Posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:02:20 PM by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Can someone explain something to me? Mesa Airlines (MESA) just filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Almost all other companies I've observed filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy still have their stock trading on the OTCBB exchange or "Pink Sheets". The company reported that they do not expect the stock to be immediately available for OTCBB trading. What does this mean? Another story says a certain form (211 I think) must be filed by a market maker who might decide to pick up and trade the bankrupt company stock on an exchange. Is there a chance MESA stock will trade in the OTC market? Thanks.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: market; otcbb; pinksheets; stock
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Just wondering if someone out there could give me details on possible scenarios for MESA stock. Can they completely shut down trading on a stock that trades several million shares a day (even in bankruptcy)?
1 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:02:22 PM by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Trust me, run from that stock and trade.
The way to make money in the market is to get rich slow.
- Buy a company with a strong history of earnings and sales growth
- Make sure it has substantial cash to debt
- Make sure it has a return on equity of at least 12%
- Make sure annual historic capital expense is not more than 1/3 of earnings per share
- Buy at a pe no more than the return on equity percent and no more than 18.
I just spent 4 weeks looking at 2400 stocks and 98 met this goal. I then bought a four of them.
Research, Research, Research, Research
2 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:10:31 PM by joinedafterattack
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Pink sheet FAQ:
http://www.pinksheets.com/pink/otcguide/issuers_getquoted.jsp
I stay away from pinksheet stocks myself. My impression of the market is that it is even more crooked than the standard fare.
3 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:14:22 PM by freespirited (People talk about "too big to fail." Our government is too big to succeed. --Chris Chocola)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
You may need to forget this stock, it’s done. If the cost of selling it out was even $10, it would require 221 shares just to pay the broker to dump it.
4 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:15:49 PM by HighWheeler
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To: HighWheeler
I realize it is going to end up having no value. My question is — Is it going to be allowed to trade in the OTCBB? Other bankrupt stocks have traded there such as Lehman, Smurfit-Stone, Calpine, Mirant, etc. Will this stock get to trade or will it just be abruptly cancelled?
5 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:19:31 PM by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Sounds like you want to sell some. If you get a bid, HIT IT>
6 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:29:45 PM by groanup
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To: joinedafterattack
Sounds like sound advice.
Where did you get this list, by your own research or from another?
And has any analysis of this purchase plan’s long term results been done?
Just a book name or link will get me started on research....
Thanks.
7 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 1:53:33 PM by bajabaja (Too ugly to be scanned at the airports.)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
I have seen many bankrupt stock trade on Pinks latest is Washington Mutual. Amazingly these stocks go up because shorts want to cover to close the books. When the dust settles the stock flat line or rises from possible phoenix out of the ashes rumors (very unlikely for Mesa).
8 posted on Friday, January 08, 2010 2:00:31 PM by Orange1998
Friday, January 8, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
U.S. Declares War on Smurfs, Hundreds Dead in "Shock and Awe" Style Carpet-Bombing Campaign
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
U.S. Declares War on Smurfs, Hundreds Dead in "Shock and Awe" Style Carpet-Bombing Campaign
posted by Mr. Right
In a bold and stunning move, U.S. President George W. Bush declared war on the Smurfs earlier today, claiming it was yet another facet of the Global War on Terror. When footage of the bombing raid on the Smurf Village was televised in Belgium, images of dead and dying Smurfs, including a badly burned Baby Smurf, caused an immediate condemnation of America, the 543rd such condemnation from a European country this week, but only the 18th from anywhere other than France. The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF, soon began using the footage in a new anti-war fund-raising campaign.
Left-wing bloggers were quickly flooding the Internet with their take on the reasons for the attack. Many of those theories centered on the United States' aversion to the Smurfs' well-documented Marxist lifestyle; widespread rumors about Smurf Satan-Worshiping tendencies that had first spread throughout Latin America in the early 1980's; President Bush's personal objection to homosexuality, which was believed to be rampant among the nearly-all male Smurf population; or moral objections to cloning, which many believed to be their only effective method of reproduction. The most popular theory by far, however, had to do with Haliburton and the Smurfs' rich deposits of mushroom oil.
Rev. Jesse Jackson was among those who were quick to condemn the White House, "This is clearly nothing more than another attack on people of color, in this case blue," said Rev. Jackson, who badly bruised his left knee while tripping over himself in a rush to find the nearest television camera.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attempted to clear up the situation in a press conference at the Pentagon a short time ago.
Let me dispel all of these ridiculous rumors being thrown around out there right now with such reckless abandon. The truth of the matter is, we had evidence, much of which the President will make plain tonight when he addresses the nation, of a clear and immediate threat against the United States. The plot was uncovered after the capture of a Smurf cell in the Los Angeles area late last week, which included such diabolical individuals as Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf and Jihadi Smurf. These individuals were laying the ground work for a horrific attack using Weapons of Mass Desmurftion, which had the very real possibility of killing millions of innocent Americans.
Most Americans still view the Smurfs as the same cute, harmless little creatures from the television show that ended more than 15 years ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the years that have followed, their society suffered terribly from the lost television and merchandising revenue and they became increasingly radicalized, particularly after embracing Wahhabism several years back. How many of you know that Smurfette had recently been publicly whipped for having her burka slip and show a tiny portion of her ankle? Or that Vanity Smurf and Dreamy Smurf had been hung last year for committing acts of homosexuality? Let me assure you this attack was both necessary and justified.
A seriously wounded Papa Sheik al-Smurf condemned the "unprovoked" attack in a strongly worded communique released earlier today...
The war criminal Gargamel W. Bushitler must pay for his smurfrageous and smurflegal attack on our smurful little village! Smurf you, Chimpy! We will see you smurf in Hell! The United States of America must smurf - and Allah willing, smurf it will! We will smurfvail! Allah Smurfbar!
U.S. Declares War on Smurfs, Hundreds Dead in "Shock and Awe" Style Carpet-Bombing Campaign
posted by Mr. Right
In a bold and stunning move, U.S. President George W. Bush declared war on the Smurfs earlier today, claiming it was yet another facet of the Global War on Terror. When footage of the bombing raid on the Smurf Village was televised in Belgium, images of dead and dying Smurfs, including a badly burned Baby Smurf, caused an immediate condemnation of America, the 543rd such condemnation from a European country this week, but only the 18th from anywhere other than France. The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, UNICEF, soon began using the footage in a new anti-war fund-raising campaign.
Left-wing bloggers were quickly flooding the Internet with their take on the reasons for the attack. Many of those theories centered on the United States' aversion to the Smurfs' well-documented Marxist lifestyle; widespread rumors about Smurf Satan-Worshiping tendencies that had first spread throughout Latin America in the early 1980's; President Bush's personal objection to homosexuality, which was believed to be rampant among the nearly-all male Smurf population; or moral objections to cloning, which many believed to be their only effective method of reproduction. The most popular theory by far, however, had to do with Haliburton and the Smurfs' rich deposits of mushroom oil.
Rev. Jesse Jackson was among those who were quick to condemn the White House, "This is clearly nothing more than another attack on people of color, in this case blue," said Rev. Jackson, who badly bruised his left knee while tripping over himself in a rush to find the nearest television camera.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attempted to clear up the situation in a press conference at the Pentagon a short time ago.
Let me dispel all of these ridiculous rumors being thrown around out there right now with such reckless abandon. The truth of the matter is, we had evidence, much of which the President will make plain tonight when he addresses the nation, of a clear and immediate threat against the United States. The plot was uncovered after the capture of a Smurf cell in the Los Angeles area late last week, which included such diabolical individuals as Brainy Smurf, Handy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf and Jihadi Smurf. These individuals were laying the ground work for a horrific attack using Weapons of Mass Desmurftion, which had the very real possibility of killing millions of innocent Americans.
Most Americans still view the Smurfs as the same cute, harmless little creatures from the television show that ended more than 15 years ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the years that have followed, their society suffered terribly from the lost television and merchandising revenue and they became increasingly radicalized, particularly after embracing Wahhabism several years back. How many of you know that Smurfette had recently been publicly whipped for having her burka slip and show a tiny portion of her ankle? Or that Vanity Smurf and Dreamy Smurf had been hung last year for committing acts of homosexuality? Let me assure you this attack was both necessary and justified.
A seriously wounded Papa Sheik al-Smurf condemned the "unprovoked" attack in a strongly worded communique released earlier today...
The war criminal Gargamel W. Bushitler must pay for his smurfrageous and smurflegal attack on our smurful little village! Smurf you, Chimpy! We will see you smurf in Hell! The United States of America must smurf - and Allah willing, smurf it will! We will smurfvail! Allah Smurfbar!
Margaret Thatcher’s first priority in 1979: slash the Civil Service
During Margaret Thatcher’s first months in power she clashed with ministers, cold-shouldered civil servants and declined an offer of 20 “karate ladies” to guard her at an international summit, secret government papers reveal today.
One of her first moves on taking office in May was to start cutting Civil Service jobs. The Government machine needed cutting by at least 5 per cent, she insisted, but ideally closer to 20 per cent.
Any minister who tried to block her was given short shrift. “This paper is much too sketchy and cannot possibly be included,” she wrote on a draft paper in which Christopher Soames, the Lord President of the Council, suggested that the mass redundancies planned by the Prime Minister were less than prudent. “What are we doing with 566,000 that can’t be done with 500,000?”
There was no let-up in her battle with the Civil Service, even over Christmas. Sir Ian Bancroft, head of the Civil Service, asked in a letter dated November 20 whether the Prime Minister might send a Christmas message “to make it clear” that ministers “do appreciate the work done by the services”, and to avoid public servants seeking sanctuary with the unions. A suggested message was even drafted.
Related Links
* How Britain tactfully told the Shah to keep out
* Beans held to ransom in Winter of Discontent
* Failures that led to Mountbatten's death
Multimedia
* National Archives: files from 1997
“I write this to you not as a matter of routine but because I want you to know that I and my colleagues in the Government have greatly appreciated the way the Civil Service has faced its task since we took office last May,” it read. “The new year will be a challenging one for ministers and civil servants. But in the meantime I wish you a well-earned and happy Christmas.”
Sir Ian overestimated the Iron Lady’s desire for a lull in hostilities. Her private secretary responded that she had “decided that she does not wish to send such a message. She has commented that of course she wished everyone in the Civil Service a happy Christmas but that an ‘official’ message does not seem quite right.”
Mrs Thatcher’s forthright, if pragmatic, style was also evident in her dealings with Rhodesia after the April 1979 election, which resulted in a power-sharing arrangement that involved neither of the main nationalist parties. When it was suggested that Lord Harlech, emissary to Rhodesia, should meet the Patriotic Front there, she scribbled: “No! Please do not meet with the ‘Patriotic Front’. I have never done business with terrorists until they become prime ministers.”
In the months before the world got used to Mrs Thatcher, many would make mistakes in their dealings with her. The Japanese intended to deploy 20 “karate ladies” to protect her at an economic summit in Tokyo. Mrs Thatcher was having none of it.
A civil servant from the Protocol and Conference Department wrote: “The Prime Minister would like to be treated in exactly the same manner as other visiting heads of delegation: it is not the degree of protection that is in question but the particular means of carrying it out. If other delegation leaders, for example, are each being assigned 20 karate gentlemen, the Prime Minister would have no objection to this; but she does not wish to be singled out.”
Guns, it turned out, were more her style than karate. When the Government was having problems getting arms for the Royal Ulster Constabulary because the US refused an export licence for a Ruger handgun, Mrs Thatcher revealed her expertise at a White House meeting with President Carter. “Almost all the other police forces in the UK had similar US weapons to those which had been ordered for the RUC,” the minutes said. “The RUC itself already had 3,000 of the weapons in question. It seemed very strange to deny them the remainder of the order and thereby deny a significant number of the members of the RUC the right to defend themselves effectively. She herself had handled both the gun which the RUC at present used and that which was on order. There was no doubt that the American Ruger was much better.”
One of her first moves on taking office in May was to start cutting Civil Service jobs. The Government machine needed cutting by at least 5 per cent, she insisted, but ideally closer to 20 per cent.
Any minister who tried to block her was given short shrift. “This paper is much too sketchy and cannot possibly be included,” she wrote on a draft paper in which Christopher Soames, the Lord President of the Council, suggested that the mass redundancies planned by the Prime Minister were less than prudent. “What are we doing with 566,000 that can’t be done with 500,000?”
There was no let-up in her battle with the Civil Service, even over Christmas. Sir Ian Bancroft, head of the Civil Service, asked in a letter dated November 20 whether the Prime Minister might send a Christmas message “to make it clear” that ministers “do appreciate the work done by the services”, and to avoid public servants seeking sanctuary with the unions. A suggested message was even drafted.
Related Links
* How Britain tactfully told the Shah to keep out
* Beans held to ransom in Winter of Discontent
* Failures that led to Mountbatten's death
Multimedia
* National Archives: files from 1997
“I write this to you not as a matter of routine but because I want you to know that I and my colleagues in the Government have greatly appreciated the way the Civil Service has faced its task since we took office last May,” it read. “The new year will be a challenging one for ministers and civil servants. But in the meantime I wish you a well-earned and happy Christmas.”
Sir Ian overestimated the Iron Lady’s desire for a lull in hostilities. Her private secretary responded that she had “decided that she does not wish to send such a message. She has commented that of course she wished everyone in the Civil Service a happy Christmas but that an ‘official’ message does not seem quite right.”
Mrs Thatcher’s forthright, if pragmatic, style was also evident in her dealings with Rhodesia after the April 1979 election, which resulted in a power-sharing arrangement that involved neither of the main nationalist parties. When it was suggested that Lord Harlech, emissary to Rhodesia, should meet the Patriotic Front there, she scribbled: “No! Please do not meet with the ‘Patriotic Front’. I have never done business with terrorists until they become prime ministers.”
In the months before the world got used to Mrs Thatcher, many would make mistakes in their dealings with her. The Japanese intended to deploy 20 “karate ladies” to protect her at an economic summit in Tokyo. Mrs Thatcher was having none of it.
A civil servant from the Protocol and Conference Department wrote: “The Prime Minister would like to be treated in exactly the same manner as other visiting heads of delegation: it is not the degree of protection that is in question but the particular means of carrying it out. If other delegation leaders, for example, are each being assigned 20 karate gentlemen, the Prime Minister would have no objection to this; but she does not wish to be singled out.”
Guns, it turned out, were more her style than karate. When the Government was having problems getting arms for the Royal Ulster Constabulary because the US refused an export licence for a Ruger handgun, Mrs Thatcher revealed her expertise at a White House meeting with President Carter. “Almost all the other police forces in the UK had similar US weapons to those which had been ordered for the RUC,” the minutes said. “The RUC itself already had 3,000 of the weapons in question. It seemed very strange to deny them the remainder of the order and thereby deny a significant number of the members of the RUC the right to defend themselves effectively. She herself had handled both the gun which the RUC at present used and that which was on order. There was no doubt that the American Ruger was much better.”
Monday, January 4, 2010
Fed Chief Edges Closer to Using Rates to Pop Bubbles
Posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:55:00 PM by Track9
ATLANTA -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cracked the door open a bit more to the idea of raising interest rates if a new financial bubble emerges.
He also mounted a vigorous defense against critics who say it was the Fed's low-interest-rate policies over the past decade that caused the last housing bubble. Instead, he said, the problem was lax regulation, which permitted banks to issue a slew of exotic mortgages that households later had trouble paying. "We must be especially vigilant in ensuring that the recent experiences are not repeated," Mr. Bernanke said in a speech Sunday at the American Economic Association's annual meeting here. Better regulation is his first line of defense against future crises. But the Fed also needs to "remain open" to using the blunt tool of higher interest rates to avert or pop future asset bubbles, Mr. Bernanke said, particularly if other approaches aren't working.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey! FReepers!
Help Fill The Tank!
How About It? Huh?
It Ain't Askin' Too Much
Ya Know....
Contribute to FR: $10 $20 $50 $100 Other
Lets git 'er done: One-timeMonthly (Recurring) Make it a monthly!
Or mail checks to: FreeRepublic, LLC, PO Box 9771, Fresno, CA 93794
By 'future asset bubbles' he means our enormous debt and approaching insolvency no doubt. Pure double speak.
1 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:55:01 PM by Track9
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To: Track9
unlikely to happen. If they’re not going to raise rates now, then they won’t ever
2 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:56:56 PM by 4rcane
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To: Track9
This is just jawboning. The housing market would have MORE foreclosures with the Alt-A loans up for resets this year and next. NOT going to happen.
3 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:59:45 PM by TruthConquers (Delendae sunt publicae scholae)
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To: Track9
So he’s planning on popping the next debt-for-foreign-products scheme (Ponzi scheme). That’s a good idea, but we’ll see if he would really do it.
4 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:14:56 PM by familyop (cbt. engr. (cbt), NG, '89-' 96, Duncan Hunter or no-vote.)
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To: Track9
In other words, if you’re on the fence about your potential dream home, get off. Between Fed and the Chinese, rates are likely to explode.
5 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:15:56 PM by montag813
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To: 4rcane
That seems to be the consensus. I know it would utterly sink them for the ‘10 elections but we’re so far in debt and it’s such a systemic issue I wonder how much longer this un-reality can last.
6 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:23:46 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
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To: montag813
"rates are likely to explode."
That's my sense.. I don't see how they can keep this illusion going at will and it makes me nervous as I'm sure it does those at the Fed
7 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:41:06 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
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To: Track9
So now we’re back to Greenspan’s jihad to deflate the dot-bomb equity bubble with the blunt axe of interest rates, which then crumped the whole economy.
Gotta love these clowns at the Fed. They’re just a veritable fountain of wisdom.
8 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:53:34 PM by NVDave
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To: montag813
Rates are already going up on the 30-year fixed, and they’ll likely go higher when the Fed quits buying RMBS paper.
9 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:55:04 PM by NVDave
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To: NVDave
You can see by Bernanke’s comments that he’s lost all touch with reality.
10 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:57:16 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
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To: 4rcane
How can they not raise rates? Who is going to keep buying our debt?
11 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 6:47:50 PM by Claud
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To: montag813
In other words, if you’re on the fence about your potential dream home, get off. Between Fed and the Chinese, rates are likely to explode.
Exploding interest rates will further depress prices, in an environment of already falling prices, very weak demand, oversupply of both new and resale homes already on the market, ongoing, year-over-year record foreclosures wtih no end in sight, and the weakest economy since the great depression.
Forget the dream home. Unless you're in one of the very few healthy regional economies remaining, it's a great time to rent, and to keep your options open as far as mobility. I can envision many more needing to go where the work is, above and beyond the new "Okies" from California and Michigan.
It's pretty bleak. Here comes the second leg down, imho.
12 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 7:15:38 PM by RegulatorCountry
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To: Claud
who need to buy debt if they could just print the money they need. Raising debt only creates burden on the debter and US have tonnes of debt, so raising rate will only hurt themselves.
13 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 7:19:14 PM by 4rcane
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To: 4rcane
I don’t know; isn’t it possible that they’ll have no choice except to raise rates? It appears to me the “marketplace” for the bond sales has effectively already started a rise in rates making it ever more expensive for the gov’t to borrow money. As that happens, Corporate bond issuers find themselves having to raise rates a sconch higher to be competitive with the gov’t bond issuances. I need do more research on this topic but I’m leaning toward the idea that probably sooner than later, the Fed will have to raise rates to stay even with the curve.
ATLANTA -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cracked the door open a bit more to the idea of raising interest rates if a new financial bubble emerges.
He also mounted a vigorous defense against critics who say it was the Fed's low-interest-rate policies over the past decade that caused the last housing bubble. Instead, he said, the problem was lax regulation, which permitted banks to issue a slew of exotic mortgages that households later had trouble paying. "We must be especially vigilant in ensuring that the recent experiences are not repeated," Mr. Bernanke said in a speech Sunday at the American Economic Association's annual meeting here. Better regulation is his first line of defense against future crises. But the Fed also needs to "remain open" to using the blunt tool of higher interest rates to avert or pop future asset bubbles, Mr. Bernanke said, particularly if other approaches aren't working.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey! FReepers!
Help Fill The Tank!
How About It? Huh?
It Ain't Askin' Too Much
Ya Know....
Contribute to FR: $10 $20 $50 $100 Other
Lets git 'er done: One-timeMonthly (Recurring) Make it a monthly!
Or mail checks to: FreeRepublic, LLC, PO Box 9771, Fresno, CA 93794
By 'future asset bubbles' he means our enormous debt and approaching insolvency no doubt. Pure double speak.
1 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:55:01 PM by Track9
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Track9
unlikely to happen. If they’re not going to raise rates now, then they won’t ever
2 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:56:56 PM by 4rcane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Track9
This is just jawboning. The housing market would have MORE foreclosures with the Alt-A loans up for resets this year and next. NOT going to happen.
3 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 1:59:45 PM by TruthConquers (Delendae sunt publicae scholae)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Track9
So he’s planning on popping the next debt-for-foreign-products scheme (Ponzi scheme). That’s a good idea, but we’ll see if he would really do it.
4 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:14:56 PM by familyop (cbt. engr. (cbt), NG, '89-' 96, Duncan Hunter or no-vote.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Track9
In other words, if you’re on the fence about your potential dream home, get off. Between Fed and the Chinese, rates are likely to explode.
5 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:15:56 PM by montag813
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: 4rcane
That seems to be the consensus. I know it would utterly sink them for the ‘10 elections but we’re so far in debt and it’s such a systemic issue I wonder how much longer this un-reality can last.
6 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:23:46 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: montag813
"rates are likely to explode."
That's my sense.. I don't see how they can keep this illusion going at will and it makes me nervous as I'm sure it does those at the Fed
7 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:41:06 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Track9
So now we’re back to Greenspan’s jihad to deflate the dot-bomb equity bubble with the blunt axe of interest rates, which then crumped the whole economy.
Gotta love these clowns at the Fed. They’re just a veritable fountain of wisdom.
8 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:53:34 PM by NVDave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: montag813
Rates are already going up on the 30-year fixed, and they’ll likely go higher when the Fed quits buying RMBS paper.
9 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:55:04 PM by NVDave
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: NVDave
You can see by Bernanke’s comments that he’s lost all touch with reality.
10 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 2:57:16 PM by Track9 (The measure of a good education is knowing what truly sets you free)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: 4rcane
How can they not raise rates? Who is going to keep buying our debt?
11 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 6:47:50 PM by Claud
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: montag813
In other words, if you’re on the fence about your potential dream home, get off. Between Fed and the Chinese, rates are likely to explode.
Exploding interest rates will further depress prices, in an environment of already falling prices, very weak demand, oversupply of both new and resale homes already on the market, ongoing, year-over-year record foreclosures wtih no end in sight, and the weakest economy since the great depression.
Forget the dream home. Unless you're in one of the very few healthy regional economies remaining, it's a great time to rent, and to keep your options open as far as mobility. I can envision many more needing to go where the work is, above and beyond the new "Okies" from California and Michigan.
It's pretty bleak. Here comes the second leg down, imho.
12 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 7:15:38 PM by RegulatorCountry
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: Claud
who need to buy debt if they could just print the money they need. Raising debt only creates burden on the debter and US have tonnes of debt, so raising rate will only hurt themselves.
13 posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 7:19:14 PM by 4rcane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]
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To: 4rcane
I don’t know; isn’t it possible that they’ll have no choice except to raise rates? It appears to me the “marketplace” for the bond sales has effectively already started a rise in rates making it ever more expensive for the gov’t to borrow money. As that happens, Corporate bond issuers find themselves having to raise rates a sconch higher to be competitive with the gov’t bond issuances. I need do more research on this topic but I’m leaning toward the idea that probably sooner than later, the Fed will have to raise rates to stay even with the curve.
Buffett Posts Worst Stock Performance Against S&P 500 in Decade
By Andrew Frye
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett recorded his worst performance against the stock market in a decade last year after committing $26 billion to a railroad takeover and lowering his expectations for investment returns.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company Buffett has led as chairman for more than four decades, advanced 2.7 percent on the New York Stock Exchange in 2009, less than the 23 percent return in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. It was Berkshire’s worst showing since falling 20 percent in 1999, compared with a 20 percent gain in the index. Berkshire beat the index in 15 of the last 22 years.
Buffett, whose acquisitions and stock picks propelled Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s 30-fold increase in 20 years, is finding it harder to duplicate those returns as his company expands. The purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., announced in November, wasn’t “cheap,” Buffett said. The deal adds another business, along with luxury flights and manufactured housing, that suffers when the economy falters.
“This isn’t your father’s Berkshire,” said Jeff Matthews, the author of “Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha” and founder of the hedge fund Ram Partners LP. “It’s a protector of wealth and hopefully steady growth, but very dependent on the economy in ways that it hasn’t been in the past.”
Buffett, 79, won global renown as the “Oracle of Omaha” for stock picks, including Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in the 1980s and PetroChina Inc. in 2003, that produced multibillion-dollar gains. Berkshire doesn’t pay dividends or buy back stock, and Buffett’s main occupation as the company’s chief executive officer is deciding where to invest earnings from a portfolio of operating companies and securities.
Railroad Investment
The Burlington Northern deal, which Buffett calls an “all- in wager” on the U.S. economy, brings Berkshire 37,000 workers and a share of a regulated industry. Berkshire expects to own the railroad for the next century and get “a decent return,” Buffett said in a November interview with Charlie Rose on PBS.
“Reasonable return is good enough,” Buffett said in the interview. “You know, 50 years ago I was looking for spectacular returns, but I can’t get ‘em.”
Berkshire’s performance against the S&P 500 has slipped even according to Buffett’s favorite metric, book value per share. The measure of assets minus liabilities, which Buffett says most closely indicates a firm’s value, trailed the index three times in the 10 years through 2008 after lagging just three times in the previous 34. In the first nine months of 2009, Berkshire’s book value-per share gain trailed the S&P 500 again, 15 percent to 17 percent.
Outlook for Profit
Berkshire’s annual profits may return to growth this year, according to an estimate by Meyer Shields, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Profit, which fell by more than half in 2008, may rise 51 percent to $7.55 billion, according to Shields. Berkshire reported record profit of $13.2 billion in 2007.
Buffett, the second-richest American, positioned Berkshire to weather the contraction in the U.S. economy by stockpiling $44 billion in cash. Starting in 2008, when corporate borrowing costs surged, he drew on that hoard to finance Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co., Swiss Reinsurance Co. and the Mars Inc. takeover of chewing-gum maker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
Those transactions are paying coupons that helped boost investment income in the first nine months of the year. Still, losses at Berkshire’s NetJets subsidiary and earnings declines at Clayton Homes contributed to a pretax profit plunge of more than half to $1.57 billion at Berkshire’s manufacturing, service and retailing businesses.
“Many of Berkshire’s businesses were perhaps hit worse” than companies in the S&P 500, said Guy Spier, a principal at hedge fund Aquamarine Funds LLC, which owns Berkshire shares. “They have a huge exposure to the housing market; NetJets has been impacted.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 4, 2010 00:00 EST
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett recorded his worst performance against the stock market in a decade last year after committing $26 billion to a railroad takeover and lowering his expectations for investment returns.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company Buffett has led as chairman for more than four decades, advanced 2.7 percent on the New York Stock Exchange in 2009, less than the 23 percent return in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. It was Berkshire’s worst showing since falling 20 percent in 1999, compared with a 20 percent gain in the index. Berkshire beat the index in 15 of the last 22 years.
Buffett, whose acquisitions and stock picks propelled Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s 30-fold increase in 20 years, is finding it harder to duplicate those returns as his company expands. The purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., announced in November, wasn’t “cheap,” Buffett said. The deal adds another business, along with luxury flights and manufactured housing, that suffers when the economy falters.
“This isn’t your father’s Berkshire,” said Jeff Matthews, the author of “Pilgrimage to Warren Buffett’s Omaha” and founder of the hedge fund Ram Partners LP. “It’s a protector of wealth and hopefully steady growth, but very dependent on the economy in ways that it hasn’t been in the past.”
Buffett, 79, won global renown as the “Oracle of Omaha” for stock picks, including Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in the 1980s and PetroChina Inc. in 2003, that produced multibillion-dollar gains. Berkshire doesn’t pay dividends or buy back stock, and Buffett’s main occupation as the company’s chief executive officer is deciding where to invest earnings from a portfolio of operating companies and securities.
Railroad Investment
The Burlington Northern deal, which Buffett calls an “all- in wager” on the U.S. economy, brings Berkshire 37,000 workers and a share of a regulated industry. Berkshire expects to own the railroad for the next century and get “a decent return,” Buffett said in a November interview with Charlie Rose on PBS.
“Reasonable return is good enough,” Buffett said in the interview. “You know, 50 years ago I was looking for spectacular returns, but I can’t get ‘em.”
Berkshire’s performance against the S&P 500 has slipped even according to Buffett’s favorite metric, book value per share. The measure of assets minus liabilities, which Buffett says most closely indicates a firm’s value, trailed the index three times in the 10 years through 2008 after lagging just three times in the previous 34. In the first nine months of 2009, Berkshire’s book value-per share gain trailed the S&P 500 again, 15 percent to 17 percent.
Outlook for Profit
Berkshire’s annual profits may return to growth this year, according to an estimate by Meyer Shields, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Profit, which fell by more than half in 2008, may rise 51 percent to $7.55 billion, according to Shields. Berkshire reported record profit of $13.2 billion in 2007.
Buffett, the second-richest American, positioned Berkshire to weather the contraction in the U.S. economy by stockpiling $44 billion in cash. Starting in 2008, when corporate borrowing costs surged, he drew on that hoard to finance Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co., Swiss Reinsurance Co. and the Mars Inc. takeover of chewing-gum maker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
Those transactions are paying coupons that helped boost investment income in the first nine months of the year. Still, losses at Berkshire’s NetJets subsidiary and earnings declines at Clayton Homes contributed to a pretax profit plunge of more than half to $1.57 billion at Berkshire’s manufacturing, service and retailing businesses.
“Many of Berkshire’s businesses were perhaps hit worse” than companies in the S&P 500, said Guy Spier, a principal at hedge fund Aquamarine Funds LLC, which owns Berkshire shares. “They have a huge exposure to the housing market; NetJets has been impacted.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 4, 2010 00:00 EST
Bernanke Says Low Rates Didn’t Cause Housing Bubble
By Scott Lanman
Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank’s low interest rates didn’t cause the past decade’s housing bubble and that better regulation would have been more effective in limiting the boom.
“The best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, rather than monetary,” Bernanke said today in remarks to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta. The Fed’s efforts to constrain the bubble were “too late or were insufficient,” which means that regulatory actions “must be better and smarter,” he said.
Bernanke said the Fed is working to improve its supervision of banks and has strengthened measures to protect consumers of mortgages and other financial products. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, who backs Bernanke for a second term, has called the Fed’s oversight of banks leading up to the crisis an “abysmal failure.” Dodd proposes stripping the Fed and other agencies of bank supervision powers and moving them to a new regulator.
Scholars such as Allan Meltzer, a historian of the central bank, have criticized the Fed for helping fuel the housing boom by keeping interest rates too low for too long. The bursting of the housing bubble led to the worst recession since the Great Depression and the loss of more than 7 million U.S. jobs.
Meltzer’s argument has been echoed by lawmakers including Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, who says Bernanke doesn’t deserve a second term as Fed chief.
‘Clear Signals’
Shelby, at a Dec. 17 vote on Bernanke’s nomination to a second four-year term starting next month, said the former Princeton University professor “missed clear signals” of a financial crisis when he was a Fed governor from 2002 until 2005.
“I strongly disapprove of some of the past deeds of the Federal Reserve while Ben Bernanke was a member and its chairman, and I lack confidence in what little planning for the future he has articulated,” Shelby said.
Bernanke didn’t discuss the outlook for the U.S. economy or Fed monetary policy in today’s speech or an accompanying slide presentation.
Increased use of variable-rate and interest-only mortgages, and the “associated decline of underwriting standards,” were more responsible for the bubble, Bernanke said in a speech at an economics conference.
He left the door open to using interest rates for preventing “dangerous buildups of financial risks” should regulatory changes fail to be made or turn out to be insufficient.
‘Supplementary Tool’
“We must remain open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool for addressing those risks -- proceeding cautiously and always keeping in mind the inherent difficulties of that approach,” Bernanke said.
Responding to audience questions after the speech, Bernanke said he wasn’t “particularly concerned” about a possible loss of investor confidence in the U.S. financial system.
The dollar is still the “dominant” world reserve currency, and when financial conditions become more “worrisome,” investors see the currency as a safe haven and U.S. markets as the deepest and most liquid, he said.
Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said in a speech to the same conference that tight bank credit and caution among households and businesses may impede spending amid an improvement in financial markets. “Credit constraints are a key reason why I expect the strengthening in economic activity to be gradual and the drop in the unemployment rate to be slow,” he said.
Most of Speech
Bernanke devoted most of his speech to rebutting criticism that the Fed’s rate policy fueled the housing bubble. Monetary policy after the 2001 recession “appears to have been reasonably appropriate, at least in relation to” a formula based on the so-called “Taylor Rule.” In addition, Bernanke said Fed research shows the rise in housing prices had little to do with monetary policy or the broader economy.
John Taylor, a Stanford University economist and former Treasury undersecretary, created the Taylor Rule, a shorthand formula that suggests how a central bank should set interest rates if inflation or growth veers from goals.
Under former Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Fed lowered its benchmark interest rate to 1.75 percent from 6.5 percent in 2001 and cut the rate to 1 percent in June 2003. The central bank left the federal funds rate, or overnight interbank lending rate, at 1 percent for a year before raising it at a “measured pace” of quarter-point increments over two years, from 2004 to 2006.
Fed Governor
Bernanke, 56, joined the Fed as a governor in 2002 and supported all of the interest-rate decisions under Greenspan before being appointed chairman in 2006. After the financial crisis struck, he cut the federal funds rate almost to zero in December 2008 from 5.25 percent in September 2007.
The standard Taylor Rule would have recommended that the Fed raise the rate to a range of 7 percent to 8 percent through the first three quarters of 2008, “a policy decision that probably would not have garnered much support among monetary specialists,” Bernanke said. A variation of the rule used by the Fed focused on anticipated rates of inflation, not actual rates, he said.
An index of U.S. home prices in October was down 11 percent from its peak in April 2007, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said last month. The federal tax credit for homebuyers has boosted demand, helping prices increase 0.6 percent in October from September, the first monthly increase since July.
One in four U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth, according to a November report by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, California-based real estate research firm.
Foreclosure filings in 2009 probably reached a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc., the Irvine, California- based company, said last month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 3, 2010 12:13 EST
Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank’s low interest rates didn’t cause the past decade’s housing bubble and that better regulation would have been more effective in limiting the boom.
“The best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, rather than monetary,” Bernanke said today in remarks to the American Economic Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta. The Fed’s efforts to constrain the bubble were “too late or were insufficient,” which means that regulatory actions “must be better and smarter,” he said.
Bernanke said the Fed is working to improve its supervision of banks and has strengthened measures to protect consumers of mortgages and other financial products. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, who backs Bernanke for a second term, has called the Fed’s oversight of banks leading up to the crisis an “abysmal failure.” Dodd proposes stripping the Fed and other agencies of bank supervision powers and moving them to a new regulator.
Scholars such as Allan Meltzer, a historian of the central bank, have criticized the Fed for helping fuel the housing boom by keeping interest rates too low for too long. The bursting of the housing bubble led to the worst recession since the Great Depression and the loss of more than 7 million U.S. jobs.
Meltzer’s argument has been echoed by lawmakers including Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee, who says Bernanke doesn’t deserve a second term as Fed chief.
‘Clear Signals’
Shelby, at a Dec. 17 vote on Bernanke’s nomination to a second four-year term starting next month, said the former Princeton University professor “missed clear signals” of a financial crisis when he was a Fed governor from 2002 until 2005.
“I strongly disapprove of some of the past deeds of the Federal Reserve while Ben Bernanke was a member and its chairman, and I lack confidence in what little planning for the future he has articulated,” Shelby said.
Bernanke didn’t discuss the outlook for the U.S. economy or Fed monetary policy in today’s speech or an accompanying slide presentation.
Increased use of variable-rate and interest-only mortgages, and the “associated decline of underwriting standards,” were more responsible for the bubble, Bernanke said in a speech at an economics conference.
He left the door open to using interest rates for preventing “dangerous buildups of financial risks” should regulatory changes fail to be made or turn out to be insufficient.
‘Supplementary Tool’
“We must remain open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool for addressing those risks -- proceeding cautiously and always keeping in mind the inherent difficulties of that approach,” Bernanke said.
Responding to audience questions after the speech, Bernanke said he wasn’t “particularly concerned” about a possible loss of investor confidence in the U.S. financial system.
The dollar is still the “dominant” world reserve currency, and when financial conditions become more “worrisome,” investors see the currency as a safe haven and U.S. markets as the deepest and most liquid, he said.
Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said in a speech to the same conference that tight bank credit and caution among households and businesses may impede spending amid an improvement in financial markets. “Credit constraints are a key reason why I expect the strengthening in economic activity to be gradual and the drop in the unemployment rate to be slow,” he said.
Most of Speech
Bernanke devoted most of his speech to rebutting criticism that the Fed’s rate policy fueled the housing bubble. Monetary policy after the 2001 recession “appears to have been reasonably appropriate, at least in relation to” a formula based on the so-called “Taylor Rule.” In addition, Bernanke said Fed research shows the rise in housing prices had little to do with monetary policy or the broader economy.
John Taylor, a Stanford University economist and former Treasury undersecretary, created the Taylor Rule, a shorthand formula that suggests how a central bank should set interest rates if inflation or growth veers from goals.
Under former Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Fed lowered its benchmark interest rate to 1.75 percent from 6.5 percent in 2001 and cut the rate to 1 percent in June 2003. The central bank left the federal funds rate, or overnight interbank lending rate, at 1 percent for a year before raising it at a “measured pace” of quarter-point increments over two years, from 2004 to 2006.
Fed Governor
Bernanke, 56, joined the Fed as a governor in 2002 and supported all of the interest-rate decisions under Greenspan before being appointed chairman in 2006. After the financial crisis struck, he cut the federal funds rate almost to zero in December 2008 from 5.25 percent in September 2007.
The standard Taylor Rule would have recommended that the Fed raise the rate to a range of 7 percent to 8 percent through the first three quarters of 2008, “a policy decision that probably would not have garnered much support among monetary specialists,” Bernanke said. A variation of the rule used by the Fed focused on anticipated rates of inflation, not actual rates, he said.
An index of U.S. home prices in October was down 11 percent from its peak in April 2007, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said last month. The federal tax credit for homebuyers has boosted demand, helping prices increase 0.6 percent in October from September, the first monthly increase since July.
One in four U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth, according to a November report by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, California-based real estate research firm.
Foreclosure filings in 2009 probably reached a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc., the Irvine, California- based company, said last month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Lanman in Washington at slanman@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 3, 2010 12:13 EST
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Pop Quiz Mr. President: Why Did You Fail?
Heritage Foundation ^ | 1/02/10
Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:50:08 PM by advance_copy
On New Year’s Eve, the White House received the preliminary assessment from federal agencies detailing the shortfalls of a terrorist bomber got on a plane bound for Detroit. The president admitted the government had more than enough information to justify keeping Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the aircraft. Obama concluded the system failed.
Here is what the president did not explain: This is the same system that stopped the London-based terrorist plot in 2006. On that occasion, intelligence connected the dots; counterterrorism agents penetrated the conspiracy; Homeland Security developed countermeasures; and with international partners the U.S. took down the terrorists before any bomber got near a plane.
Obama had the same system at his disposal as the last president. One built between 2002 and 2008 in the aftermath of the first wave of terrorist attacks– 9/11; the anthrax letters; and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. A system that President Bush drove day-in and day-out, 24-7-365 to find and stop terrorist threats before they got off the ground. That’s why the 2006 plot and 26 other plots since 9/11 (21 under the Bush presidency) were found out and stopped. What Obama did not explain is how it worked for the last president, but failed for him.
Systems will never be perfect. The enemy keeps changing its tactics—innovating, improvising, adopting. There will also always be gaps, miscues, and mistakes. That’s the nature of how government works. There is no better antidote for these problems than leadership from the top. A leader that establishes the priority; sets the right tone; demands results; and then follows-up.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.heritage.org ...
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TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: epicfail; fail; obama
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Or mail checks to: FreeRepublic, LLC, PO Box 9771, Fresno, CA 93794
A terrorist from Nigeria, whose father warned U.S. Embassy officials weeks earlier about his son's radicalization, goes to Yemen for equipment and training from Al Qaida. He then takes his valid US visa and uses it to buy a plane ticket with cach, carries no luggage and boards a plane bound for Detroit.
How did that happen?
Well, under Obama, we have a government that reads terrorists their rights and calls their acts of war "man made disasters". That is change, certainly, from President Bush. But is not change you can believe in, unless you believe in the decline of your own country, like an idiot.
1 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:50:10 PM by advance_copy
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To: advance_copy
Our terrorist enemies have been greatly emboldened by this man weakness, cowardice, and absolute lack of leadership, and because of this they are going to cause us a lot of harm.
They have already made two terrorist attacks on our land since Obama became a President. In the first one they succeeded when terrorist Nidal Hasan killed and injured dozens of our brave troops in Fort Hood. In the second one, the terrorist attempt on the Detroit plane, they succeeded in overcoming all the security measures against terrorism despite the warning from the terrorist father two months ago regarding his and only the terrorist failure to detonate the bomb saved us from an absolute disaster. However the very scary fact remains that the terrorist were able to penetrate all the security measures against terrorism.
It up to all of us now to prevent our terrorist enemies from striking us again, we must be all very vigilant.
2 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:55:41 PM by jveritas (God Bless our brave troops)
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To: advance_copy
Obama failed because he believes Bush angered terrorists thus triggering more attacks, when in actuality Obama’s passiveness, weakness, appeasement and total ignorance of terrorist motives has served only to invite more attacks and more often.
3 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:59:26 PM by historyrepeatz
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To: advance_copy
Faulting the administration for a lack of leadership is not meant as a partisan criticism. Scoring political points won’t make us safe. Nor are finger-pointing or snipping and point-scoring much helpful.
Apologies to the Heritage Foundation which is usually right on in its observations but this pile of mush is nothing more than a reflex apology in advance to avoid the dreaded criticism of the P-word: partisanship. Nothing could more broadly misconceive how our system actually functions.
Our democracy works on partisanship. Politicians avoid stealing because they might get caught and they get caught because there is another party hoping to catch them and expose them to the voters so they can get power and have a chance to steal. So it is with running a bureaucracy. Bureaucrats and politicians, like normal people, prefer the easy way. It is the job of the opposition party to make the easy way more painful than the right way.
Bipartisanship is an illusion and one should never apologize for one's partisanship, it is akin to apologizing for one's ambition, one's wealth, one's talents, or one's patriotism. Partisanship is what makes the system go round.
4 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:24:38 PM by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: advance_copy
Because Obama and his administration and the lapdogs MSM act as though they are from the third world; ignorant and childish. Only deeply immature people with no real leadership act in such a manner. Their way of thinking has failed in the past and will fail again.
5 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:29:06 PM by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: advance_copy
"What Obama did not explain is how it worked for the last president, but failed for him. "
It worked for ObaMao, too. It is totally abhorrent to patriotic Americans, but Barry and the democrat party actually WANT the US to fail. THAT IS THEIR PLAN! Black Liberation! Reparations! Many, many people are now catching on.
6 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:47:38 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
"It up to all of us now to prevent our terrorist enemies from striking us again, we must be all very vigilant. "
How do we prevent the terrorist in the white house from striking us again?
7 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:51:20 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
"They have already made two terrorist attacks on our land since Obama became a President. In the first one they succeeded when terrorist Nidal Hasan killed and injured dozens of our brave troops in Fort Hood."
And by the way, Nidal Hassan was a obvious, flaming terrorist for about five years under Connecticut-born President George W. Bush. Not that I mean to cut obamao any slack.
8 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:57:44 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
> and only the terrorist failure to detonate the bomb saved us from an absolute disaster.
that, and the decisive actions of one very brave Dutchman who himself personally neutralized the threat without regard to his own personal safety.
According to Fox News, his name is Jasper Schuringa, and in my humble opinion he needs a medal. People like this should be remembered alongside Todd Beamer and the heroes of Flight 93.
9 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:24:04 PM by DieHard the Hunter (Is mise an ceann-cinnidh. Cha ghéill mi do dhuine. Fà g am bealach.)
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To: advance_copy
While I agree with this article, it is poorly written with atrocious grammar and punctuation. Is this really from the Heritage Foundation?? Maybe it was written by someone not familiar with English?
10 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:28:07 PM by Yaelle (thanking G-d for Rush Limbaugh's health)
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To: matthew fuller
Lots of people have not had personal experience with these Leftist thugs, so can’t image they want America to fail. Like the failure to believe there could be a 9/11, the failure of so many to understand what the goals and methods of these people are is at its core a failure of imagination.
11 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:30:23 PM by Seeing More Clearly Now
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To: advance_copy
Well, under Obama, we have a government that reads terrorists their rights
and prosecutes US military personnel for mistreating the little darlings from Al Qaeda.
12 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:32:14 PM by Rocky (Obama's ego: The "I's" have it.)
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To: advance_copy
Rush commanded it.
13 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 7:03:53 PM by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: advance_copy
Why did the Kenyan fail? How about this from the NY Times from April 2009:
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday made public detailed memos describing brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The release of the documents came after a bitter debate that divided the Obama administration, with the C.I.A. opposing the Justice Department’s proposal to air the details of the agency’s long-secret program(s).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/us/politics/17detain.html
14 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 8:13:59 PM by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: advance_copy
“The enemy keeps changing its tactics”
Enemy? What enemy? Zero thinks his only enemies are on Fox News.
15 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 8:21:40 PM by Rennes Templar ("Though the wrong be often strong, God still rules this earthly throng")
Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:50:08 PM by advance_copy
On New Year’s Eve, the White House received the preliminary assessment from federal agencies detailing the shortfalls of a terrorist bomber got on a plane bound for Detroit. The president admitted the government had more than enough information to justify keeping Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the aircraft. Obama concluded the system failed.
Here is what the president did not explain: This is the same system that stopped the London-based terrorist plot in 2006. On that occasion, intelligence connected the dots; counterterrorism agents penetrated the conspiracy; Homeland Security developed countermeasures; and with international partners the U.S. took down the terrorists before any bomber got near a plane.
Obama had the same system at his disposal as the last president. One built between 2002 and 2008 in the aftermath of the first wave of terrorist attacks– 9/11; the anthrax letters; and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. A system that President Bush drove day-in and day-out, 24-7-365 to find and stop terrorist threats before they got off the ground. That’s why the 2006 plot and 26 other plots since 9/11 (21 under the Bush presidency) were found out and stopped. What Obama did not explain is how it worked for the last president, but failed for him.
Systems will never be perfect. The enemy keeps changing its tactics—innovating, improvising, adopting. There will also always be gaps, miscues, and mistakes. That’s the nature of how government works. There is no better antidote for these problems than leadership from the top. A leader that establishes the priority; sets the right tone; demands results; and then follows-up.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.heritage.org ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: epicfail; fail; obama
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contribute to FR: $10 $20 $50 $100
Or mail checks to: FreeRepublic, LLC, PO Box 9771, Fresno, CA 93794
A terrorist from Nigeria, whose father warned U.S. Embassy officials weeks earlier about his son's radicalization, goes to Yemen for equipment and training from Al Qaida. He then takes his valid US visa and uses it to buy a plane ticket with cach, carries no luggage and boards a plane bound for Detroit.
How did that happen?
Well, under Obama, we have a government that reads terrorists their rights and calls their acts of war "man made disasters". That is change, certainly, from President Bush. But is not change you can believe in, unless you believe in the decline of your own country, like an idiot.
1 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:50:10 PM by advance_copy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: advance_copy
Our terrorist enemies have been greatly emboldened by this man weakness, cowardice, and absolute lack of leadership, and because of this they are going to cause us a lot of harm.
They have already made two terrorist attacks on our land since Obama became a President. In the first one they succeeded when terrorist Nidal Hasan killed and injured dozens of our brave troops in Fort Hood. In the second one, the terrorist attempt on the Detroit plane, they succeeded in overcoming all the security measures against terrorism despite the warning from the terrorist father two months ago regarding his and only the terrorist failure to detonate the bomb saved us from an absolute disaster. However the very scary fact remains that the terrorist were able to penetrate all the security measures against terrorism.
It up to all of us now to prevent our terrorist enemies from striking us again, we must be all very vigilant.
2 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:55:41 PM by jveritas (God Bless our brave troops)
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To: advance_copy
Obama failed because he believes Bush angered terrorists thus triggering more attacks, when in actuality Obama’s passiveness, weakness, appeasement and total ignorance of terrorist motives has served only to invite more attacks and more often.
3 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:59:26 PM by historyrepeatz
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To: advance_copy
Faulting the administration for a lack of leadership is not meant as a partisan criticism. Scoring political points won’t make us safe. Nor are finger-pointing or snipping and point-scoring much helpful.
Apologies to the Heritage Foundation which is usually right on in its observations but this pile of mush is nothing more than a reflex apology in advance to avoid the dreaded criticism of the P-word: partisanship. Nothing could more broadly misconceive how our system actually functions.
Our democracy works on partisanship. Politicians avoid stealing because they might get caught and they get caught because there is another party hoping to catch them and expose them to the voters so they can get power and have a chance to steal. So it is with running a bureaucracy. Bureaucrats and politicians, like normal people, prefer the easy way. It is the job of the opposition party to make the easy way more painful than the right way.
Bipartisanship is an illusion and one should never apologize for one's partisanship, it is akin to apologizing for one's ambition, one's wealth, one's talents, or one's patriotism. Partisanship is what makes the system go round.
4 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:24:38 PM by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: advance_copy
Because Obama and his administration and the lapdogs MSM act as though they are from the third world; ignorant and childish. Only deeply immature people with no real leadership act in such a manner. Their way of thinking has failed in the past and will fail again.
5 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:29:06 PM by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote; then find me a real conservative to vote for)
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To: advance_copy
"What Obama did not explain is how it worked for the last president, but failed for him. "
It worked for ObaMao, too. It is totally abhorrent to patriotic Americans, but Barry and the democrat party actually WANT the US to fail. THAT IS THEIR PLAN! Black Liberation! Reparations! Many, many people are now catching on.
6 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:47:38 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
"It up to all of us now to prevent our terrorist enemies from striking us again, we must be all very vigilant. "
How do we prevent the terrorist in the white house from striking us again?
7 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:51:20 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
"They have already made two terrorist attacks on our land since Obama became a President. In the first one they succeeded when terrorist Nidal Hasan killed and injured dozens of our brave troops in Fort Hood."
And by the way, Nidal Hassan was a obvious, flaming terrorist for about five years under Connecticut-born President George W. Bush. Not that I mean to cut obamao any slack.
8 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 4:57:44 PM by matthew fuller (What we do in November will echo in eternity!)
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To: jveritas
> and only the terrorist failure to detonate the bomb saved us from an absolute disaster.
that, and the decisive actions of one very brave Dutchman who himself personally neutralized the threat without regard to his own personal safety.
According to Fox News, his name is Jasper Schuringa, and in my humble opinion he needs a medal. People like this should be remembered alongside Todd Beamer and the heroes of Flight 93.
9 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:24:04 PM by DieHard the Hunter (Is mise an ceann-cinnidh. Cha ghéill mi do dhuine. Fà g am bealach.)
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To: advance_copy
While I agree with this article, it is poorly written with atrocious grammar and punctuation. Is this really from the Heritage Foundation?? Maybe it was written by someone not familiar with English?
10 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:28:07 PM by Yaelle (thanking G-d for Rush Limbaugh's health)
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To: matthew fuller
Lots of people have not had personal experience with these Leftist thugs, so can’t image they want America to fail. Like the failure to believe there could be a 9/11, the failure of so many to understand what the goals and methods of these people are is at its core a failure of imagination.
11 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:30:23 PM by Seeing More Clearly Now
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To: advance_copy
Well, under Obama, we have a government that reads terrorists their rights
and prosecutes US military personnel for mistreating the little darlings from Al Qaeda.
12 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 5:32:14 PM by Rocky (Obama's ego: The "I's" have it.)
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To: advance_copy
Rush commanded it.
13 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 7:03:53 PM by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: advance_copy
Why did the Kenyan fail? How about this from the NY Times from April 2009:
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday made public detailed memos describing brutal interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The release of the documents came after a bitter debate that divided the Obama administration, with the C.I.A. opposing the Justice Department’s proposal to air the details of the agency’s long-secret program(s).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/us/politics/17detain.html
14 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 8:13:59 PM by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: advance_copy
“The enemy keeps changing its tactics”
Enemy? What enemy? Zero thinks his only enemies are on Fox News.
15 posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 8:21:40 PM by Rennes Templar ("Though the wrong be often strong, God still rules this earthly throng")
Ah Kong the croc that shed tears of grief is 50
KENINGAU: The expression “shedding crocodile tears” took a whole new meaning for a family in Kampung Simpangan when their pet refused to eat and wept on the day its owner died.
The two-tonne crocodile called Ah Kong is very much a part of the farming family and it became very attached to its owner Ho En Kui.
It was Ho’s son Su Hung who found the baby crocodile along Sungai Pegalan after a flood in 1961 when he was a 14-year-old boy.
Su Hung brought the 30cm-long crocodile home. Since then, Ho had been looking after it until his death in 2000.
Family pet: Su Hung hugging Ah Kong the croc that he found along the Pegalan River in 1961. The family celebrated the reptile’s 50th birthday on New Year’s Day.
“My father had a special kind of a bond with Ah Kong. It was as if when he talked to it, the crocodile understood him,” recalled Su Hung, 62.
Ho died at the age of 78.
“Ah Kong, who eats three times a day, refused to eat anything that day. He’s always docile with us but the day my father died, Ah Kong appeared to be uneasy and became quite aggressive.
“We also noticed drops of liquid coming out from Ah Kong’s eyes when my father died. And on that day, Ah Kong made some noises which sounded like the mooing of a cow,” said Su Hung, who then took over the job of caring for Ah Kong who is kept in a specially built 1m- deep pool measuring 10m x 7m at the family house.
The family believe Ah Kong was nearly one year old when he was found and they decided to “celebrate” his 50th birthday as the new year was ushered in.
On that auspicious day, the Ho family fed Ah Kong a chicken which it happily swallowed despite having lost many of its teeth due to old age.
Su Hung drained the water from the pool and the family, including his mother, Liew Kim Lin, 86, gathered around Ah Kong as they fed him the chicken.
“We hope Ah Kong will continue to be with us for a long time,” he said.
A crocodile’s life span is about 80 years.
The two-tonne crocodile called Ah Kong is very much a part of the farming family and it became very attached to its owner Ho En Kui.
It was Ho’s son Su Hung who found the baby crocodile along Sungai Pegalan after a flood in 1961 when he was a 14-year-old boy.
Su Hung brought the 30cm-long crocodile home. Since then, Ho had been looking after it until his death in 2000.
Family pet: Su Hung hugging Ah Kong the croc that he found along the Pegalan River in 1961. The family celebrated the reptile’s 50th birthday on New Year’s Day.
“My father had a special kind of a bond with Ah Kong. It was as if when he talked to it, the crocodile understood him,” recalled Su Hung, 62.
Ho died at the age of 78.
“Ah Kong, who eats three times a day, refused to eat anything that day. He’s always docile with us but the day my father died, Ah Kong appeared to be uneasy and became quite aggressive.
“We also noticed drops of liquid coming out from Ah Kong’s eyes when my father died. And on that day, Ah Kong made some noises which sounded like the mooing of a cow,” said Su Hung, who then took over the job of caring for Ah Kong who is kept in a specially built 1m- deep pool measuring 10m x 7m at the family house.
The family believe Ah Kong was nearly one year old when he was found and they decided to “celebrate” his 50th birthday as the new year was ushered in.
On that auspicious day, the Ho family fed Ah Kong a chicken which it happily swallowed despite having lost many of its teeth due to old age.
Su Hung drained the water from the pool and the family, including his mother, Liew Kim Lin, 86, gathered around Ah Kong as they fed him the chicken.
“We hope Ah Kong will continue to be with us for a long time,” he said.
A crocodile’s life span is about 80 years.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Whats in store for 2010? no idea! able to dissect the below
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/StockNet/StockValuation.aspx?Symbol=abvt&Country=USA
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/analyst?symbol=ABVT.N
http://www.shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=abvt&submit=Short+Quote%99
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=abvt
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/analyst?symbol=ABVT.N
http://www.shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=abvt&submit=Short+Quote%99
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=abvt
(Krauthammer:) A terrorist war Obama has denied
Cheney put it very succinctly...
“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war,” Cheney told Politico. “He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.”
“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war,” Cheney said. “He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency -- social transformation -- the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war.”
“As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war,” Cheney told Politico. “He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.”
“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war,” Cheney said. “He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency -- social transformation -- the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war.”
Grand past but uncertain future for Malaysia's Carcosa
The future is uncertain for Malaysia's Carcosa Seri Negara, the 111-year old grande dame of colonial Malaya. Once home to the country's former British rulers and now an exclusive hotel, it is up for redevelopment.
The future is uncertain for Malaysia's Carcosa Seri Negara, the 111-year old grande dame of colonial Malaya. Once home to the country's former British rulers and now an exclusive hotel, it is up for redevelopment.
The centre of colonial social life in the early 20th century the hotel -- which is an amalgamation of two stately bungalows, the Carcosa and the Seri Negara -- will close its doors on December 31.
Its many admirers are concerned over the fate of the national landmark, which in its heyday was a symbol of colonial power and a location where the nation's history was made.
"We were told by the government it is giving a tender to a company that is interested in redeveloping this site so we don't know what its going to be," says hotel manager Caroline Filtzinger.
Run by the GHM group of luxury hotels since 2004, the management was informed of the government's decision in October by the Economic Planning Unit, which handles the property.
Despite enquiries made by AFP to officials in several departments within the EPU, no one was able to shed light on plans for the Carcosa.
Filtzinger admits the place is in need of a facelift but patrons keep coming back regardless, for functions and the trademark sumptuous afternoon tea on the veranda.
"It's also the premier wedding location in the country and everybody wants to get married in this historic location, on the lawns, it is really sad to see it closing down."
She says the hotel's main business has been hosting events rather than filling its 13 guestrooms -- elegant but somewhat faded suites ranging in price from 1,100-3,500 ringgit (325-1,030 dollars) a night.
Carcosa Seri Negara occupies 40 acres (16.19 hectares) with the land around the Carcosa plunging straight into the jungle before opening onto the Lake Gardens parklands below.
Construction of the Carcosa began in 1896 by the first Resident-General, or chief British adviser to the then Federated Malay States, Sir Frank Swettenham, who named his new home after a fictional city.
The total cost including the building of numerous winding roads and outbuildings came to 67,300 Straits dollars -- worth about 13.9 million dollars in today's money.
Completed in 1898, the half-timbered house was built in High Victorian style, with ornamental designs incorporating a Elizabethan gable and an ornamental "medieval parapet" adorning several of its sides.
Inside, the entrance hall is large and airy, opening up to the roof with timber buttresses giving it a church-like feel, the larger windows sporting Anglo-Saxon cross lattices, topped off with lancet arches from the Regency period.
After Swettenham, Carcosa was occupied by the country's top British civil servants and in 1913 the government built the King's House on the property, as a guesthouse for the Governor of the Straits Settlements who resided in Singapore.
During the second world war, the Japanese military used the two buildings as an officer's mess, and upon liberation it was taken over by the British military.
By 1946, Carcosa reverted to its original use and was the scene where on January 21, 1948, representatives of the Malay Sultans and the British government created the Federation of Malaya, giving the country limited autonomy.
The Communist insurgency that began in June that year saw the grounds encircled by barbed wire but by 1956, with the communist threat on the wane and a push towards independence, the building's future was in question.
However, on September 12, 1956, Malaya's Chief Minister and Malaysia's first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman presented the deeds of Carcosa to the British government as a gift.
On the lawns of the King's House on August 5, 1957, just before independence was declared, the Malay Sultans along with Malaya's last colonial administrator Sir Donald MacGillivray signed into creation the new nation.
King's House was later returned to Malaysia and renamed "Seri Negara" or "Beautiful Country."
Carcosa however was occupied by a succession of British high commissioners, and an invitation for dinner or to a tea party in the grounds was the height of social ambition.
Malaysian veteran educationist Rasammah Bhupalan remembers elegant evenings in the early 1960s when Viscount Anthony Head and his wife Dorothea resided there.
"There were many functions at the Carcosa, formal and informal and you would feel at once in awe of the stately events held in what was also a home," she said.
"Lady Head loved birds and I remember having tea with her at the Carcosa and these large number of birds chirping and keeping us company."
However, the pleasant days at the Carcosa ended as relations between Malaysia and Britain soured once Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister in 1981.
Shahrir Abdul Samad, a cabinet minister at the height of the anti-British fervour that infected trade and diplomacy, said the idea of handing over the Carcosa was conceived at this point.
"The British high commissioner came to see me to ask what would be the way forward to resolve the worsening situation," he told AFP.
"I told him that as he had been complaining about the costs of managing Carcosa for so long, why not consider returning it to Malaysia as a gesture of goodwill."
"In May 1984, Mahathir announced the British were returning Carcosa but it was done in a gradual manner sometime in early 1987."
Shahrir said the cabinet then decided to convert the buildings into a hotel for visiting dignitaries, and the first official guest was Queen Elizabeth II who was attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
While plans for the hotel and the two buildings are still unclear, many hope the buildings will be preserved.
"We should not get rid of Carcosa or demolish those historic buildings as it is a part of our history," said Shahrir, who left the cabinet earlier this year. "It is still very much an important part of the Malaysian story."
The future is uncertain for Malaysia's Carcosa Seri Negara, the 111-year old grande dame of colonial Malaya. Once home to the country's former British rulers and now an exclusive hotel, it is up for redevelopment.
The centre of colonial social life in the early 20th century the hotel -- which is an amalgamation of two stately bungalows, the Carcosa and the Seri Negara -- will close its doors on December 31.
Its many admirers are concerned over the fate of the national landmark, which in its heyday was a symbol of colonial power and a location where the nation's history was made.
"We were told by the government it is giving a tender to a company that is interested in redeveloping this site so we don't know what its going to be," says hotel manager Caroline Filtzinger.
Run by the GHM group of luxury hotels since 2004, the management was informed of the government's decision in October by the Economic Planning Unit, which handles the property.
Despite enquiries made by AFP to officials in several departments within the EPU, no one was able to shed light on plans for the Carcosa.
Filtzinger admits the place is in need of a facelift but patrons keep coming back regardless, for functions and the trademark sumptuous afternoon tea on the veranda.
"It's also the premier wedding location in the country and everybody wants to get married in this historic location, on the lawns, it is really sad to see it closing down."
She says the hotel's main business has been hosting events rather than filling its 13 guestrooms -- elegant but somewhat faded suites ranging in price from 1,100-3,500 ringgit (325-1,030 dollars) a night.
Carcosa Seri Negara occupies 40 acres (16.19 hectares) with the land around the Carcosa plunging straight into the jungle before opening onto the Lake Gardens parklands below.
Construction of the Carcosa began in 1896 by the first Resident-General, or chief British adviser to the then Federated Malay States, Sir Frank Swettenham, who named his new home after a fictional city.
The total cost including the building of numerous winding roads and outbuildings came to 67,300 Straits dollars -- worth about 13.9 million dollars in today's money.
Completed in 1898, the half-timbered house was built in High Victorian style, with ornamental designs incorporating a Elizabethan gable and an ornamental "medieval parapet" adorning several of its sides.
Inside, the entrance hall is large and airy, opening up to the roof with timber buttresses giving it a church-like feel, the larger windows sporting Anglo-Saxon cross lattices, topped off with lancet arches from the Regency period.
After Swettenham, Carcosa was occupied by the country's top British civil servants and in 1913 the government built the King's House on the property, as a guesthouse for the Governor of the Straits Settlements who resided in Singapore.
During the second world war, the Japanese military used the two buildings as an officer's mess, and upon liberation it was taken over by the British military.
By 1946, Carcosa reverted to its original use and was the scene where on January 21, 1948, representatives of the Malay Sultans and the British government created the Federation of Malaya, giving the country limited autonomy.
The Communist insurgency that began in June that year saw the grounds encircled by barbed wire but by 1956, with the communist threat on the wane and a push towards independence, the building's future was in question.
However, on September 12, 1956, Malaya's Chief Minister and Malaysia's first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman presented the deeds of Carcosa to the British government as a gift.
On the lawns of the King's House on August 5, 1957, just before independence was declared, the Malay Sultans along with Malaya's last colonial administrator Sir Donald MacGillivray signed into creation the new nation.
King's House was later returned to Malaysia and renamed "Seri Negara" or "Beautiful Country."
Carcosa however was occupied by a succession of British high commissioners, and an invitation for dinner or to a tea party in the grounds was the height of social ambition.
Malaysian veteran educationist Rasammah Bhupalan remembers elegant evenings in the early 1960s when Viscount Anthony Head and his wife Dorothea resided there.
"There were many functions at the Carcosa, formal and informal and you would feel at once in awe of the stately events held in what was also a home," she said.
"Lady Head loved birds and I remember having tea with her at the Carcosa and these large number of birds chirping and keeping us company."
However, the pleasant days at the Carcosa ended as relations between Malaysia and Britain soured once Mahathir Mohamad became prime minister in 1981.
Shahrir Abdul Samad, a cabinet minister at the height of the anti-British fervour that infected trade and diplomacy, said the idea of handing over the Carcosa was conceived at this point.
"The British high commissioner came to see me to ask what would be the way forward to resolve the worsening situation," he told AFP.
"I told him that as he had been complaining about the costs of managing Carcosa for so long, why not consider returning it to Malaysia as a gesture of goodwill."
"In May 1984, Mahathir announced the British were returning Carcosa but it was done in a gradual manner sometime in early 1987."
Shahrir said the cabinet then decided to convert the buildings into a hotel for visiting dignitaries, and the first official guest was Queen Elizabeth II who was attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
While plans for the hotel and the two buildings are still unclear, many hope the buildings will be preserved.
"We should not get rid of Carcosa or demolish those historic buildings as it is a part of our history," said Shahrir, who left the cabinet earlier this year. "It is still very much an important part of the Malaysian story."
Fengshui master: Market rally up to H1 2010
By TEE LIN SAY
PETALING JAYA: Traders, on your mark.
The year 2010 will see more opportunities than 2009, and will be coloured by opportunities, volatility and lots of activity, says Joey Yap, the founder, CEO and master trainer of the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics.
The year of the Metal Tiger which begins on Feb 14, is personified by metal chopping wood which creates sparks.
“Metal chopping wood creates lots of activity. Yang metal in the first half of the year also creates a stronger impact. Wood controls earth, which is the wealth element in astrology. Hence, the rally in the stock market will continue up to the first half of the year as the roots of wealth are in the first two pillars of the Bazi chart,” explained Yap.
Joey Yap (inset) says the stock market will see more excitement than the real economy
The second half, meanwhile, is forecast to be less aggressive.
Hence, the stock market will see more excitement than the real economy, which Yap says continues to look sluggish over the longer term, due to there being no water element.
“Water produces wood. With lots of wood but no water, this hinders growth. Hence, the recovery image is one that is somewhat artificial. However, I don’t think 2010 will be the year, we pay for all these artificial growth,” he said.
Yap pointed out that the absence of fire in the Bazi chart also indicates a lack of the happiness sentiment. This might mean there is something hidden or suppressed.
“Perhaps people are still not spending and being conservative with their finances,” said Yap.
Sector-wise, as the banking sector is represented by the metal element, Yap still sees stumbling blocks, and said more painful decisions may have to be made.
“Banks will become very cautious, and may be tighter on their lendings. Also, as only metal can produce water, and there is no water, there will be less liquidity,” he said.
The services sector, which is represented by the Hour Pillar in the Bazi chart, looks set to flourish. With the presence of earth (indirect wealth) and wood, these sectors ought to prosper.
Also, fire-related sectors such as technology, oil, alternative energies, mining are expected do well.
On stocks, Yap picked blue chip companies with strong sales to China. As there is a need of water, Yap would also pick water-related sectors such as fast-moving consumer goods companies.
Yap said Malaysia would grow, although at a slower rate.
Malaysia is also in a relatively sweet spot as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is a Yin Wood Day Master.
Yin Wood’s defining characteristics are flexibility and adaptive in nature.
“These are the types who will always ‘find their way’ in life. New policies by Najib will help. Because of this, Malaysia will be better,” said Yap.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan strategist Adrian Mowat advised investors to stay high beta for now, as growth would develop as the dominant style in 2010
He said early 2010 conditions should continue to be very favourable for Asian equities with strong growth, positive earnings estimate revisions, acceptable inflation, ongoing rally in credit markets.
“Stage three of the bull market is an overshoot in valuations as risk-free rates stay low for long.”
PETALING JAYA: Traders, on your mark.
The year 2010 will see more opportunities than 2009, and will be coloured by opportunities, volatility and lots of activity, says Joey Yap, the founder, CEO and master trainer of the Mastery Academy of Chinese Metaphysics.
The year of the Metal Tiger which begins on Feb 14, is personified by metal chopping wood which creates sparks.
“Metal chopping wood creates lots of activity. Yang metal in the first half of the year also creates a stronger impact. Wood controls earth, which is the wealth element in astrology. Hence, the rally in the stock market will continue up to the first half of the year as the roots of wealth are in the first two pillars of the Bazi chart,” explained Yap.
Joey Yap (inset) says the stock market will see more excitement than the real economy
The second half, meanwhile, is forecast to be less aggressive.
Hence, the stock market will see more excitement than the real economy, which Yap says continues to look sluggish over the longer term, due to there being no water element.
“Water produces wood. With lots of wood but no water, this hinders growth. Hence, the recovery image is one that is somewhat artificial. However, I don’t think 2010 will be the year, we pay for all these artificial growth,” he said.
Yap pointed out that the absence of fire in the Bazi chart also indicates a lack of the happiness sentiment. This might mean there is something hidden or suppressed.
“Perhaps people are still not spending and being conservative with their finances,” said Yap.
Sector-wise, as the banking sector is represented by the metal element, Yap still sees stumbling blocks, and said more painful decisions may have to be made.
“Banks will become very cautious, and may be tighter on their lendings. Also, as only metal can produce water, and there is no water, there will be less liquidity,” he said.
The services sector, which is represented by the Hour Pillar in the Bazi chart, looks set to flourish. With the presence of earth (indirect wealth) and wood, these sectors ought to prosper.
Also, fire-related sectors such as technology, oil, alternative energies, mining are expected do well.
On stocks, Yap picked blue chip companies with strong sales to China. As there is a need of water, Yap would also pick water-related sectors such as fast-moving consumer goods companies.
Yap said Malaysia would grow, although at a slower rate.
Malaysia is also in a relatively sweet spot as Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is a Yin Wood Day Master.
Yin Wood’s defining characteristics are flexibility and adaptive in nature.
“These are the types who will always ‘find their way’ in life. New policies by Najib will help. Because of this, Malaysia will be better,” said Yap.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan strategist Adrian Mowat advised investors to stay high beta for now, as growth would develop as the dominant style in 2010
He said early 2010 conditions should continue to be very favourable for Asian equities with strong growth, positive earnings estimate revisions, acceptable inflation, ongoing rally in credit markets.
“Stage three of the bull market is an overshoot in valuations as risk-free rates stay low for long.”
'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call
abc news ^ | 12.31.09
Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:17:20 AM by Perdogg
The accused "underwear bomber" made a dramatic final call to his father that he found so alarming, the father approached Nigerian officials who took him directly to the CIA's station chief in the Nigerian capital, sources told ABC News.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
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TOPICS: Breaking News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abdulmutallab; globaljihad; obama; wot
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1 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:17:21 AM by Perdogg
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To: Perdogg
Was it to the White House?
2 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:18:23 AM by IbJensen (A Prayer for Obama (Ps 109.8): "Let his days be few; and let another take his position.")
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To: IbJensen; Ernest_at_the_Beach; F15Eagle; GOPJ; Munz; Quix; SandRat; SJackson; SolidWood
Nigerian Intelliegnce contacted the CIA on Nov 19th.
3 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:13 AM by Perdogg ("Is that a bomb in your pants, or you excited to come to America?")
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To: Perdogg
Anyone feel safer with this clown in charge or G.W.Bush?
4 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:43 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: Perdogg
To cancel his NYT subscription?...............
5 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:49 AM by Red Badger (Obama - The first ever elected lame duck..............)
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To: Perdogg
The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.
6 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:21:07 AM by CdMGuy
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To: Perdogg
Radical muslim perverts found this kid and decided to exploit his loneliness... it's no wonder his Dad was frantic..
Radical Muslims took “killing off” young men to a new high with their “we’ll blow a kid’s penis off while blowing up a plane; - and sending live tape of it to the cave...
Remember some months back - the Iraq street car bomb with the two young boys in the car - ready to be blown up - and our guys noticed the street was quiet and stayed away from the car. Our soldiers knew the perverts were “hands on” quiet waiting for the boys to blow up in misery and pain. Peering out the windows to watch. Breathless...
Creepy sexual sadism is part of what’s happening... these folks are evil.
7 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:21:45 AM by GOPJ (Success is cast as evil and punished while failure is blamed on others and rewarded.-Rand)
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To: Joe Boucher
8 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:22:59 AM by Red Badger (Obama - The first ever elected lame duck..............)
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To: Perdogg
9 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:23:09 AM by paulycy (Less safe. Less free. More broke.)
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To: Perdogg
Is it too much to hope that he was yelling “Aaah! Aaaaaahhh!!! It burns! It burns!!!”?
10 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:23:47 AM by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
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To: Perdogg
Looks as if Sparky Speedo intended to take the plane down over Detroit for maximum civilian carnage on the ground and in the air.
Have we learned any more about his orders from Yemen?
11 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:26:53 AM by sodpoodle (Stop wasting our wealth and start telling the truth.)
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To: Perdogg
Related thread:
Special Briefing Skipper: State Department on the underwear bomber
**************************EXCERPT*********************************
After Abdulmutallab's father raised concerns with the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria on Nov. 19, the embassy sent what's known as a Visa VIPER
12 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:26:53 AM by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: CdMGuy
When the members of the CIA realized that they would be prosecuted for doing their job, how many of the competent ones stayed?
13 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:11 AM by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: Perdogg
See my tagline.
14 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:28 AM by rdl6989 (January 20, 2013 The end of an error.)
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To: Perdogg
A-ma-zing! how the media elites blame Bush for not doing anything about a nothing note in Aug 2001 that somewhere, somehow the terrorists were going to hijack a plane (which was known for years and no one could do anything about) but they give Obama a pass for hiring Napolitano, a band of czars and DHS nitwits, and let’s not forget the rubes in the State Department, who had the hijacker’s name, his name!, and did nothing.
15 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:52 AM by PoliticalEthics (Citizens United Against Terror http://www.preventterror.blogspot.com/)
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To: Red Badger
Yes! We all do!
16 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:28:36 AM by PoliticalEthics (Citizens United Against Terror http://www.preventterror.blogspot.com/)
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To: Oorang; Nachum; Velveeta; MamaDearest; SunkenCiv; onyx; Bob J
*unbelievably scary*
17 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:29:03 AM by hennie pennie
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To: CdMGuy
What is going on with the CIA? The left has hated the CIA it does make you wonder. Leon Panetta is in charge. He was a Clinton buddy.
18 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:29:57 AM by ColdOne (ColdOne Vote them all out!)
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To: Joe Boucher
The Obama administration had every clue but a Las Vegas neon sign flashing Terrorist here!
The tools and intelligence worked fine in this case. The big failures were the Obama decision makers in key positions who failed to act by ignoring the intelligence they received.
So when Obama places the blame on Bush is nothing but lies and distortions.
19 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:30:01 AM by Red Steel
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To: Perdogg
20 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:31:24 AM by F15Eagle (1 John 5:4-5, 4:15, John 11:25, 14:6, 1 Tim 2:5, John 3:17-18, John 20:31, 1 John 5:13, John 6:69)
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To: Perdogg
George W Bush may not have been a staunch conservative or even a lowbrow conservative but he has more BALLS than this administration could ever dream of having ....
21 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:32:19 AM by ATOMIC_PUNK (Screaming in Agony they ran to the Government But then Realized from whence the Agony came !)
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To: Red Badger
No.
22 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:33:44 AM by Moe Tzadik
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK
You are right all around,
Good job.
23 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:33:58 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: Perdogg
Thank God he wasn’t a mormon; imagine how much he could have hidden in -that- underwear!!!
24 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:34:11 AM by OldGuard1
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To: CdMGuy
That will be the day I believe anything written or said in the msm.
25 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:35:47 AM by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: Perdogg
I have to think the recent CIA failures have something to do with the new tone Zero set when he took office and threatened to prosecute CIA officers for doing their jobs.
26 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:39:10 AM by colorado tanker
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To: Joe Boucher
I know I’d feel safer with either him or McCain in office. Heck I’d even feel safer if Hillary was President. Things like this are exactly why I held my nose and supported McCain.
I hated his immigration stance but believe the war on terror and healthcare would be vastly different.
27 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:44:45 AM by rexgrossmansonlyfan (Brennan and Booth THEY finally begin December 2009 (Keep flammables away from TV 12/10))
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To: CdMGuy
"The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA"
All it takes is one libtard, & the phalanx shatters.
28 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:44:54 AM by chuck_the_tv_out ( <<< click my name: now featuring Freeper classifieds)
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To: Red Badger
I certainly do. And also he is being a class act for staying out of the spotlight and not bashing his predecessor unlike Clinton.
29 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:46:40 AM by rexgrossmansonlyfan (Brennan and Booth THEY finally begin December 2009 (Keep flammables away from TV 12/10))
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To: Perdogg; All
HELP HELP HELP.
Please, everyone, click on the link and look at the photo of the ‘underwear bomber’.
What in the heck? Did they photoshop the picture? What’s up with his mouth? It appears his upper lip starts at the bottom of his nose and then there is a light brown gap between it and his bottom lip.
30 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:46:42 AM by UCANSEE2
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To: rexgrossmansonlyfan
I did pretty much the sam but I will NEVER again vote for a rino.
Conservative or nothing.
31 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:48:55 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: colorado tanker
The poisonous political climate that Obama has put upon the War on Terror is definitely a factor.
32 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:51:54 AM by Red Steel
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To: colorado tanker
Excellent, Excellent point! I’ll have to google the youtube video of him pumping up the employees of the CIA. Did they look like the most serious-minded people in America that should be protecting us or just a bunch of racial diveriserty at its best..Obama lovers.
33 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:55:07 AM by jhw61
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To: paulycy
Obama IS a terrorist.
Obama is terrorizing Our constitution, Our economy, Our Bill of Rights, Our free-market economy, Our health care system, and if that's not enough He'll use Our Air force One to do a low fly over New York City just to gauge Our reaction.
Obama IS a terrorist.
34 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:55:22 AM by Musketeer
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To: CdMGuy
The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.
The CIA is being pretty careful now that they know that the administration will sic DOJ on them the second they utter the word "terrorist" or lay a finger on a foreign national.
This type of thing is a direct result of an agency that fears repercussions from an administration that is more inclined to punish Americans than the enemies of America.
35 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:59:25 AM by Tucsonican
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To: paulycy
That guy looks familiar?
36 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:01:03 AM by rawhide
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To: Perdogg
'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call
“Hey, it’s Umar. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? The CIA went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye.”
37 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:03:26 AM by FReepaholic (My other tagline is hilarious.)
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To: CdMGuy
“End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.”
Whats going on? Do you have to ask that after they were threatened with legal action after doing what they were told. Doing what they could to protect this country.
38 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:10:31 AM by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Perdogg
Nigerian Intelliegnce contacted the CIA on Nov 19th.
Right, and now the story is more important than making excuses for Obama. Langley, VA had the information, so Leon Panetta is in the hot seat.
39 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:11:27 AM by onyx
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To: Perdogg
As the Bard might say, “Hoist on his own panty petard!”
40 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:20:04 AM by Jagman
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To: Red Badger
No.
41 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:20:58 AM by Kimberly GG (Join Me In BOYCOTTING all ObamaTV!! (Change the channel or do so and then turn tv off!!))
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To: GOPJ
Religious cults exploiting lonely adolescents and young adults is nothing new. Apocalyptic cults like the Branch Devidians and the Order of the Solar Temple, Christian-based cults like the Peoples’ Temple, and Buddhist-based cults like Aum Shinrikyo Sarin and Bhaghwan Shree Ragneesh all take an accepted religion as a base to make their preachings familiar and safe-sounding. Then they use mind control techniques, including isolation, “lovebombing”, brainwashing and other coercive techniques to suck these people deep down inside a system from which deviation is punished.
I suppose if a religious cult hangs around long enough, and becomes wealthy enough, it moves to the status of a “real religion”, like the Unification Church and the Church of Scientology are doing - or at least trying to do.
When the members of a cult commit violence against themselves, like the Church of the Solar Temple and the Peoples’ Temple members did, we are horrified but ultimately don’t care. However, when the cult uses violence against others to bring about its vision of a new world, as Aum Shinrikyo did in the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, they are very quickly attacked and usually put down via legal means.
Muslim-based cults sem to be on the increase, and they produce the most violent of these terrorists. In some cases, it’s obvious that these are “terror cults”.
But this isn’t the first time that a major Western nation has been at literal war with a murderous group of religious fanatics in the East. The British Empire did just the same thing when it fought against the Hindu cult of the Thuggees in the 19th Century. These fellows were ritualistic criminal murderers who traveled in gangs, throttling people as a blood sacrifice to the Goddess Kali.
The British took a highly specialized military approach over the century,eventually eliminating the cult. If you want more information about how they did it, you mcould start here:
http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Indias-Thuggees-and-Islamofascism-Today.aspx
Thinking in terms of these criminal-religious mosques as “terror cults” gives a lot better understanding of how they work. They are related to Islam in general the same way that Christian Apocalyptic cults are related to Christianity. You can read about the FBI’s “Project Megiddo” to get more knowledge of violent Christian-based cults located in the US.
http://atheism.about.com/library/legal/megiddo/bl_meg_contents.htm
42 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:28:28 AM by worst-case scenario (Striving to reach the light)
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To: hoosiermama
Over here.
43 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:36:51 AM by onyx
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To: rexgrossmansonlyfan
Yep. At least McCain was concerned about our number one priority - national security. Obama even makes Hillary or Bill Clinton look reasonable in comparison.
44 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:52:35 AM by plain talk
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To: Joe Boucher
THE SYSTEM WORKED!!!!
45 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:59:32 AM by Shady (The Fairness Doctrine is ANYTHING but fair!!!!)
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To: GOPJ
People who man the suicide hotlines recognize that the profile of a suicidal person involves estrangement from family, significant others, and friends; availability of the lethal means, closure-like activities such as closing out bank accounts, giving things away for no obvious reason, and so forth. Nobody accuses suicide hotline counselors of profiling. They’re trained to do it, and while they are sometimes wrong, they are correct often enough to make the effort worthwhile.
The underwear bomber fits a certain obvious profile: He is a young islamic male; he has had contact with Imam’s who preach jihad, he often has travelled to a Moslem country where calls for jihad and all that crap is rampant or comes from one. He has no real friends. He rejects his family and his place in society, which is often middle class or better. He is travelling alone. He buys his ticket virtually at the gate. He pays cash. His ticket is one-way. He is travelling to the United States where he has no relatives, no purpose, and no particular interests. His name shows up on watch lists, etc.
All of these profile characteristics were apparent with the underwear bomber, but the one that has to do with being an Islamic young man trumps the rest. Our pathetically politically correct bunch of liberals just can’t offend these people by profiling them, no matter how many times the people fitting the aforementioned profile murder us and people fitting our profiles in the name of jihad. Innocent until proven guilty, bullshit.
That courtroom mentality doesn’t apply with respect to how a nation secures its borders. Profile, profile, profile, and don’t let anyone in who fits the terrorist profile come here at all. Why would we want to?
46 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:01:33 AM by mathurine
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To: worst-case scenario
Whoa. Wait a minute. The People’s Temple was not Christian, any more than Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation “church” is Christian. The People’s Temple was Marxist to the core.
47 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:02:07 AM by hellbender
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To: Perdogg
Everybody was acting with a sense of urgency EXCEPT for the top brass!!!!
48 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:13:47 AM by DariusBane (Even the Rocks shall cry out "Hobamma to the Highest")
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To: Perdogg
This is beyond simple incompetence, this now is Dereliction of Duty with everyone.
49 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:16:45 AM by tobyhill
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To: Perdogg
He told them “I have a Jihad in my panties.”
They thought he was kidding.
50 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:18:43 AM by cruise_missile
Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:17:20 AM by Perdogg
The accused "underwear bomber" made a dramatic final call to his father that he found so alarming, the father approached Nigerian officials who took him directly to the CIA's station chief in the Nigerian capital, sources told ABC News.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
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TOPICS: Breaking News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abdulmutallab; globaljihad; obama; wot
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Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-50, 51-94 next last
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1 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:17:21 AM by Perdogg
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To: Perdogg
Was it to the White House?
2 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:18:23 AM by IbJensen (A Prayer for Obama (Ps 109.8): "Let his days be few; and let another take his position.")
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To: IbJensen; Ernest_at_the_Beach; F15Eagle; GOPJ; Munz; Quix; SandRat; SJackson; SolidWood
Nigerian Intelliegnce contacted the CIA on Nov 19th.
3 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:13 AM by Perdogg ("Is that a bomb in your pants, or you excited to come to America?")
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To: Perdogg
Anyone feel safer with this clown in charge or G.W.Bush?
4 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:43 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: Perdogg
To cancel his NYT subscription?...............
5 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:19:49 AM by Red Badger (Obama - The first ever elected lame duck..............)
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To: Perdogg
The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.
6 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:21:07 AM by CdMGuy
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To: Perdogg
Radical muslim perverts found this kid and decided to exploit his loneliness... it's no wonder his Dad was frantic..
Radical Muslims took “killing off” young men to a new high with their “we’ll blow a kid’s penis off while blowing up a plane; - and sending live tape of it to the cave...
Remember some months back - the Iraq street car bomb with the two young boys in the car - ready to be blown up - and our guys noticed the street was quiet and stayed away from the car. Our soldiers knew the perverts were “hands on” quiet waiting for the boys to blow up in misery and pain. Peering out the windows to watch. Breathless...
Creepy sexual sadism is part of what’s happening... these folks are evil.
7 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:21:45 AM by GOPJ (Success is cast as evil and punished while failure is blamed on others and rewarded.-Rand)
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To: Joe Boucher
8 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:22:59 AM by Red Badger (Obama - The first ever elected lame duck..............)
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To: Perdogg
9 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:23:09 AM by paulycy (Less safe. Less free. More broke.)
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To: Perdogg
Is it too much to hope that he was yelling “Aaah! Aaaaaahhh!!! It burns! It burns!!!”?
10 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:23:47 AM by RichInOC (No! BAD Rich! (What'd I say?))
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To: Perdogg
Looks as if Sparky Speedo intended to take the plane down over Detroit for maximum civilian carnage on the ground and in the air.
Have we learned any more about his orders from Yemen?
11 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:26:53 AM by sodpoodle (Stop wasting our wealth and start telling the truth.)
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To: Perdogg
Related thread:
Special Briefing Skipper: State Department on the underwear bomber
**************************EXCERPT*********************************
After Abdulmutallab's father raised concerns with the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria on Nov. 19, the embassy sent what's known as a Visa VIPER
12 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:26:53 AM by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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To: CdMGuy
When the members of the CIA realized that they would be prosecuted for doing their job, how many of the competent ones stayed?
13 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:11 AM by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: Perdogg
See my tagline.
14 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:28 AM by rdl6989 (January 20, 2013 The end of an error.)
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To: Perdogg
A-ma-zing! how the media elites blame Bush for not doing anything about a nothing note in Aug 2001 that somewhere, somehow the terrorists were going to hijack a plane (which was known for years and no one could do anything about) but they give Obama a pass for hiring Napolitano, a band of czars and DHS nitwits, and let’s not forget the rubes in the State Department, who had the hijacker’s name, his name!, and did nothing.
15 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:27:52 AM by PoliticalEthics (Citizens United Against Terror http://www.preventterror.blogspot.com/)
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To: Red Badger
Yes! We all do!
16 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:28:36 AM by PoliticalEthics (Citizens United Against Terror http://www.preventterror.blogspot.com/)
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To: Oorang; Nachum; Velveeta; MamaDearest; SunkenCiv; onyx; Bob J
*unbelievably scary*
17 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:29:03 AM by hennie pennie
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To: CdMGuy
What is going on with the CIA? The left has hated the CIA it does make you wonder. Leon Panetta is in charge. He was a Clinton buddy.
18 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:29:57 AM by ColdOne (ColdOne Vote them all out!)
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To: Joe Boucher
The Obama administration had every clue but a Las Vegas neon sign flashing Terrorist here!
The tools and intelligence worked fine in this case. The big failures were the Obama decision makers in key positions who failed to act by ignoring the intelligence they received.
So when Obama places the blame on Bush is nothing but lies and distortions.
19 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:30:01 AM by Red Steel
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To: Perdogg
20 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:31:24 AM by F15Eagle (1 John 5:4-5, 4:15, John 11:25, 14:6, 1 Tim 2:5, John 3:17-18, John 20:31, 1 John 5:13, John 6:69)
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To: Perdogg
George W Bush may not have been a staunch conservative or even a lowbrow conservative but he has more BALLS than this administration could ever dream of having ....
21 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:32:19 AM by ATOMIC_PUNK (Screaming in Agony they ran to the Government But then Realized from whence the Agony came !)
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To: Red Badger
No.
22 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:33:44 AM by Moe Tzadik
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK
You are right all around,
Good job.
23 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:33:58 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: Perdogg
Thank God he wasn’t a mormon; imagine how much he could have hidden in -that- underwear!!!
24 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:34:11 AM by OldGuard1
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To: CdMGuy
That will be the day I believe anything written or said in the msm.
25 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:35:47 AM by Carley (OBAMA IS A MALEVOLENT FORCE IN THE WORLD)
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To: Perdogg
I have to think the recent CIA failures have something to do with the new tone Zero set when he took office and threatened to prosecute CIA officers for doing their jobs.
26 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:39:10 AM by colorado tanker
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To: Joe Boucher
I know I’d feel safer with either him or McCain in office. Heck I’d even feel safer if Hillary was President. Things like this are exactly why I held my nose and supported McCain.
I hated his immigration stance but believe the war on terror and healthcare would be vastly different.
27 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:44:45 AM by rexgrossmansonlyfan (Brennan and Booth THEY finally begin December 2009 (Keep flammables away from TV 12/10))
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To: CdMGuy
"The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA"
All it takes is one libtard, & the phalanx shatters.
28 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:44:54 AM by chuck_the_tv_out ( <<< click my name: now featuring Freeper classifieds)
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To: Red Badger
I certainly do. And also he is being a class act for staying out of the spotlight and not bashing his predecessor unlike Clinton.
29 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:46:40 AM by rexgrossmansonlyfan (Brennan and Booth THEY finally begin December 2009 (Keep flammables away from TV 12/10))
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To: Perdogg; All
HELP HELP HELP.
Please, everyone, click on the link and look at the photo of the ‘underwear bomber’.
What in the heck? Did they photoshop the picture? What’s up with his mouth? It appears his upper lip starts at the bottom of his nose and then there is a light brown gap between it and his bottom lip.
30 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:46:42 AM by UCANSEE2
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To: rexgrossmansonlyfan
I did pretty much the sam but I will NEVER again vote for a rino.
Conservative or nothing.
31 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:48:55 AM by Joe Boucher (This marxist punk has got to go.)
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To: colorado tanker
The poisonous political climate that Obama has put upon the War on Terror is definitely a factor.
32 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:51:54 AM by Red Steel
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To: colorado tanker
Excellent, Excellent point! I’ll have to google the youtube video of him pumping up the employees of the CIA. Did they look like the most serious-minded people in America that should be protecting us or just a bunch of racial diveriserty at its best..Obama lovers.
33 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:55:07 AM by jhw61
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To: paulycy
Obama IS a terrorist.
Obama is terrorizing Our constitution, Our economy, Our Bill of Rights, Our free-market economy, Our health care system, and if that's not enough He'll use Our Air force One to do a low fly over New York City just to gauge Our reaction.
Obama IS a terrorist.
34 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:55:22 AM by Musketeer
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To: CdMGuy
The same CIA that invited a supposed Afghan informer onto their base and failed to search him first. End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.
The CIA is being pretty careful now that they know that the administration will sic DOJ on them the second they utter the word "terrorist" or lay a finger on a foreign national.
This type of thing is a direct result of an agency that fears repercussions from an administration that is more inclined to punish Americans than the enemies of America.
35 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 5:59:25 AM by Tucsonican
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To: paulycy
That guy looks familiar?
36 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:01:03 AM by rawhide
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To: Perdogg
'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call
“Hey, it’s Umar. I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? The CIA went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye.”
37 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:03:26 AM by FReepaholic (My other tagline is hilarious.)
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To: CdMGuy
“End result, at least 7 CIA operatives blown to bits. Really has to make your wonder what is going on within the CIA.”
Whats going on? Do you have to ask that after they were threatened with legal action after doing what they were told. Doing what they could to protect this country.
38 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:10:31 AM by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Perdogg
Nigerian Intelliegnce contacted the CIA on Nov 19th.
Right, and now the story is more important than making excuses for Obama. Langley, VA had the information, so Leon Panetta is in the hot seat.
39 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:11:27 AM by onyx
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To: Perdogg
As the Bard might say, “Hoist on his own panty petard!”
40 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:20:04 AM by Jagman
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To: Red Badger
No.
41 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:20:58 AM by Kimberly GG (Join Me In BOYCOTTING all ObamaTV!! (Change the channel or do so and then turn tv off!!))
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To: GOPJ
Religious cults exploiting lonely adolescents and young adults is nothing new. Apocalyptic cults like the Branch Devidians and the Order of the Solar Temple, Christian-based cults like the Peoples’ Temple, and Buddhist-based cults like Aum Shinrikyo Sarin and Bhaghwan Shree Ragneesh all take an accepted religion as a base to make their preachings familiar and safe-sounding. Then they use mind control techniques, including isolation, “lovebombing”, brainwashing and other coercive techniques to suck these people deep down inside a system from which deviation is punished.
I suppose if a religious cult hangs around long enough, and becomes wealthy enough, it moves to the status of a “real religion”, like the Unification Church and the Church of Scientology are doing - or at least trying to do.
When the members of a cult commit violence against themselves, like the Church of the Solar Temple and the Peoples’ Temple members did, we are horrified but ultimately don’t care. However, when the cult uses violence against others to bring about its vision of a new world, as Aum Shinrikyo did in the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin gas attack, they are very quickly attacked and usually put down via legal means.
Muslim-based cults sem to be on the increase, and they produce the most violent of these terrorists. In some cases, it’s obvious that these are “terror cults”.
But this isn’t the first time that a major Western nation has been at literal war with a murderous group of religious fanatics in the East. The British Empire did just the same thing when it fought against the Hindu cult of the Thuggees in the 19th Century. These fellows were ritualistic criminal murderers who traveled in gangs, throttling people as a blood sacrifice to the Goddess Kali.
The British took a highly specialized military approach over the century,eventually eliminating the cult. If you want more information about how they did it, you mcould start here:
http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Indias-Thuggees-and-Islamofascism-Today.aspx
Thinking in terms of these criminal-religious mosques as “terror cults” gives a lot better understanding of how they work. They are related to Islam in general the same way that Christian Apocalyptic cults are related to Christianity. You can read about the FBI’s “Project Megiddo” to get more knowledge of violent Christian-based cults located in the US.
http://atheism.about.com/library/legal/megiddo/bl_meg_contents.htm
42 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:28:28 AM by worst-case scenario (Striving to reach the light)
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To: hoosiermama
Over here.
43 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:36:51 AM by onyx
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To: rexgrossmansonlyfan
Yep. At least McCain was concerned about our number one priority - national security. Obama even makes Hillary or Bill Clinton look reasonable in comparison.
44 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:52:35 AM by plain talk
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To: Joe Boucher
THE SYSTEM WORKED!!!!
45 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 6:59:32 AM by Shady (The Fairness Doctrine is ANYTHING but fair!!!!)
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To: GOPJ
People who man the suicide hotlines recognize that the profile of a suicidal person involves estrangement from family, significant others, and friends; availability of the lethal means, closure-like activities such as closing out bank accounts, giving things away for no obvious reason, and so forth. Nobody accuses suicide hotline counselors of profiling. They’re trained to do it, and while they are sometimes wrong, they are correct often enough to make the effort worthwhile.
The underwear bomber fits a certain obvious profile: He is a young islamic male; he has had contact with Imam’s who preach jihad, he often has travelled to a Moslem country where calls for jihad and all that crap is rampant or comes from one. He has no real friends. He rejects his family and his place in society, which is often middle class or better. He is travelling alone. He buys his ticket virtually at the gate. He pays cash. His ticket is one-way. He is travelling to the United States where he has no relatives, no purpose, and no particular interests. His name shows up on watch lists, etc.
All of these profile characteristics were apparent with the underwear bomber, but the one that has to do with being an Islamic young man trumps the rest. Our pathetically politically correct bunch of liberals just can’t offend these people by profiling them, no matter how many times the people fitting the aforementioned profile murder us and people fitting our profiles in the name of jihad. Innocent until proven guilty, bullshit.
That courtroom mentality doesn’t apply with respect to how a nation secures its borders. Profile, profile, profile, and don’t let anyone in who fits the terrorist profile come here at all. Why would we want to?
46 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:01:33 AM by mathurine
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To: worst-case scenario
Whoa. Wait a minute. The People’s Temple was not Christian, any more than Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation “church” is Christian. The People’s Temple was Marxist to the core.
47 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:02:07 AM by hellbender
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To: Perdogg
Everybody was acting with a sense of urgency EXCEPT for the top brass!!!!
48 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:13:47 AM by DariusBane (Even the Rocks shall cry out "Hobamma to the Highest")
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To: Perdogg
This is beyond simple incompetence, this now is Dereliction of Duty with everyone.
49 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:16:45 AM by tobyhill
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To: Perdogg
He told them “I have a Jihad in my panties.”
They thought he was kidding.
50 posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 7:18:43 AM by cruise_missile
Era of 'shallow Americanism'
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | December 31, 2009 | Editorial
Posted on Thursday, December 31, 2009 11:31:43 PM by Graybeard58
"I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is in the spirit of delayed gratification that we decline to join the frenzy of decade-in-review commentary, at least until the first decade of the 21st century actually ends on Dec. 31, 2010. But those who share Emerson's disdain for instant gratification need not fret over the vagaries of the calendar. The past year provided ample illustrations of "this shallow Americanism" and its effect on U.S. policy, culture, possibly even its survival as a free nation.
Economists long have understood the concept of creative destruction in business and markets: Sam Walton enters the retail market with a business plan superior to that of his competitors; he gets rich and they vanish. A more recent example is Asian automakers building cars, mainly in Southern states, using nonunion labor. Rather than letting U.S. car companies adapt or die, the Bush and Obama administrations stepped in with $65 billion in loans that kept the old guard in Michigan unsteadily afloat. So: Both administrations substituted their own dubious knowledge for the wisdom of markets, refusing to let the automaking industry evolve at its own speed and in its own way.
National leaders were just as quick to intervene when jobless rates began climbing late last year. The Obama administration in February pushed through a $787 billion "stimulus" plan, promising it would hold the jobless rate under 8 percent. Instead, unemployment topped 10 percent; the best the administration can do is celebrate the recent decline in the rate of job loss. (Wise leaders will leave it to history to decide whether to credit federal policy with preventing Great Depression II.)
But if you work for the local, state or national government, you're probably still pulling down a paycheck. Bloomberg News' Joe Mysak reports U.S. companies have cut 6.29 percent of their work force since employment peaked in December 2007; state governments, 0.28 percent; local governments, 0.8 percent. So it can be said the "stimulus" worked, if its real purpose was to preserve the jobs of unionized government employees.
The accelerating budget deficits and long-term debt at the federal level, as well as in many states including Connecticut, testify to the ceaseless quest for instant gratification. Leaders can't or won't stop giving the people what they want — fat public-employee-union contracts, various forms of welfare, huge and wasteful government programs — and every day they delay, they add new and unimaginable layers of cataclysm to some future day of reckoning.
Americans and their leaders are so war-weary, eight years after 9/11, that President Obama dithered and poll-watched for months before making the right choice on a troop surge in Afghanistan. Chillingly, it's less a matter of no longer believing U.S. forces can prevail, than a lack of conviction that victory matters — an illusion the administration unwittingly encourages by resisting the impulse to talk of winning, and by identifying enemies, from the would-be Christmas Day airline bomber to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, as criminals to be dealt with in civil courts.
For Democrats in Congress, health-care reform is instant gratification squared. First, the finished product almost certainly will give them uncontested power over one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Second, the deals they cut — $100 million for Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to build a new University of Connecticut hospital and bolster his re-election bid; the millions in Medicaid dollars for Nebraska, paid by taxpayers in other states, to silence Sen. Ben Nelson's objections to the prospect of publicly funded killing of unborn babies — add up to a shopping spree for pork-barreling politicians. ("Every state got something," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.) Mr. Obama and legislative leaders consistently have called for the utmost speed, ignoring constituents' pleas that they slow down.
The failure of Copenhagen and the scandal of Climategate notwithstanding, the global-warming juggernaut rolls on. Americans have grown increasingly doubtful of the validity of the "science" behind the climate warnings. Increasingly, it seems it would be easier to change the weather than to persuade U.N. bureaucrats, leading Democratic politicians and others in the global-government movement to abandon their scheme to assert control over how much energy we consume, what we buy, even how many children we have.
What's the solution to these and many other ills? Emerson might not wholeheartedly approve, but the solution may be found in another form of instant gratification — the one Americans will exercise, hopefully with energy and wisdom, on Nov. 2, 2010.
Posted on Thursday, December 31, 2009 11:31:43 PM by Graybeard58
"I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is in the spirit of delayed gratification that we decline to join the frenzy of decade-in-review commentary, at least until the first decade of the 21st century actually ends on Dec. 31, 2010. But those who share Emerson's disdain for instant gratification need not fret over the vagaries of the calendar. The past year provided ample illustrations of "this shallow Americanism" and its effect on U.S. policy, culture, possibly even its survival as a free nation.
Economists long have understood the concept of creative destruction in business and markets: Sam Walton enters the retail market with a business plan superior to that of his competitors; he gets rich and they vanish. A more recent example is Asian automakers building cars, mainly in Southern states, using nonunion labor. Rather than letting U.S. car companies adapt or die, the Bush and Obama administrations stepped in with $65 billion in loans that kept the old guard in Michigan unsteadily afloat. So: Both administrations substituted their own dubious knowledge for the wisdom of markets, refusing to let the automaking industry evolve at its own speed and in its own way.
National leaders were just as quick to intervene when jobless rates began climbing late last year. The Obama administration in February pushed through a $787 billion "stimulus" plan, promising it would hold the jobless rate under 8 percent. Instead, unemployment topped 10 percent; the best the administration can do is celebrate the recent decline in the rate of job loss. (Wise leaders will leave it to history to decide whether to credit federal policy with preventing Great Depression II.)
But if you work for the local, state or national government, you're probably still pulling down a paycheck. Bloomberg News' Joe Mysak reports U.S. companies have cut 6.29 percent of their work force since employment peaked in December 2007; state governments, 0.28 percent; local governments, 0.8 percent. So it can be said the "stimulus" worked, if its real purpose was to preserve the jobs of unionized government employees.
The accelerating budget deficits and long-term debt at the federal level, as well as in many states including Connecticut, testify to the ceaseless quest for instant gratification. Leaders can't or won't stop giving the people what they want — fat public-employee-union contracts, various forms of welfare, huge and wasteful government programs — and every day they delay, they add new and unimaginable layers of cataclysm to some future day of reckoning.
Americans and their leaders are so war-weary, eight years after 9/11, that President Obama dithered and poll-watched for months before making the right choice on a troop surge in Afghanistan. Chillingly, it's less a matter of no longer believing U.S. forces can prevail, than a lack of conviction that victory matters — an illusion the administration unwittingly encourages by resisting the impulse to talk of winning, and by identifying enemies, from the would-be Christmas Day airline bomber to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, as criminals to be dealt with in civil courts.
For Democrats in Congress, health-care reform is instant gratification squared. First, the finished product almost certainly will give them uncontested power over one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Second, the deals they cut — $100 million for Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to build a new University of Connecticut hospital and bolster his re-election bid; the millions in Medicaid dollars for Nebraska, paid by taxpayers in other states, to silence Sen. Ben Nelson's objections to the prospect of publicly funded killing of unborn babies — add up to a shopping spree for pork-barreling politicians. ("Every state got something," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.) Mr. Obama and legislative leaders consistently have called for the utmost speed, ignoring constituents' pleas that they slow down.
The failure of Copenhagen and the scandal of Climategate notwithstanding, the global-warming juggernaut rolls on. Americans have grown increasingly doubtful of the validity of the "science" behind the climate warnings. Increasingly, it seems it would be easier to change the weather than to persuade U.N. bureaucrats, leading Democratic politicians and others in the global-government movement to abandon their scheme to assert control over how much energy we consume, what we buy, even how many children we have.
What's the solution to these and many other ills? Emerson might not wholeheartedly approve, but the solution may be found in another form of instant gratification — the one Americans will exercise, hopefully with energy and wisdom, on Nov. 2, 2010.
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