Written by So, on Christmas Eve, at a time when most people were paying no attention to the shenanigans going on in Washington, DC, the Senate of the United States of America pushed forward with its health care agenda that puts the health care of America in the hands of politicians rather than physicians. No surprise there. It seems to me that most really terrible, tyrannical, intrusive big government collectivist legislation is passed in the dark of night on the sly with as little fanfare as possible, like the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Either that, or legislative monstrosities are rushed through after a horrific event while the people are still in shock like the Patriot Act was. Either way, these bills are more and more often hundreds or thousands of pages long, intrusive, and unpopular and so the congress critters that want them passed for the benefit of their high level friends rather than for the people try to pass them with as little publicized dissent as possible. READ MORE »
Monthly archives for December, 2009
Nebraska’s wish comes true: 13 states will sue over Reid’s health care bribe
Written by Attorneys general in 13 states are threatening legal action, if Reid and Pelosi don’t remove Nebraska’s Medicaid deal from the federal health care reform bill, according to a letter sent to The Associated Press Wednesday.
“We believe this provision is constitutionally flawed,” wrote South Carolina AG Henry McMaster and 12 other state attorneys general. The letter was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and delivered to them Wednesday.
“As chief legal officers of our states, we are contemplating a legal challenge to this provision, and we ask you to take action to render this challenge unnecessary by striking that provision,” they wrote.
In a rare Christmas Eve vote, hold out Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Ne) traded his vote for an estimated $100 million earmark, dubbed the “Corn Husker Kickback,” to pay for Nebraska’s expanded Medicaid program. All states are required to fund an expanded Medicaid program, under the new bill.
In the days following the vote, even Nebraskans wondered if Reid’s sweetheart deal for the corn husker state violated the Constitution, as well as federal bribery laws.
Judge dismisses all charges in Blackwater shooting
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards charged in a deadly Baghdad shooting.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina said Thursday the Justice Department overstepped its bounds and wrongly used evidence it was not allowed to see. He said the government’s explanations have been contradictory, unbelievable and not credible.
Times Square New Year’s Eve Security: After Van Bomb Scare, NYPD Takes No Chances
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) When New York police received a report of a suspicious van with tinted windows, no license plates and a bogus law enforcement placard parked in the heart of Times Square just one day before the New Year’s celebration, they took no chances, evacuating thousands of tourists from the area and warning the occupants of surrounding buildings.
Patrol officers spotted the van Dec. 30 around 11 a.m. on Broadway between 41st and 42nd streets, a tarp partially covered the van, and a placard in the window said “detective’s crime clinic, Metropolitan New Jersey and New York,” a nonexistent law enforcement agency.
Shouting and putting up metal and wood barricades, police began clearing several blocks, directing thousands of Times Square tourists to move south and west. Counterterrorism and bomb squad crews responded and a robot was used to examine the vehicle. Officers then approached on foot and peered in the windows.
The van was opened and clothing was discovered inside, along with a temporary registration. Police are looking for the van’s owner.
Stephanie Gonzalez, who works in the glass-walled tower directly in front of where the van was parked, said announcements were made around 11 a.m. that people should head to the west side of the building, away from the vehicle. She left the building entirely.
“Post-9/11, you’re just not going to stick around to figure it out,” she said.
Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children
American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.
Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.
Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.
“This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time,” said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that “the facts about what actually went down are in dispute”.
Save for China, the future does not look good for authoritarian regimes
Hoping to identify the “influences” that might have been at work in the world at the time of his birth, writer Arthur Koestler once cast what he called his “secular horoscope.” He read through a copy of the London Times from the day after he was born— Sept 6, 1905—and found pogroms, industrial strikes, “disturbances in Kishinieff,” and the Russian empire’s failed war against Japan.
All, he reckoned, were harbingers of the political events that eventually shaped his life: the collapse of empires, the Russian revolution, the rise of Hitler, the twilight of liberalism.
Now that we are reaching the end of what seems destined to remain a nameless decade, I’d like to borrow this idea and cast the “secular horoscope” of the new decade to come. Though I don’t have the benefit of hindsight, as Koestler did, there are a few stories that might well turn out to be harbingers of political events to come.
DARPA launches flying car project
A high-tech vehicle under development by the military could offer more than meets the eye.
The “Transformer project,” launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, would create a vehicle that can travel on land or through the air.
The vehicle would be able to fly like a helicopter, drive off-road and carry up to four people, according to DARPA’s Dec. 23 announcement. The ability to fly would help escape ambushes and land mines and cross rivers.
In DARPA’s terminology, flying and driving, “enables the warfighter to approach targets from directions opportune to them and not the enemy.”
Debra Burlingame of Keep America Safe Discusses Obama’s Statement on Terror Attack
Debra Burlingame of Keep America Safe Discusses Obama’s second Statement on the Christmas day Terror Attack.
Hundreds of activists protest against Gaza blockade
Several hundred people have joined demonstrations on the Israel-Gaza border to protest against the Israeli blockade of the territory.
The demonstrators, who marched to the Erez crossing point from both sides of the border, included dozens of international activists.
The Egyptian authorities have allowed about 80 protesters to cross into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Dozens more, however, scuffled with police in the capital Cairo.
Some report say protesters were injured by Egyptian police.
More that 1,000 international activists had gathered in Cairo in the hope of being allowed into Gaza but were refused because of what Egyptian officials called the “sensitive situation” in the Palestinian territory.
Stephen Harper Suspends Canadian Parliament Till After The Olympics
Stephen Harper Suspends Canadian Parliament Till After The Olympics
US grants an 18-month extension of protected status for Sudanese nationals
December 30, 2009 (WASHINGTON) — The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will publish a notice on Thursday announcing the extension of a special status for certain Sudanese living in the US until November 2, 2011.
The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted to some Sudanese nationals living in the US was due to expire in May 2, 2010.
The notice signed by the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano justified the extension by saying that the “armed conflict [in Sudan] is ongoing, and the extraordinary and temporary conditions that prompted the October 7, 2004, re-designation persist”.
“In 2005, the government of Sudan (GOS) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The Government of National Unity was formed in September 2005, and a government of Southern Sudan was established in October 2005. However, the overall security situation in Sudan remains fragile and unpredictable. The CPA does not cover the Darfur region of Western Sudan” Napolitano stated in an advance copy of the notice obtained by Sudan Tribune.
TSA targets travel bloggers over leaked security memo
UPDATED (6:48 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Dec. 30): The Department of Homeland Security has served two travel journalists with federal subpoenas compelling them to reveal the sources that provided them with the federal security directive issued to airlines following the failed Christmas Day terror attack.
One of those journalists is Christopher Elliott, publisher of travel site elliot.org. He posted the text of the directive online. The other is Steven Frischling, who authors the Flying With Fish blog, among other ventures.
As for the security directive, it authorized the pat-downs, physical inspections and other security initiatives that were implemented within hours of the failed attack on a Delta flight arriving in Detroit from Amsterdam.
Elliott says he published the directive’s text “since the government has been unresponsive to my requests to clarify its new security measures.” Since he couldn’t get a straight answer from the feds, Elliott says on his website: “I thought it would be best to publish the security directive in its entirety.”
Dog Escapes Being Dinner
DUNCAN – A Duncan based animal rescue group is fostering three dogs from Taiwan — where they say the animals are being illegally farmed for food.
Among the rescued trio — a four year old Siberian Husky who is getting used to life in Canada — now that she’s been rescued from a hellish existence and plans for an horrific death.
A walk in the park is still a new concept for 4 year old “Vixen”. It’s just one of the many things this beautiful Siberian Husky is adapting to since arriving on Vancouver Island just 2 weeks ago.
Physically, she’s got a ways to go. Her hips are weak and her back legs are still a little bowed from life in a tiny cage. And she’s losing some of her unhealthy weight too.
She was being fattened up – ready to be slaughtered and served up as an illegal delicacy in Taiwan.
According to animal rights groups, despite it being illegal in Taiwan to kill dogs for skin or meat – the laws are rarely enforced and an underground market still exists.
Vixen was rescued from a black market meat factory by a Taiwan based animal rescue group.
Vixen is one of 3 Taiwanese dogs being fostered by Island Dogz rescue based in Duncan.
All 3 are rehabilitated enough for adoption.
With luck, Vixen will find a forever home here – thousands of miles and a lifetime away from the hell she left behind.
Apple Censors Dalai Lama IPhone Apps in China
Apple appears to have blocked iPhone applications related to the Dalai Lama in its China App Store, making it the latest U.S. technology company to censor its services in China.
Those apps, which appear in most countries’ versions of the App Store, do not currently appear in the Chinese version. Another app related to Rebiya Kadeer, who like the Dalai Lama is an exiled minority leader reviled by China’s authorities, is unavailable in the China App Store as well. The apparent censorship comes after carrier China Unicom launched iPhone sales two months ago, making regulatory approval of the phone’s contents in the country necessary for the first time.
“We continue to comply with local laws,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said in an e-mail when asked about the missing apps. “Not all apps are available in every country”
At least five iPhone apps related to the Dalai Lama are unavailable in the China store. Some of those apps — named Dalai Quotes, Dalai Lama Quotes and Dalai Lama Prayerwheel — display inspirational quotes from the Tibetan spiritual leader. Another, Paging Dalai Lama, tells users where he is currently teaching. A fifth app, Nobel Laureates, contains information about Nobel Prize winners including the Dalai Lama.
Test searches done on four out of five iPhones displayed at the Apple Store in Beijing this month returned no results for the term “Dalai.” The apps also did not appear for searches done with a computer on iTunes after switching the country selection in the program to China. One of the iPhones at the Apple Store did display the Dalai Lama apps, though it was unclear why.
Chinese officials condemn the Dalai Lama as a dangerous “splittist” seeking to separate Tibet from China, and have called him a “devil with a human face.” The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after Chinese troops crushed an uprising in the capital city of Lhasa, solidifying Chinese control there. The religious figure remains widely revered by Tibetans.
