Breaking News on Temperature Studies Not Being Reliable, Windmills and Prairie Chicken; Corn-Ethanol Subsidies; Global Taxation; Power Plants Closing; Gulf of Mexico Oil Wells to Japan?;

Canada Free Press writes: Global warmers is in full retreat as Aussie experts admit growing doubts about their own methods as a new study shows one third of temperatures are not reliable. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) admits it was wrong about urban heating effects as a professional statistical analysis by Andrew Barnham exposes a BOM claim that “since 1960 the mean temperature in Australia has increased by about 0.7 °C”; the BOM assertion has no empirical scientific basis.
Like Stewart, Barnham paid particular attention to BOM’s methodology in addressing what is known as the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI), a proven phenomenon whereby thermometers measuring temperatures in towns and cities become unduly influenced by extra ‘background’ heating from buildings, road surfaces, machinery, etc. It’s in the UHI adjustments that the greatest discrepancies appear to lie.
A chastened BOM is now starting to questions its own UHI adjustments. A recent BOM media release referring to a paper presented at the Australia - New Zealand Climate Forum in Hobart (October 14, 2010) admits it formulated its calculations incorrectly.
BOM concedes that daytime temperatures in Aussie cities are warming more rapidly than those of the surrounding countryside and that this is due to the cities themselves. In effect, the admission undermines all prior claims that such warming is principally due to man-made emissions trumpeted in the similarly discredited “greenhouse gas theory.”
Skeptical researchers have long argued that little or no weighting has properly been ascribed to the UHI phenomenon; this apparent U-turn may signal the demise of the now discredited official adjusted Australian temperature record. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/29775
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Pajamas Media writes: Kansas is ranked second in the nation behind Montana for wind energy potential, a fact which should have environmentalists jumping for joy. Instead, they’re trying to block the construction of transmission lines to wind farms in south central Kansas and north central Oklahoma.
Why? Well it all has to do with the lesser prairie chicken. According to a story by the Hutchinson News in February of this year, ranchers and wildlife officials in the area are teaming up with groups like the Sierra Club to block the construction of the lines, which would apparently run through prime breeding territory for the bird. Studies by Kansas State University show the birds will not nest within 400 yards of a power line, and the counties through which the lines would run are where the largest concentrations of the birds remain. Indeed, Kansas is the last state in the nation with a hunting season for lesser prairie Chicken.
The problem developers ITC Great Plains (a Kansas subsidiary of a Michigan company) and Prairie Wind Transmission (a joint venture between Westar Energy and Electric Transmission America) are facing: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is saying if more habitat is lost — and 60 percent of it has been lost in western Kansas alone — they’ll have to list the bird as “threatened.” In that case, the developers may find themselves with wind farms to nowhere. [It needs to be reiterated here that windmills are known to lead to bird kills, human illnesses, and stress caused by the noise.  There is no perfect solution, and all alternatives to oil and gas have their major problems.]  http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/environmentalists-blocking-wind-farms-and-solar-and-geothermal/
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National Review Online writes: The Environmental Protection Agency announced on October 13 that it had approved an increase in the amount of ethanol that can be blended into gasoline from 10 percent to as much as 15 percent. This latest decision [by the EPA, without the consent of Congress] allows the ethanol scammers to continue gorging themselves at the public trough. In July, the Congressional Budget Office reported that corn-ethanol subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion per year. Those subsidies are larger than those given to any other form of renewable energy.Maddening as that is, the real outrage of the corn-ethanol scam involves air quality. In 2007, the EPA admitted that increased use of ethanol in gasoline would increase emissions of key air pollutants, including volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, by as much as 7 percent. On Wednesday, the agency again acknowledged that more ethanol consumption will mean higher emissions of key pollutants.
O’Donnell’s: “More ethanol means worse air quality, period.” He adds that corn ethanol “doesn’t do anything to reduce greenhouse gases.”  Thus, despite more than three decades of subsidies that have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, the ethanol industry cannot point to any decline in oil imports during the time period when the industry experienced its most rapid growth.
Evidence that the Obama administration is more worried about the farm lobby than urban air quality came within minutes of the EPA’s announcement. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement praising the move, saying that the increased use of ethanol “is an important step toward making America more energy independent.” http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250677/more-ethanol-means-dirtier-air-robert-bryce?page=2
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Michigan Capitol Confidential writes: When the Republican majority is seated in the House of Representatives this January, many have high expectations that they will cut government spending as many of the candidates promised on the campaign trail. But the tricky question now is: Where to cut?
Some energy and environmental experts say they should begin with energy subsidies; specifically for ethanol.
Ethanol is a biofuel made mostly from corn in North America and can be used as an additive to gasoline. In many states, there is a mandated 10% blend with gasoline; the idea being to lower the amount of oil needed.
But many experts say this doesn't work.
"Contrary to popular belief, ethanol fuel does little or nothing to increase our energy security or stabilize fuel prices," wrote Kenneth Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Instead, it will increase greenhouse gas emissions, local air pollutant emissions, fresh water scarcity, water pollution (both riparian and oceanic), land and ecosystem consumption, and food prices." http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/13991
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Spectator writes: Within 72 hours of the Tea Party's "shellacking" of Obama and Pelosi, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, called for global taxation of the American public -- an idea endorsed by a high-level official of the Obama administration.
The demand comes from the Secretary-General's High-level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, which was organized following last year's UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Among the panelists recommending global taxes are George Soros, the financier of socialist change, and Larry Summers, President Obama9;s economic advisor.
The Advisory Group's report is filled with options for governments to get the required $100 billion. "Governments may prefer to increase budget contributions," its authors helpfully suggest, until such time as new domestic or international taxes can be imposed and collected. It goes on to recommend a "carbon export optimization tax," and levies on international aviation and shipping including taxes on jet fuel and passenger tickets for international flights.
Other possibilities include royalties from fossil fuel extraction, and taxes on the use of electricity. Finally, there is the need, according to the UN, for a "global financial transaction tax," that would require "international coordination" and "international implementation." This is UN-speak for a global tax collecting agency.
A denunciation of international taxes on American citizens has yet to appear on the President's teleprompter, but it needs to. A congressional condemnation is warranted as well. The fact that Summers, a presidential advisor and former Treasury Secretary, has signed off on the idea that the United Nations is entitled to seize, rather than request, American wealth is monumental. http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/12/global-warming-global-taxes
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The Week writes: The U.S. will have to slow the implementation of some key environmental regulations on electric power plants or suffer a significant loss in the amount of reserve energy available to the U.S. power grid, said an industry report released this week.
The EPA, which regulates the power plants, recently adopted new regulations that could force some old plants to be retired.
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The Week writes: Scrambling to raise funds to pay for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP has agreed to sell four oil fields int he Gulf of Mexico to Japan's Marubeni Oil and Gas, said Graeme Wearden in the London Guardian.
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The feds, who manufactured much of the oil spill hysteria (in connivance with press and tube), now concede that Chicken Little was misinformed. The Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (who knew that the oceans and the atmosphere require federal administration?) say that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat.
Now [they] tell us. There was more good news from the federal hysteria-mongers. 
Now she tells us. There was more good news from the federal hysteria-mongers of yore. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is not in the business of spreading good news, now says the level of cancer-causing chemicals released during the controlled burns of the BP oil spill was so minuscule that the agency is no longer concerned about the risk to residents and visitors to the Gulf. The chemical emissions from the oil fires on the surface of the sea was about in line with the risks from forest fires and residential fireplaces (like those in the White House).
Only yesterday we were all doomed. The mainstream media happily joined the din of weeping and wailing, the voices predicting nature's wrath to come. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/15/pruden-on-second-thought-were-not-all-doomed/
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Health Care Law Problems

Yahoo News writes: – AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.
In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.
And AARP adds that it's changing copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Aerospace giant Boeing also has cited the tax in asking its workers to pay more. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health care plan and acts like an escape hatch from the tax. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/ap_on_bi_ge/us_aarp_health_plan
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Fix Healthcare Law writes: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to America’s Health Insurance Plans warning them that “there will be zero tolerance” for “falsely blaming premium increases” on Obamacare. Specifically, Sebelius threatened to punish non-subservient firms by excluding them from the government regulated and mandated health insurance exchanges. Since these exchanges will be the primary way most Americans receive health insurance (especially if more private firms decide to end their current coverage) such a decision by Sebelius would be a death sentence for any insurer that does not comply.
Never before in the history of our republican form of government has an administration threatened to extinguish individual firms for merely communicating with their customers. But such are the dictatorial powers Obamacare grants to Secretary Sebelius. There are over 1,000 instances in the more than 2,700 page bill where Congress granted Secretary Sebelius new powers to regulate the health care industry. For example, her power to “determine” what does or does not count as a medical expense alone will decide the fate of many health insurance firms. (more…)  http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/tag/hhs-secretary-kathleen-sebelius/
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Here is a 2 1/2 minute video from C-Span showing Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois.  He asks why Obamacare subjects those who don't buy health insurance are subject to criminal penalties (5 years in jail and a fine of $250,000) as a way to "coax" them into a plan that is so fabulous?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgk76AKHzfc
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American Thinker Divulges: I know who's got my vote for the cutest couple since Bonnie and Clyde. It's the larcenous lovebirds from Chicago: Jan Schakowsky, the most far-left member of Congress, and her bank robber husband, Robert Creamer, who wrote Obamacare in jail.

What a romance! She waited as he served time for sixteen counts of bank fraud, selflessly devoting herself to trying to impeach Dick Cheney and to showering federal funds on her biggest, most ethically challenged contributors.

And he persevered inside the graybar hotel, aflame with the inspiration that became Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win, a 628-page manual for how "to reshape the structure of one-sixth of the American economy" -- namely, health care.

Here's how David Horowitz's Discover The Network describes it:

Creamer's book advocated a "public plan" that would guarantee every U.S. resident's "right" to health care; this plan eventually would serve as a model for the "public option" in subsequent legislative proposals by Congressional Democrats.

In addition, Creamer laid out a "Progressive Agenda for Structural Change," which included a ten-point plan to set the stage for implementing universal health care:

• "We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right."
• "We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis." [Sounds like one of the Rules for Radicals from Saul Alinsky.]
• "Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance."
• "We need to systematically forge relationships with large sectors of the business/employer community."
• "We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009."
• "We need not agree in advance on the components of a plan, but we must foster a process that can ultimately yield consensus."
• "Over the next two years, we must design and organize a massive national field program."
• "We must focus especially on the mobilization of the labor movement and the faith community."
• "We must systematically leverage the connections and resources of a massive array of institutions and organizations of all types."
• "To be successful, we must put in place commitments for hundreds of millions of dollars to be used to finance paid communications and mobilization once the battle is joined."

"To win," added Creamer, "we must not just generate understanding, but emotion-fear, revulsion, anger, disgust." http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/why_doesnt_everyone_know_jan_s.html  

 [I am blown away by how closely this plan sticks to the Rules for Radicals, and also the Cloward and Piven strategy of collapsing our system of health care in America.  It is chilling, and we heard nothing of this at the time.]
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Now Jesse Jackson has called the repeal of Obamacare to be "creeping genocide"!
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WASHINGTON – Breast cancer surgeon Kathryn Wagner has posted a warning in her waiting room about a different sort of risk to patients' health: She'll stop taking new Medicare cases if Congress allows looming cuts in doctors' pay to go through.
The scheduled cuts — the result of a failed system set up years ago to control costs — have raised alarms that real damage to Medicare could result if the lame-duck Congress winds up in a partisan standoff and fails to act by Dec. 1. That's when an initial 23 percent reduction would hit.  "My frustration level is at a nine or 10 right now," said Wagner, who practices in San Antonio. "I am exceptionally exhausted with these annual and biannual threats to cut my reimbursement by drastic amounts. As a business person, I can't budget at all because I have no idea how much money is going to come in. Medicine is a business. Private practice is a business."
"http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101113/ap_on_he_me/us_medicare_cuts
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The red ink was even darker than expected.  It gets worse:  Without some form of "Congressional action" (read: bailout), the USPS projects it will hemorrhage $238 Billion over ten years, and could go bankrupt by the end of 2011.


The "problem" is that with the advent of email, people simply don't send snail mail at nearly the rate they used to.  A Democratic Congress might look at this problem and decide it's essential that the US Government intervene tand prop up the Post Office's shrinking and outmoded business model.  Hopefully a Republican Congress won't make that mistake.

Parting thought:  Didn't President Obama cite the US Postal Service as a positive example of how to strike a happy balance between the public and private sectors during his Obamacare push?  Yeah, he did. 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/GuyBenson/2010/11/15/us_post_office_lost_$85_billion_last_year

More on Health Care Law

Yahoo News writes:  Republicans plan to use the investigative powers of Congress to go after President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, and they're focusing on questions uppermost in the minds of consumers:
What's it going to cost me? Can I keep the coverage I have if I like it?
Republicans can call hearings and compel testimony, and Obama has no veto power to stop them. In the House, they'll control three major committees with a mandate to poke around on health care, subpoenas available if needed. In the Senate, they'll have added leverage on two key panels, so their demands can't be easily ignored.
Republicans say they'll focus on what the new health care law will mean for Medicare and employer health plans, mainstays of the middle class. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101109/ap_on_bi_ge/us_targeting_health_care
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The NYT writes: As Obama administration officials put into place some of the new rules that go into effect under the federal health care law, they are issuing more waivers to try to prevent some insurers and employers from dropping coverage and also promising to modify other rules because many of the existing policies would not meet new standards.
Last month, federal officials granted dozens of one-year waivers that were aimed at sparing certain employers, including McDonald’s, insurers and unions who offer plans that sharply limit the coverage they provide. These limited-benefit plans, also known as “minimeds,” fail to comply with new rules phasing out limits on how much policies will provide in medical care each year.
Concerned about the potential disruption that would be created by enforcing the new rules, the administration has granted dozens of additional waivers and also made clear that it would modify other rules affecting these policies. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services issued more guidance, saying it would use a different method of calculating spending for these plans so they would be able to meet new regulations dictating how insurers should use the premium dollars they collect. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/health/policy/10waiver.html?_r=1
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This didn’t make any headlines…
The Obama Administration recently handed out 111 Obamacare waivers to special US companies… And, they’re hiding this from the American public. It takes 6 clicks to find out this information on the government’s health care website.
Unfortunately, if you’re a small business or you don’t have the right connections you can’t get a waiver for your company.
That’s the new reality under the Obama-Pelosi regime. 

“The bottom line here is that they gave out waivers is an admission of guilt. Basically they’re saying, “You’re right. We screwed up.” That’s the bottom line here. They did not create a law that benefits all of us.”

Here is the list of the 111 special companies that were granted Obamacare waivers. http://gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com/2010/11/obama-white-house-hands-out-111-obamacare-waivers-hides-it-from-public-video/
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And the list of "winners"?      http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html
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NPR Funding; Alaskan Voter Fraud; Accosted at the Airports

Fox News Reports: As Republican lawmakers lead the charge to cut off public funding to National Public Radio, which has been under fire ever since it sacked Juan Williams last month, the network insists it gets no more than 3 percent of its total budget from taxpayers.

But one analyst has argued that NPR's $166 million budget is actually made up of more than 25 percent of taxpayer dollars and that its member stations across the country haul in another 40 percent of public funds.

Mark Browning of the American Thinker, a conservative online publication, made his calculations based on publicly available information on NPR's website.

Revenues

for the local NPR affiliates stem from a number of sources, including 5.8 percent from federal, state and local governments, 13.6 percent from universities, and 10.1 percent from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/13/taxpayers-provide-percent-nprs-funding-analyst-says/
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FloydReports writes: The Joe Miller for Senate campaign has released new affidavits swearing that Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign is benefiting from voter fraud. A notarized affidavit sworn on November 1 by a voter at Sand Lake Elementary School states when voting began, “there was already a stack of  ballots in the box which in my opinion numbered in the hundreds.” The voter adds the ballots “were very neatly stacked and approximately 4 to 5 inches thick.” The affidavit adds this occurred at 7:00 a.m., and the voter was the tenth voter at that location.
This Author’s Previous Story Confirmed
A second affidavit, filed by election observer Elva G. Bettine, states write-in ballots from the Cordova and Angoon precincts seemed to have been filled in by one person. Bettine swore, “It appeared to me that the name ‘Lisa Murkowski’ that was written on many [of] these ballots was written by the same person.” This allegation lends credence to a previous allegations of “villages using one person to vote or fill in the write-in for several hundred people” this author reported exclusively on FloydReports.com. As previously reported, some Native villages supported “write-in” over Joe Miller by margins of 120-0. http://floydreports.com/new-reports-of-ballot-stuffing-native-voter-fraud-in-alaskan-senate-race/?utm_source=Expose+Obama&utm_campaign=d2d67d8c43-EO_11_15_201011_15_2010&utm_medium=email
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The Washington Examiner writes: Did you know that the nation's airports are not required to have Transportation Security Administration screeners checking passengers at security checkpoints? The 2001 law creating the TSA gave airports the right to opt out of the TSA program in favor of private screeners after a two-year period. Now, with the TSA engulfed in controversy and hated by millions of weary and sometimes humiliated travelers, Rep. John Mica, the Republican who will soon be chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, is reminding airports that they have a choice.
Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. "When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees," Mica writes. "As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Amid-airport-anger_-GOP-takes-aim-at-screening-1576602-108259869.html#ixzz15SUSwuBy

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The Boston Herald writes: So here are your airport choices: submit to sexual molestation or spread your legs, hands over head, and get radiated while some TSA guys down the hall check out your naked body.
To use the overused line, the terrorists have won.
Somewhere, wherever, Osama bin Laden revels in how he’s cowed and humiliated all of us once tough, brave, freedom-loving Americans. I just can’t believe we’re letting the government get away with this baloney.
Think about this, you fools who actually believe naked scanning and crotch grabbing will prevent future terrorists attacks. Think about your 15-year-old daughter’s breasts being squeezed by some stranger.
Think about your pregnant wife being X-rayed, which damages the unborn. Many scientists insist scanners will also increase cancer risk in small children and adolescents. Think of those already sexually molested now facing a public, government-sponsored molestation anytime they take the shuttle to New York.
Meanwhile, while we pathetic little lambs agree to be treated like mass-murder suspects, Osama’s minions are devising clever ways to circumvent us.
Of course, the biggest pusher of scanners is Michael Chertoff, the ex-Homeland Security chief under former President George Bush. The California company that makes the back scanner-style machine was his private client while he was all over TV singing scanners’ praises.
Whoops. U.S. Marshals have already admitted saving 35,000 naked body images from a scanning machine at a federal courthouse in Florida.
I can’t wait for the lucrative TSA black market in naked body scans of 15-year-old boys and girls — and those of famous celebrities.
I can’t wait either for the next so-called “necessary” safety measure. Scanners don’t detect contraband in body cavities. Get ready for airport colonoscopies and gynecological exams. Why not? We all know the safety-first hysterics idiotic mantra: “If that colonoscopy saves one life...”
Refusing to complete the screening process once it’s begun subjects you to civil penalties. My new hero, John Tyner, found that out when he refused to let a TSA screener, in his moving rallying cry, “Don’t touch my junk.” Tyner is facing a $10,000 fine. http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20101116freedom_fades_as_we_grope_for_answers/

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Prison Planet writes: The TSA’s invasive new screening measures include officers literally putting their hands down people’s pants if they are wearing baggy clothing in a shocking new elevation of groping procedures that have stoked a nationwide revolt against privacy-busting airport security measures.

Forget John Tyner’s “don’t touch my junk” experience at the hands of TSA goons in San Diego recently, another victim of Big Sis was told by TSA officials that it was now policy to go even further when dealing with people wearing loose pants or shorts.
Going through airport security this past weekend, radio host Owen JJ Stone, known as “OhDoctah,” related how he was told that the rules had been changed and was offered a private screening. When he asked what the procedure entailed, the TSA agent responded, “I have to go in your waistband, I have to put my hand down your pants,” after which he did precisely that.
Stone chose to conduct the search in public in the fear that the TSA worker would be even more aggressive in a private room. [And the Democrats once thought that tapping into phone calls from USA to a Muslim country was invasive.....]   http://www.prisonplanet.com/tsa-now-putting-hands-down-fliers-pants.html

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The San Francisco Chronicle writes: You might think a 3-year-old would whiz through security. A child is non-threatening, wears slip-on shoes, and carries little luggage.

A TSA employee gave Mandy the pat down and she started screaming and kicking her legs. Her dad, Steve, happens to be a TV reporter and caught 17 seconds of the ordeal on his cell phone (watch below).
Why was Mandy searched in the first place? She started crying when she was asked to put her teddy bear through the X-ray machine. This made it difficult for her to walk calmly through the metal detector and she set the machine off twice, which meant she "must be hand-searched."
[Perhaps we could just make a practice of screening Muslims, whose radical brethren seem to always be the terrorists.  So far, children, very old people, and blond American women, among many others,  have not fomented any violence.  For years prior to 9/11 I was "chosen" 98% of the time to be searched and checked for explosives!!!  This video is so disturbing!  Aren't children coached to not let a stranger touch them?  How frightening!  I'm very nervous about flying tomorrow...  When will this madness come to an end?  Get ready for airlines to lose a lot of business.] 
Read more:

A TSA employee gave Mandy the pat down and she started screaming and kicking her legs. Her dad, Steve, happens to be a TV reporter and caught 17 seconds of the ordeal on his cell phone (watch below).
Why was Mandy searched in the first place? She started crying when she was asked to put her teddy bear through the X-ray machine. This made it difficult for her to walk calmly through the metal detector and she set the machine off twice, which meant she "must be hand-searched."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=77140#ixzz15TxcOUrI

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The Washington Times carries this Editorial: The Transportation Security Administration's demeaning new "enhanced pat-down" procedures are a direct result of the Obama administration's willful blindness to the threat from Islamic radicals. While better tools are available to keep air travelers safe, they would involve recognizing the threat for what it is, which is something the White House will never do. El Al, Israel's national airline, employs a smarter approach. Any airline representing the state of Israel is a natural - some might say preeminent - target for terrorist attacks. Yet El Al has one of the best security records in the world.
Here in the United States, these sophisticated techniques have roundly been denounced as discriminatory "profiling." Allegedly postracial America has been unable to come to grips with the difference between immoral and illegal racial discrimination and the prudent use of the types of techniques that police on the beat use every day, which is similar to practices the customs service applies to assessing which packages being sent into the country are licit and which were sent by smugglers. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/15/obamas-hand-in-your-crotch/

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Financial Transaction Tax; Obama's Excessive Focus; Lame Duck Agenda;

The Washington Times opines: The world's leftists dream of the day when they might erect an international taxation system. Such would be the bottomless well from which they could exploit the world's productive energies to bankroll utopian schemes and build bigger, better and, most important, higher-paying global bureaucracies. Steps were taken last week to make this dream a reality. and build bigger, better and, most important, higher-paying global bureaucracies. Steps were taken last week to make this dream a reality.
At the Group of 20 meeting in South Korea, a coalition of 183 organizations from 42 countries called for a tax on financial transactions to raise funds to offset the impact of the global economic crisis. The so-called Robin Hood Tax would underwrite a number of programs with the purported aim of "reducing the unacceptably high rate of job loss, and achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries." How this miracle would be achieved is unclear. Taking money from productive enterprise and sinking it into bloated government programs is an unlikely recipe for success. Nonetheless, proponents of the Robin Hood Tax are convinced that government austerity drives, such as the one under way in Britain, are more of a threat to the disadvantaged than looming worldwide insolvency.

Global warming is the favorite excuse cited to justify an international tax regime. Earlier this month, a U.N. climate commission proposed a tax on international financial transactions that would serve as a fund that poorer nations could use to mitigate the effects of "climate change." Other taxes would be levied on international transport, which might include a special U.N. tax attached to airline tickets. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rather optimistically called the proposal "financially feasible and politically viable" and lectured that the proposal was "not about charity" but about "doing the right thing for those who are suffering most from a crisis that they did least to cause." Perhaps extractions from this fund could be offset by matching cuts in foreign aid to those same nations.
There was a bit of good news in the battle against international leechcraft. On Oct. 21, the Chicago Climate Exchange announced it would no longer be involved in the carbon market. 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/12/the-uns-global-tax-scheme/
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ABC News writes: En route back to Washington after a 10-day trip overseas, President Obama was introspective about his first two years in office.  The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that he had an “obsessive focus” on policy and he will now “redouble” efforts to get back to his core principles. 

Obama said he “neglected” things that matter a lot to Americans in his rush to get major legislation passed. He explained those things as maintaining a bipartisan tone, dealing with earmarks, making sure that policy decisions are fully debated and shaping public opinion.  He can better focus on these principals now, the president explained, because the economy is more stable.  http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/11/contrite-obama-vows-to-redouble-effort-on-core-principals.html  [It is those "core principals" which trouble me.]
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In talking about the Lame Duck agenda in Congress, Real Clear Politics adds: Which brings up the biggest scandal of all: Imagine a Congress still controlled by Democrats passing an extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires but leaving the unemployed out in the cold. If this happens, laugh out loud the next time a Democrat claims to be on the side of working people.
Yet administration officials have been talking about capitulating to the Republicans on the millionaire tax cuts without a word about the jobless, or even about extending the president's own tax cuts geared toward the non-privileged. And some Democratic senators just don't want to be bothered with a long lame-duck session. They want to take care of the wealthy and not do much more.  [Democrats refuse to consider the fact that it is the income held by the richest of us that provide jobs for the poorest, through their entrepreneurship, and investment in their businesses.]
If the president caves in on the tax cuts, then his speeches of the last few months were just empty talk. He'll be lending his hand to those who would drive the car right back into that ditch he loved to talk about. [I do not forget that this President said the Republicans can come along for the ride - but they will have to sit in the back seat......These businessmen are fearful of expansion because they don't know what Congress will do to them as regards personal taxes as well as business taxes.]  And if Democrats don't fight to turn the lame-duck session into a moment of action, they will end a Congress of remarkable achievement not with a bang, but with a craven whimper. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/15/a_lame_and_spineless_duck_107946.html
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(Reuters) - If President Barack Obama is not yet convinced that his international star power has faded, his next round of transatlantic summitry should clear up any lingering doubts.
Coming off a marathon Asia trip where Obama often found himself rebuffed by fellow world leaders, he will head to Europe this week where the agenda will be clouded by a growing divide over economic strategy and a sense of neglect among traditional U.S. allies.
The tricky thing for Obama is to show the Europeans not only that he's still important to them but that they're still important to the U.S.," said Sally McNamara, a European affairs expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AE3GV20101115
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The LA Times writes: The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that illegal immigrants may continue to be eligible for in-state tuition rates at the state's colleges and universities rather than pay the higher rates charged to those who live out of state.
In a ruling written by Justice Ming W. Chin, one of the panel's more conservative members, the state high court said a California law that guarantees the lower tuition for students who attend California high schools for at least three years and graduate does not conflict with a federal prohibition on giving illegal immigrants educational benefits based on residency. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/undocumented-students.html
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The Washington Times opines: The new crotch-inspection policy is a direct result of al Qaeda underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to take down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 last Christmas. At the time, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, in masterful doublespeak, "Once the incident occurred, the system worked." However, the incident itself was a symptom of systemic failure. Abdulmutallab's name was on various watch lists. He had traveled to Yemen to network with al Qaeda. Warnings concerning him had been received from Yemen and Britain. His father had even attempted to notify the United States about the coming attack. None of this made an impression.
Despite all the government bureaucracy and TSA's intrusive inspection practices, Abdulmutallab's attack was only foiled because of a faulty bomb and the actions of alert passengers. Now all passengers have to pay the price by having their privacy (and their privates) invaded, which is the Obama administration's alternative to instituting a policy that will target the source of the problem. Indeed, they refuse to admit that a Muslim problem exists. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/15/obamas-hand-in-your-crotch/
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Newsbusters reveals: President Barack Obama is peeved with the American press. They never say "thank you," he whined to journalists in Japan on Monday. According to the pool report from the press conference, one reporter said "Thank you, Mr. President." Someone said the reporter was Australian. "I knew it must have been an Australian because my folks never say thank you," Obama said. At that, the entire American pool said in unison -- admittedly with a bit of sarcasm -- "Thank you, Mr. President." PM Gillard could be heard chiming in, "There are a few cheeky Australians here." http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/11/15/obama-whines-american-journalists-never-say-thank-you
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Human Events reveals: First they want to give medals for “courageous restraint.” Now they want to tie both hands behinds our soldiers’ backs. This isn’t suicide, it’s negligent homicide, in my book.
Commanders have ordered a U.S. military unit in Afghanistan to patrol with unloaded weapons, according to a source in Afghanistan. American soldiers in at least one unit have been ordered to conduct patrols without a round chambered in their weapons, an anonymous source stationed at a forward operating base in Afghanistan said in an interview. 
“The idea that any combat unit would conduct any operation, including patrolling and even manning a security post—in which direct action may or may not take place—and not having weapons loaded, borders on being criminally negligent in my opinion,” says Lt. Col. W. Thomas Smith Jr., a recognized expert on terrorism and military issues. “This is nothing more than infusing politically correct restrictions into already overly restrictive rules of engagement. And this PC nonsense is going to get people killed.”  [While I trust those who write for Human Events, even I remain skeptical that this could possibly be true.  The part about "courageous restraint" has been verified, however....  God bless our soldiers.]

The Greg Marshall Show; One and Done; Don't Advertise For a Christian Roommate; All Powerful Government; Kuwait Mulling Purchase of GM Shares; Federal Pay Raises; Rotten Garfield Strip

At the request of some of my readers, I am putting on my blog the email address of Greg Marshall at 1270 AM - WMKT - on whose show I was the guest for an hour last Friday.  As a reader wrote: FYI to all, Greg's email address is: marshall@1270wmkt.com. Be sure to request a repeat performance of Karen's Corner live on the radio! I sure did!  And I thank you who actually do this!

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The Washington Post carries this piece: Opinion | One and done: To be a great president, Obama should not seek reelection in 2012

By Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell 

Sunday, November 14, 2010  Patrick H. Caddell, who was a pollster and senior adviser to President Jimmy Carter, is a political commentator. Douglas E. Schoen, a pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton, is the author of "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement Is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System." 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202846_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010111203190
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The Week Magazine writes: The Michigan Department of Civil Rights is investigating a woman who advertised for a "Christian roommate."  Housing official Nancy Haynes said that while people can choose to live with whomever they want, the woman's ad constituted a "discriminatory statement" that violate the Fair Housing Act.  "Our interest really lies in her getting some training, said Haynes, "so that this doesn't happen again."
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From the Washington Post comes this: "Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive."  Joe Biden, Oct. 26 [Does he really believe this to be true?  Oh, my!]  Joe Biden, Oct. 26   General Motors, an appendage of the government, which owns 61 percent of it, is spending some of your money, dear reader, on full-page newspaper ads praising a government brainstorm - the Volt, Chevrolet's highly anticipated and prematurely celebrated (sort of) electric car. Although the situation is murky - GM and its government masters probably prefer it that way - it is unclear in what sense GM has any money that is truly its own. And the Volt is not quite an electric car, or not the sort GM deliberately misled Americans into expecting.
Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said in a letter to the Wall Street Journal: "The early enthusiastic consumer response - more than 120,000 potential Volt customers have already signaled interest in the car, and orders have flowed since the summer - give us confidence that the Volt will succeed on its merits." Disregard the slipperiness ("signaled interest" how?) and telltale reticence (how many orders have "flowed"?). But "on its merits"? Why, then, the tax credits and other subsidies?
The Automotive Engineer in Chief - our polymathic president - says there will be a million plug-in cars in America by 2015. This will require much higher gasoline prices (perhaps $9 a gallon) and much bigger bribes: GM, which originally was expected to produce as many as 60,000 next year, now says 10,000 for all of North America. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111204494.html?hpid=opinionsbox1



Business Intelligence, Middle East reveals: Kuwait is considering whether to buy shares in General Motors  when the company makes an initial public offering, now that the price range has been announced, said Bader al-Saad, managing director of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Kuwait Investment Authority. http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=49426&t=1&c=7&cg=3&mset=1021
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Gawker.com writes: Did you get a raise last year? Seventy-four percent of White House staffers did, according a Gawker analysis of the White House's annual salary reports to Congress. Probably for the great job they're doing with the economy.
Earlier this week, USA Today published an analysis of the federal workforce showing that it pays to work for the government: The number of feds earning more than $150,000 per year has increased tenfold since 2005, and the number earning above $180,000 has increased twentyfold. That prompted us to take a look at White House salaries, and it turns out that working for Barack Obama is not a bad gig.
Obama famously instituted a salary freeze for all White House staffers earning more than $100,000 on his first day in office because "during this period of economic emergency, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington."
But there wasn't a lot of belt-tightening for the rest of the staff: We crunched the numbers and found that, of the 344 White House employees who were listed on the payroll in both White House's 2009 and 2010 salary reports, 253—or 74%—got raises in 2010. And among that lucky overwhelming majority, the average raise was 9%. And plenty of people making more than $100,000 a year did get a raise as long as a title change came with it. http://gawker.com/5687778/white-house-staffers-got-a-bigger-raise-than-you-did-last-year
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From Reuters: Thursday's [Garfield] strip showed a spider warning the comic's featured cat, the lazy and overweight Garfield, that if the feline "squishes" him, an annual day of remembrance will be held in his honor.
Garfield, who frequently crushes spiders in the series, apparently is undeterred and the strip closes with a classroom of spiders being asked why they celebrate "National Stupid Day."
The cartoon drew such Internet comments as "Surely this isn't in the best of taste for Armistice Day/Veterans Day" and that Garfield creator Jim Davis "is way off the mark with this cartoon. Shame on him."  [He later apologized.]   [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1216970820101112
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A two-year ethics scandal that saw embattled Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., lose his powerful position among House Democrats but not his bid for reelection will come to a climax when he faces an ethics panel Monday on Capitol Hill.
The ethics trial promises to be a spectacle. Rangel, 80, a former New York City prosecutor, likely will represent himself as he faces the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The proceeding is formally called an adjudicatory hearing.
Rangel fired his legal team in late October, drawing into question whether the trial would be delayed. But the flamboyant Rangel is expected on Capitol Hill Monday to seize the opportunity to clear his name. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-charles-rangels-ethics-trial-approaches-monday/story?id=12125234
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