The NY Post writes: Arizonans will be grateful for some extra help from the National Guard, starting Sunday, in protecting the border and fighting drug violence -- especially now that a federal judge has blocked key parts of their recent illegal-immigration law. But there's a more pressing border issue that goes beyond Arizona: the alliance between drug cartels and groups that aim to smuggle terrorists into our country through the Mexican border. Last week's detonation along the Texas-Mexico border of an Improvised Explosive Device similar to those used in Iraq and Afghanistan strongly suggests that Hezbollah is working with the drug cartels http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/looming_threat_from_illegals_terror_fxLo773X6OkZJXUCLXVIXJ
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CNS News reports: Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu is hopping mad at the federal government.
“What’s very troubling is the fact that at a time when we in law enforcement and our state need help from the federal government, instead of sending help they put up billboard-size signs warning our citizens to stay out of the desert in my county because of dangerous drug and human smuggling and weapons and bandits and all these other things and then, behind that, they drag us into court with the ACLU,” Babeu said.
The sheriff was referring to the law suits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the state’s new immigration law.
“So who has partnered with the ACLU?” Babeu said in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com. “It’s the president and (Attorney General) Eric Holder himself. And that’s simply outrageous.”
“Our own government has become our enemy and is taking us to court at a time when we need help,” Babeu said.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/70324
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[She who voiced her desire for our government to just take over all oil companies], Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, [according to the NYT]: "will face charges of misusing her office and is expected to contest the claims in a House trial, the second powerful House Democrat to opt for such a public airing in recent days, Congressional officials said Friday. A House ethics subcommittee has charged Ms. Waters, 71, a 10-term congresswoman, in a case involving communications that she had with the top executive of a bank that her husband owned stock in while it was applying for a federal bailout in 2008, two House officials said. Charges are expected..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/us/politics/31waters.html?_r=1
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[From Agora Financial - more on the disappearing oil from the BP oil spill "disaster"] The scientific-biological point is that in a normal environment, oil-eating bacteria are in equilibrium with their surroundings. If there's not much oil in the water, the bacteria are few and far between. But if you add oil to the mix, the bacteria bloom. The process works really well in warm seas with plenty of sunlight, such as in the GOM. And it doesn't hurt if there's weather action to stir up the water and add oxygen to the mix.
As the bloom progresses, more bacteria eat more and more of the oil. They eat the oil until it's mostly gone. When the "oil-food" is gone, the bacteria die off. The result is much less oil, and much more microscopic biomass in the water. According to Marcio, biomass is another way of describing "fish food." Marcio said, "In perhaps two years time, the Gulf fishing industry will recover in such a way as will be spectacular. Just wait. You can tell me if I'm wrong."
To illustrate the idea, Marcio showed astonishing data about oil seeps offshore Mexico. According to satellite data, there are hundreds of oil seeps off Mexico. (Marcio showed detailed satellite images in which everybody in the room could see the slicks from the oil seeps.) The total of oil leaking into the GOM is in the range of tens of millions of barrels per year, or MORE than what blew out from the BP well over the past three months. Yet the Mexican seeps are not "news" -- certainly not an environmental disaster -- because the oil-eating bacteria somehow keep this naturally occurring Mexican oil under control.
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The Washington Examiner reports: Judge Henry Hudson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia today denied the motion by the U.S. Department of Justice that Virginia’s challenge of the constitutionality of Obamacare be dismissed. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/federal-judge-denies-holder-request-to-dismiss-obamacare-constitutionality-challenge-99768809.html-
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“Human Events writes about Holdren ( Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
): In the longer term, it may be that the solution to the employment problem will require a reduction in the amount of work done by each worker in order to create more jobs,” wrote Holdren and his co-authors.
“Gradually shortening the work week (ultimately to 20 hours or less) or decreasing the number of work weeks per year (companies could have different spring-summer and fall-winter shifts) would accomplish this,” they wrote.
Working less to make room for other people to enter the job market would be good for Americans, Holdren and his co-authors concluded, even if it meant workers had to accept less pay.
“There should be few but positive consequences from such a reduction in working time,” they wrote. “Pay would perhaps be reduced but so would many expenses if material goods were built to endure and there was no longer social pressure to consume for the sake of consuming.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38359 [But don't you dare suggest that this would mean our government will be even more intrusive into our private businesses. Without knowing about a book he had written, Congress confirmed this radical, who is known for writing that: "To provide a high quality of life for all, there must be fewer people." ]
"Those plans include forcing single women to abort their babies or put them up for adoption; implanting sterilizing capsules in people when they reach puberty; and spiking water reserves and staple foods with a chemical that would make people sterile.
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Popular Science suggests: The raising of livestock consumes two-thirds of the planet's farmland, and is a major source of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, tons of edible, sustainable protein swarms all around us, free for the taking. In a new policy paper being considered by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Belgian entomologist Arnold van Huis makes the sensible recommendation that the western world eat more insects. Farming edible insects like mealworms and crickets would produce far less greenhouse gas -- 10 times less methane and 100 times less nitrous oxide -- than the large mammals we currently farm. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-08/humanity-needs-start-farming-bugs-food-says-united-nations-policy-paper [And if we Americans would just stop exhaling, think how much good we could do? :)]
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Politico opines: Don’t bother trying to count up the number of agencies, boards and commissions created under the new health care law. Estimating the number is “impossible,” a recent Congressional Research Service report says, and a true count “unknowable.” http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40561.html
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Liberty Central writes: One action that should not be taken is to vote on a massive package of tax increases and spending cuts once a new Congress has been elected, but before that new Congress is sworn in. Some reports suggest that the debt commission recommendations could total
$100 trillion in new taxing and spending decisions. These decisions should not be decide by an unaccountable body filled with dozens of retiring and defeated Members of Congress. If Congress lacks the will to make difficult decisions before an election, they should leave such decisions to the new Congress to tackle.
And besides the risk of allowing a lame duck Congress to vote on these recommendations with little public debate, a lame duck session would also be an occasion for plenty of other mischief. According to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs,
cap and trade could be passed in a lame duck session. And
Harry Reid himself is considering votes on amnesty, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and ENDA as well. We need to put an end to plans for a lame duck session.
http://www.libertycentral.org/conrad-gregg-lame-duck-session-should-vote-on-massive-tax-increases-2010-07
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National Review points out: There are now six unelected members
of the U.S. Senate; they represent Colorado, Delaware, Florida,
Illinois, New York, and West Virginia. The rules governing the seating of senators elected to replace appointed senators are left to the states in the 17th amendment. New York’s law specifies the date the new senator takes office as January 3, so Kirsten Gillibrand will still be a senator in a potential lame-duck session, regardless of the outcome of her election bid. The other five states, however, all have laws that indicate the election winners may be seated immediately following their election —
in time for the lame-duck session.
http://article.nationalreview.com/438496/election-wins-can-stop-lame-duck-threat/phil-kerpen
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American Spectator Reports: The Show Me state, in the first public referendum on
ObamaCare in the nation, says "No!" by 71 percent.
Yesterday, by an overwhelming 71 percent to 29 percent margin, voters in the bellwether state approved the resulting initiative known as
Proposition C, which is aimed at protecting Missouri residents from the mandate that will force individuals to purchase health insurance policies approved by the government, or pay a penalty.
“Missouri is the first public referendum on ObamaCare in the nation,” Cunningham said, noting that efforts to shield residents from the affects of ObamaCare are underway -- at various stages -- in 42 states.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/08/04/missouri-says-no-to-obamacare
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Thomas Sowell reports: The CBO report points out that the national debt, which was 36 percent of the Gross Domestic Product three years ago, is now projected to be 62 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2010-- and rising in future years.
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2010/08/04/democrats_bite_democrats_part_ii/page/full
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