the $787 billion stimulus plan.

In a statement late Monday, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, chairman of the House committee, called the inaccuracies "outrageous" and said the administration owes the American public "a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes."

"Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it," Obey said. "We designed the Recovery Act to be open and transparent and I expect the the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, who oversees the recovery act Web site and data to have information that is accurate, reliable and understandable to the American public."

The site -- Recovery.gov -- is under fire for posting a number of jobs created in congressional districts that don't exist and for accepting unrealistic data from several reporting outlets.

For instance, the Web site reported that 30 jobs were saved or created with $761,420 of federal stimulus spending in Arizona's 15th Congressional District. One problem with the claim -- the state has only eight districts

The site also lists 12 other non-existent districts in Arizona where jobs were reportedly saved or created. It also lists imaginary districts in at least three other states, including Oklahoma, Iowa, and Connecticut.

One recipient of stimulus funds, Talladega County of Alabama, claimed that it had saved or created 5,000 jobs from only $42,000 in government money -- which would amount to $8.40 in annual income per job if each position received an equal amount of funding.

ABC News reported Monday that the White House slashed 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the recovery program as a result of the faulty data.

Government Run Health Care

2009-11-16T16:45:00.000-08:00

And so it starts. We get a taste of what will happen when the government gets to decide what procedures are performed and which procedures cost too much.

New Cancer Guidelines Say to Start Mammograms at 50, Not 40

Monday, November 16, 2009

NEW YORK — Most women don't need a mammogram in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50, a government task force said Monday. It's a major reversal that conflicts with the American Cancer Society's long-standing position.

Also, the task force said breast self-exams do no good and women shouldn't be taught to do them.

For most of the past two decades, the cancer society has been recommending annual mammograms beginning at 40.

But the government panel of doctors and scientists concluded that getting screened for breast cancer so early and so often leads to too many false alarms and unneeded biopsies without substantially improving women's odds of survival.

Berlin Wall

2009-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

It is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember watching it on TV. What a wonderful time in our history. It had been such a symbol of oppression. It was one of the biggest historical events during my lifetime and our current President cannot take time out of his talk show and golf schedule to be a part of the ceremonies. I guess it is just too painful of a reminder that the socialist ideals of all his academic cronies do not work.

I love it when a plan comes together

2009-09-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

I watched an interesting story tonight on the News Hour on PBS on what is going on with the terror detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It seems that since 2002 over 800 detainees have been sent to Gitmo and the Bush administration had the population down to 243 when Obama took office. Then Obama said that he would close the prison there with in 1 year. Well here we are Nine months later and the Obama administration has released 17 people from Gitmo. It seems that Evil George Bush was much better at getting prisoners out of Gitmo than Obama is. And now Robert Gibbs is saying that the White House is no longer focused on meeting the January deadline.

So here we are, back to the typical Democrat philosophy, it does not matter if you get results, all that matters is that you say that you will. How you feel about an issue is more important than how you deal with an issue.

No surprise to me or many people that did not vote for Obama, only the people that did vote for him will be surprised when his January deadline comes and goes and does not even make the news.

Kind of like the deadline he gave for cabinet members to cut $100 million from the Federal Budget within 90 days. While that is a pittance in the big picture of Federal Spending it was still something he got his face on TV to brag about being fiscally responsible. Well when the 90 days came up and Gibbs was asked about it, he first had to be reminded what the reporter was talking about, then he answered that it was 100 days not 90 even though there are dozens of news stories from April 20th that say it was 90 days. Well a week or so later they came back and said they had found savings because they were going to do things like use online magazine subscriptions instead of hard copies and jam more soldiers into charter planes. I guess that would save a little money. It would be nice to see a follow up story if they really did any of these things. Because we all know trimming off $100 million while you are adding $3 trillion to the budget is really going to help things out.

Government Motors

2009-06-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

So we have spent $50 billion on GM with much more going to be spent in the future and for what? They are in bankruptcy, and the UAW will get more control of them. Another union payback from Obama.

I heard today that GM could be Obama's Vietnam, a never ending black hole that money gets poured into but never ends and never gets better. So I thought maybe I should look at this the way the left looked at Iraq. Just think of how many children could have received health care with that $50 billion or how many teachers could have been saved from being laid off. And the $50 Billion does not even count what we are giving to Chrysler or GMAC to save them.

Yes the UAW is now management and labor at two US auto companies. So when they do not get what they want are they going to strike against themselves? Probably not, because with Obama representing the other major owner the workers will always get what they want. And the tax payers will get stuck with the tab.

When is a cut actually an increase?

2009-04-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

President Obama said that he would end or severely curtail earmarks from Congress in the Federal Budget process. Well the "Pig Book" is out on Pork Barrel Spending in the new budget and it is up 15% from last year. So much for another one of Barack's promises. Kind of like him saying no lobbyists in the White House and then he appoints some to his staff. He could have vetoed the budget and sent it back to Congress to clean up, but instead he chose to push it through and then complain about it. I guess the buck does not stop with this president. It gets passed.

Environmentalists Do Not Want Solar Panels

2009-03-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

After all the environmentalists complaining about fossil fuels hurting the planet and causing global warming and every other bad thing in the world, we have been relegated to wind and solar energy that a few short months ago everyone was talking about as the savior of the world. Well in the San Francisco Bay area the environmentalists have previously protested wind farms because they can kill birds with the big blades. And in the San Diego area they are protesting the power lines that will bring the electricity from a proposed solar panel farm into the city.

So after all the hoopla that we need to get off oil and onto solar, now the Democrats are getting into the anti-solar farm fight.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who I normally see as one of the more reasonable Democrats in Congress has said no to solar panels in the Mojave Desert.

WASHINGTON -- California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.

Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

So the solar projects would ruin the entire desert eco-system. But the part that they want to put solar panels on is between to other protected areas. So how could this ruin the entire ecosystem. Typical environmentalist spouting doom and gloom with no science to back it up.

In a speech last year, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about environmental concerns slowing down the approval of solar plants in California.

"If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.

You tell them Arnold.

The land lies in the southeast corner of California, between the existing Mojave National Preserve on the north and Joshua Tree National Park on the south.

"They all have to go through a rigorous environmental analysis now," Miller said. "It will be at best close to two years out before we get some of these grants approved."

At least 2 more years of reviewing the permits for the solar panels before any work could start. This is exactly what was blamed for California's energy crisis a few years back. The permit process takes so long for anything to get done, that many companies give up or never try.

It is just so frustrating how these people think.

Toilet Paper an Environmental Threat?!

2009-03-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

You cannot make this stuff up folks. First SUVs and now the environmental movement is after toilet paper. I guess they want us to use corn cobs. But then what would we use to make ethanol. The environmental movement seems to want to return to the 1700's which is almost as bad as the Taliban who want us to return to the 1500's. I had to laugh when I read this article.

Fluffy Toilet Paper Said to Be Worse for Environment Than Hummers

Sunday, March 01, 2009

That super-soft toilet paper you're fond of using? It's an ecological disaster, environmentalists say.

Millions of trees are harvested throughout the Americas – including rare old-growth forests in Canada – to sustain the United States’ obsession with quilted, ultra-soft, multi-ply toilet paper, the New York Times reported.

Although toilet paper manufacturers could produce products from recycled materials at a similar cost, the newspaper reported, the fiber taken from standing trees are necessary to help give the tissue its fluffy feel.

“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council told the Times.

The United States is the largest market for toilet paper in the world, the newspaper reported, but tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands.

People from other countries throughout Europe and Latin America are far less picky about what they use to wipe.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” Hershkowitz told the Guardian newspaper, which cited the chemicals used in pulp manufacturing and process of cutting down forests.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age," Hershkowitz said. "Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.”

However, hope is on the horizon, if Hollywood is any indicator. The Times reported the Academy Awards ceremony last weekend used 100 percent recycled toilet paper at the Kodak Theater’s restrooms.

A Close Call

2009-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

I had a close call on Wednesday that has made me take a look at my life. During a rain storm as I was heading back to the office a car came across the freeway median on Interstate 5 and nearly hit me. I saw the car coming and was pretty sure he would not get me since I was in the right lane, but he did hit the car in the left lane head on and in the impact they grazed my work pickup as I swerved out of the way. I called in the crash and checked on the drivers and put out traffic cones to close off the lanes and channel traffic to the shoulder. The drivers were taken to the hospital with serious but not life threatening injuries. Modern cars are amazing. Between airbags and crumple zones it is remarkable that neither person was killed.

Here is a newspaper article on the crash.

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/feb/11/i-5-wreck-blocks-traffic-anderson/

Changes to Executive Pay

2009-02-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

You cannot make this stuff up folks. I laughed out loud when I read this story this morning. Now that Obama has made a big splash on TV ranting about Executive pay, he seems to be changing his tune. Now honestly I really want this guy to succeed as President, but it is starting to look like amateur hour at the White House. He is looking more like the Dems of old and many politicians on both sides of the aisle as he says one thing but does another. Why didn't he get the bill changed before he agreed to sign it. Did his people not read it first.

Obama better get Congress in line because Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi and the like think they are the President now. But I cannot believe that Obama is going to sign the bill and then have it changed. It is more about the image than actually doing the right thing and we have too much of that in Washington right now as it is.

White House Considers Changes to Executive Pay Limits Outlined in Stimulus Bill

The Obama administration wants to work with lawmakers to revise portion of spending plan that limits the amount of bonuses executives at financial firms can earn.

WASHINGTON -- Facing a stricter approach to limiting executive bonuses than it had favored, the Obama administration wants to revise that part of the stimulus package even after it becomes law, White House officials said Sunday.

While President Barack Obama plans to sign the $787 billion stimulus bill in Denver on Tuesday, his administration will seek changes in the government's approach to executive compensation, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said.

Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," also said the administration would seek to "strike the right balance" on the compensation question by discussing changes in the provisions with House and Senate members. Asked if Obama would enforce the bill and was satisfied with it, Gibbs replied, "We will sign this bill into law on Tuesday."

"Mr. Gibbs may not like it, but it is going to be enforced," Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said on CBS. "This is not an option. This is not, frankly, the Bush administration, where they're going to issue a signing statement and refuse to enforce it. They will enforce it."

Chuck Norris for President

2009-02-10T15:33:00.000-08:00

At a Road Construction site near my house this week an electronic sign was altered to read "Chuck Norris for President". I think that would be pretty cool to see how the world responded to him as president. The leaders of North Korea or Iran or Russia could watch Missing in Action or Invasion USA to see how we would deal with folks that we do not like. It would be awesome and it would stimulate the economy as kids all across the country would sign up for Karate classes.

Here is the story in the local paper including the pretty poor photo of the sign.

Road Sign Hacked

Tax Dodgers

2009-02-03T09:17:00.000-08:00

What is it with all these Obama appointees and their inability to pay taxes? I know that Democrats do not have the corner on the market with tax problems, but it sure seems that way sometimes.

I find it humorous that the leadership of the party that wants all of us to pay more taxes cannot seem to pay their own taxes. First the Treasury secretary, then Tom Daschle makes a $148k mistake, and now the budget and accountablility person has tax problems. This is getting to be absurd.

Obama is he a uniter or not

2009-01-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

For the first time in a while, I listened to Rush for a while yesterday while driving to another town. One of the things that caught my ear was when he said that Obama had given a speech and sounded like Ronald Reagan. I thought that was interesting because I heard Obama speak the other day and I thought he sounded like Reagan in that speech.
But the problem is he sounds like Reagan and talks about uniting the country, but many of his actions so far at that of a liberal. There is so much pork and special interest payoffs in this economic stimulus package.

And Obama is trying to micromanage the financial sector now that tax money has gone to bail those people out. Just because we have a stake in the game now does not mean we get to tell the companies how to run their day to day operations. He had Citigroup cancel their corporate jet purchase because they took TARP money. What he did not know was that the order was placed over two years ago and the new jet was going to replace 2 older less efficient jets. So they were doing what he wants by going with a greener fleet, but then he stopped them. And it is going to cost $2 to $4 million to cancel the order. This is what happens when reactionary politicians start micromanging things like wars and companies.

Obama Gives First TV Interview To Arabic Network

2009-01-27T10:03:00.001-08:00

Maybe I am in a bad mood or something. Or maybe I am getting tired of being bombarded by the hype every single day about how Obama is going to save the world. He gave an interview to an Arabic Network and said "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy, we sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect."
Now I am pretty sure that W. said pretty much the same thing many times, but the way it is reported now is that it is somehow different.

Obama also said, "We cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what's best for them. They're going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people," he said.

Obama added: "There are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is appropriate and if there is serious partnership on the other side."

These statements are not even news. Does he not know that the Peace process for Israel and the Palestinians has been going on for years and that it was on a pretty good track until the Terrorist organization Hamas seized control of Gaza in a violent overthrow of the Palenstinian Authority. Hamas is not a "serious partnership on the other side" to use Obama's own words.

It is just amazing that this guy is talking for the United States and he does not even know what he is talking about.

I really wanted to believe he was up for the task as president but between what he has done about changing the automobile mileage standards from implementation in 2020 to 2011 in the midst of a recession and now what he is saying about the middle east, I am not sure if he is.

Gitmo and Torture

2009-01-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

I read this on Yahoo News today and it looks like things are going down about like I expected. This is the type of "Feel Good" proclamations that the Democratic party is famous for. They have a big press conference and announce that they are closing Gitmo and not going to allow torture but behind the scenes things are really not much different.

Why the Gitmo policies may not change

Here are a few of the delays, caveats and loopholes that could limit the impact of Obama’s orders:

1. Everyone has to follow the Army Field Manual—for now…

Obama’s executive order on interrogations says all agencies of the government have to follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating detainees, meaning the CIA can no longer used so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, which have included waterboarding, the use of dogs in questioning, and stripping prisoners.

However, the order also created an interagency commission which will have six months to examine whether to create “additional or different guidance” for non-military agencies such as the CIA.

2. Obama ordered a 30-day review of Guantanamo conditions—by the man currently responsible for Guantanamo.

Waxman pointed out that adhering to the Geneva Condition is “already the law,” and deemed that section of the order “bizarre.”

3. Obama vowed no torture on his watch, but force-feeding and solitary confinement apparently continue at Guantanamo for now.

It’s possible that the 30-day referral to Gates is simply an effort to buy the Obama team time to deal with two Guantanamo practices that some consider torture, or at least inhumane: force feeding and isolation of prisoners. According to detainee lawyers, about two dozen inmates who refuse to eat as a form of protest are currently being force fed, and about 140 are in some form of solitary confinement.

The Bush administration has argued that the feeding is humane and that the solitary, at least as practiced now, is not the kind of total isolation that amounts to torture. “There’s an important distinction to be made between isolation and separation” from other prisoners,” Waxman said.

As far as we know, the force feeding and solitary practices continued onto Obama’s watch.

4. The vast majority of detainees in American custody may see no benefit from Obama’s orders

While Obama ordered a case-by-case review of the 245 prisoners held at Guantanamo, the 600 prisoners held in indefinite American custody in Afghanistan and roughly 20,000 in Iraq won’t get such attention.

5. The orders downplay the possibility that some prisoners might be set free in America.

Obama ordered that when Guantanamo closes, any remaining inmates “be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” But Obama’s wordsmiths seem to have deliberately trimmed out any explicit mention of the explosive possibility of freeing prisoners on American soil.

6. Military commissions are shut down…. for now

One of the attention grabbing provisions of Obama’s orders calls for military tribunals at Guantanamo to be “halted.” But the Obama administration is not ruling out returning to some sort of military forum to deal with some of the prisoners.

And this one. Just release them and everything will be fine. If we are just nice to the world the world will be nice to us. Sure they will.

Report: Ex-Gitmo detainee joins al-Qaida in Yemen

CAIRO, Egypt – A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

Obama Victory

2008-11-04T22:38:00.001-08:00

Well it looks like the election is over and Obama will be the next president. One of the reports that I watched tonight talked about Obama really being from the post baby boomer generation. He was too young to serve in Vietnam. The commentators were all baby boomers, which they see themselves as something special, but really they were given a great gift by the WWII generation and they screwed it up. I mean look at the two boomer presidents we have had, Clinton and W. what jokes they both turned out to be. No wonder people did not vote for the old McCain when there was a fresh young choice.

Media Bias

2008-11-04T08:47:00.000-08:00

I saw a thing on CBS last night about how the entertainment shows have been grilling McCain with hard questions but letting Obama have a pass.

One example given was that Obama danced with Ellen on her show but McCain got drilled about why he is against gay marriage. Well Obama is against gay marriage too, so why did he get such different treatment. It was pretty much the same deal on the View where Barbara called Obama sexy and Whoopie hugged him and gushed over him. But they acted like hard reporters with McCain.

And on Letterman and Leno there have been something like 375 negative jokes about McCain but only 69 negative jokes about Obama.

And people on the left wonder why Rush or Fox News are so popular. Because conservative people get tired of all the poor treatment by the Main Stream Media. Rush and Fox bring some fairness to the media.

Getting Older

2008-10-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking for a while about posting something about getting older. Some things that made me ponder this are the fact that for the first time in my life James Bond is younger than me. Also Barack Obama is almost my age. At some point I got to be older than not only almost all the players in the NFL but older than some of the coaches too.

I guess I am getting to the age that it starts to sink in that you cannot do everything that you used to be able to do. One of the things that I have noticed is that I take longer to heal. If I strain a muscle lifting something it seems to take forever to stop bothering me. I am not sure exactly when I got older, but it happened, and I am sure that I am not ready to stop having fun. So I am resolving to start exercising more and give myself good reason to have aches and pains. I mean if Faith Hill can look as good as she does at 41, I should be able to get in better shape and at least not feel like a slug at 42.

Another thing got me thinking about getting older and mortality. On Friday at a project in Red Bluff that is being ran by my counterpart up there, one of our engineers that was on loan for the summer from a desk assignment pulled out in front of a big rig that had just exited the interstate and was killed. I pull out from the side of the road in work zones dozens of times a week and this guy got killed doing it. We feel pretty safe in our vehicles compared to standing on a construction project with heavy equipment on one side and high speed traffic on the other, but in this case a moment of inattention or distraction cost him his life.

Smoke Everywhere

2008-07-10T15:44:00.000-07:00

OK Butte County has been on fire for a month now and the smoke is getting old. The ash is raining down and getting everywhere. It is dreary outside, almost like fog in the winter, it is depressing. When you look out the window it is dark and gloomy and you think that it should be cold. But then you walk outside and it is 110 degrees and just nasty.

I took a few photos this week, so that I could post about how tired I am of the smoke. The first one is of the red sun at about 7:30 pm on Tuesday.

The next one was taken at about Noon on Tuesday to show how dark it was outside at Noon. I thought the smoke was bad on Tuesday when I took the photo.

Then I took one today at about 3:00pm at the same place to show what really bad smoke is like. So now I know that it really was not that bad earlier in the week as now the trees and hills in the Tuesday photo are not even visible.

According to all the news reports it is also unhealthy to breath this smoke. Lots of people around town are wearing N95 dust masks. I have not resorted to a mask yet, but the smoke is definitely burning my eyes and throat.

Funny quote

2008-06-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

I just heard a quote on the radio from a guy in Ireland.
"Why are you guys in the US even bothering to have an election. On one side you have a lawyer who is married to a lawyer running against a lawyer who is married to a lawyer. On the other side you have a guy who is married to a good looking woman that owns a beer distributorship. What are you guys thinking?".

Disaster Response

2008-05-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

Captain America over at First In posted about this today so I decided to make a posting of my own.
Should we help the Burmese people even if their government will not let us in?
We have 4 ships with dozens of helicopters sitting offshore of Burma. We could fly aid in and drop it to people without ever actually setting foot on the ground. I would bet if we did do that the govt. there would not challenge us. And we would be saving the lives of about 100,000 people. Pretty good reason to go in as far as I am concerned. Hell even the French want to go in by force to help people. That should say something. And if we were challenged militarily then use the same rules as Iraq. If they shoot first then we smoke them and keep handing out food. We dropped food under hostile fire in Bosnia. But we had a Democrat in the white house so it was OK.

On earthquake damage here compared to China.
In reality there is very little chance of being killed by one in the US. During the history of the US we have had very few deaths from earthquakes. It really is not something to be that concerned over unless you or a relative are one of the few that are killed in a quake. Even Japan had 8,000 deaths in the Kobe quake in the 90's and everyone said that they knew how to build things while slamming the US after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in the SF area and the 1992 Northridge in LA.

As for the difference between the US and third world countries on emergency response, this subject reminds me of the skyscraper fire they had in Sao Paulo Brazil several years ago. They had fire engines respond from all 85 of the city's fire stations, which sounds like a lot if you are from a small town like me. But consider that Sao Paulo is about the size of Chicago and Chicago has about 500 fire stations and you see the difference in response capability. And Brazil is a pretty industrialized country not a backward place like Burma or backwoods China.

Sulfur Vent on Big Island of Hawaii

2008-05-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

Kilauea on the Big Island has been erupting continuously since 1983. But in mid-March, a new vent formed at the summit, giving Kilauea two large sulfur dioxide outlets instead of one.

Sulfur dioxide, a pollutant that is also generated by burning coal and oil, can lead to asthma and other respiratory illnesses and aggravate lung and heart disease. When combined with dust and sunlight, it makes vog. Which is short for Vulcanic Fog. Mixed with atmospheric moisture, it produces acid rain.

Where is Al Gore when you need him? Someone quick file a lawsuit to stop the Volcano from causing so much pollution. Help us Hollywood, do something to stop this terrible abuse. Maybe hold a fund raiser to pay for the litigation. That would help us all feel better.

What a Difference a Year Makes

2008-04-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

I got this emailed to me. I thought it was pretty funny.

In just one year . Remember the election in 2006?

A little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;

2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);

5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;

6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

Are things really worse today?

2008-04-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

This week I have been thinking about this idea, are things really worse now or do we just have more news about it and more time to watch and read about it. It seems like on the news today that right now is the worst of everything that has ever happened. Whether they are talking about violence or the economy or the weather for reporters history seems to only go as far back as they can remember and that is about 7 to 10 years.

My son was watching a show on National Geographic Channel about the Golden Dragon Massacre in San Francisco in the 70’s. Five innocent people were killed and several more were wounded in a gang shooting in a restaurant. None of the targeted gang members were shot. I started thinking about how in the 70’s the homegrown terrorists groups like the SLA were planting bombs and robbing banks with machine guns. I think there is a lot of violence now in our cities, but there are also a lot more people and a lot more cameras now too. It seems in the 70’s there was more of a chance of innocent bystanders being caught in violence than now. As for gas prices until just the last few months the highest gas prices adjusted for inflation in our nations history was in 1980 after the economic crises during the Carter years.

tuesday aftermath

2008-02-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

Well, Hold on to your wallets and your constitutions. It looks like for president we have a choice between a power hungry, tax and spend, warmonger or a power hungry, tax and spend warmonger. It should be an interesting 4 years.

Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

It it Super Tuesday which includes the California primary so I am off to vote today. I do not do Absentee because it is my Constitutional right to go stand in line and talk to the old people that staff the precincts. In 1992 they were not very organized and I had to wait until after 8:30 to vote because the line was so long. I wonder why CNN was not in my neighborhood talking to "disenfranchised" suburban middle class voters.

Besides that we had those butterfly ballots back then too. I think I accidentally voted for Ross Perot and inadvertently gave Bill Clinton the White House. Maybe we should go back and recount the vote for that election too.

After today we will probably know who the likely nominees will be for each party. Romney has been playing a lot of ads on TV here. If there are republicans who say they won't vote for McCain and Dems who won't vote for Hillary, why are they the front runners. Maybe an outsider really cannot be president and it is already picked. And it won't matter if Hillary or McCain wins the end result will likely be about the same.

presidential candidate matching quiz

2008-01-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

I like these kinds of tests. I think they are good tool to take a look at issues or at ourselves and think about the results.

Here is my result from this quiz. I was a little surprised that I came up with a Dem and a Republican tied for second. But not surprised that it was Bill Richardson he is more conservative than our Republican Governor Arnold here in the Golden State.

78% John McCain
68% Mike Huckabee
68% Bill Richardson
67% Rudy Giuliani
63% Mitt Romney
60% Chris Dodd
59% Hillary Clinton
57% John Edwards
57% Barack Obama
56% Fred Thompson
51% Tom Tancredo
48% Ron Paul
47% Joe Biden
44% Mike Gravel
38% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Benazir Bhutto

2007-12-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

Benazir Bhutto was killed today in Pakistan. I was really hoping she would help lend some stability in that country. I have loosely paid attention to her since her rise to the prime minister position several years ago. I am not sure what this will bring to the world but hopefully it will help galvanize the mainstream in Pakistan that al Qaeda and their desire to destroy anyone who disagrees with their twisted view of the world must be stopped.

Dennis Kucinich

2007-12-06T10:36:00.000-08:00

I have always thought this guy was a nut-ball, but he was on the radio yesterday with my favorite talk show host, Tom Sullivan. Tom's show has just gone national by the way on Fox News Radio. It is available by XM or Sirius or on the net.

Anyway as nutty as Mr. Kucinich is, I will give him this, he seems honest and really believes in what he says and stands for. That is way different than most of the other folks running for office these days. He even offered to let Ron Paul be his running mate since Dr. Paul is against the war in Iraq also. The Paul campaign said "No". But give it to Dennis to stir things up.

Now Ron Paul, there is a candidate that would shake things up in the US if he got elected. I agree with a lot of things he has to say, but his pro life stance does not help him with many voters. Although at the worst case he would see it returned to being a state issue. That is the thing with Libertarian minded people they like minimal Federal Government and most things are state issues.

Presidential Vote

2007-10-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

I saw a thing on ABC News about a candidate picker so I did it and it said that I should choose Mike Huckabee as the candidate that I support. I don't know if I agree with how they put the thing together, but it was kind of fun to go through anyway.

Here is the Match O Matic from ABC/USA Today
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/page?id=3623346

Funny News Today

2007-10-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

There are two stories in the news today that struck me as funny.

The first one is that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are distant cousins. How funny is that? We really are a melting pot in the good ole USA.

The second one is that both W and Congress have hideous approval ratings. Here are excerpts from the Reuters story:

Bush's job approval rating fell to 24 percent from last month's record low for a Zogby poll of 29 percent. A paltry 11 percent gave Congress a positive grade, tying last month's record low.

"There is a real question among Americans now about how relevant this government is to them," pollster John Zogby said. "They tell us they want action on health care, education, the war and immigration, but they don't believe they are going to get it."

And I hope that this part is true, but won't likely really have any impact on the final outcome of the election.

The bleak mood could present problems for both parties heading into the November 2008 election campaign, Zogby said.

"Voter turnout could still be high next year, but the mood has turned against incumbents and into a 'throw the bums out' mindset," Zogby said.

Forest Fires

2007-09-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

We have been breathing and trying to see through smoke from a big forest fire for almost a week now.
Here is a photo from shortly after it got going.

Society or Leadership

2007-07-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

It was posed to me that leaders do not really direct what a society does. The society evolves and changes because of the collective actions of the members of the society.

I am not sure but I think it can be both.

Ronald Reagan was a very popular president and he was very conservative. During his tenure in the White house people started dressing neater and keeping their hair cut shorter etc.
So did people start acting more conservatively because their leader did. Or did he become our leader because people were ready to start acting more conservative and wanted a leader to reflect those values.

I remember the Just Say No to Drugs campaign. It seemed kind of silly and many of the Hollywood left and others made fun of it and ridiculed the Reagan's for it. But you know what it did work some. It worked as well as any other anti drug program worked.

I guess it is kind of a chicken and egg scenario.

A time of war

2007-07-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I visited my daughter who is a US Marine at her new base on the east coast this summer. It was an eye opening experience for someone who lives in California, where we have virtually no impact from this war. No matter what your viewpoint on the Iraq war is, the truth is that we are at war with Islamo-fascists that hate America and everything it stands for.

The fact that we are at war is readily apparent when you see the security measures that are in place around the base. One of the striking things that caught my eye were the concrete barriers, to prevent suicide car bombs, around base exchange and commissary and my grandson's daycare. They are anywhere that many Marines or Marine families congregate.

This concern for security in light of foreign US barracks attacks and the attempted plot at Fort Dix really is a reminder that we cannot sit back and assume that we are safe just because there have not been any attacks on the mainland US since 9/11. Like I saw on a big electronic sign at another base this summer "Complacency Kills".

Ingineers ramblings

2006-06-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

Ingineers ramblings

I saw a thing on History International last night about the Japanese Atom Bomb program in WWII. Before you say anything, yes it is sad that I am watching History International on a Saturday night instead of being out trying to find a lady.

Anyway, I had no idea they were a threat and apparently neither did the US at the time. I knew Germany was getting close and may have had a bomb by 46 if we wouldnt have overran the country. Also Germany had sent a sub with uranium to help Japan but when Germany surrendered the sub surrendered to the US Navy.

Supposedly Japan actually detonated a bomb in North Korea just after Hiroshima. The Russians got there at the end of the war and took everything including 6 scientists. So we dont know for sure just what they had done. Can you imagine if they would have sent a suicide sub into San Francisco or LA harbor and detonated an atom bomb.
But then again the conspiracy people think the US detonated an atom bomb on purpose or accident at the Concord Naval Weapons Station (then known as Port Chicago if you want to google it) in the bay area during WWII.

2006-06-04T18:37:00.000-07:00

2006-06-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Ingineers ramblings

2006-06-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

Ingineers ramblings

Hey I started a blog

2005-11-22T22:13:00.000-08:00

I dont know if I will use this, but I had to create one to comment on someone else's blog.