Violence in Mexico is not something new, not by any stretch of the imagination. The Border Patrol and Customs agents have warned us about this coming our way for years - remember the report about raids into the United States by Mexican gangs that used automatic weapons and personal carries for swift attacks against our agents with hand guns.
Has anyone noticed? The Media? How about the presidential candidates? They all have turned a blind eye to the problem. This is something that we need to address right now by holding the candidates feet to fire. They need to tell us that they will stop this mess in Mexico from coming here.
I want the WALL to start Now - the money is there and the technology so why not start? Who the hell is standing in the way of this national security issue?
I have more information but for now read this one and get ready to call your representative.
Stay awake and keep the faith, the battle is joined.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
*U.S. Eyes Palomas Violence *
By Rene Romo
LAS CRUCES— When a man killed Monday in the border town of Palomas, Mexico, was buried Thursday in Columbus, Luna County sheriff's deputies were on hand to keep an eye on the funeral and keep the peace. Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said U.S.-based law enforcement officials have been paying close attention to the latest spike in violence in Palomas, a long-time staging ground for illegal immigration and drug smuggling located three miles south of Columbus.
In a three-week period last April and May, at least five men were shot and killed in Palomas. Two others, suffering from gunshot wounds, drove to the Columbus port of entry seeking medical attention. In the most recent violence, two men were fatally shot and two others wounded Monday morning in Palomas. Cobos said he has received reports that on a single day earlier this month, about 15 people, including children, were abducted in a coordinated effort in Palomas, Ascension and Nuevo Casas Grandes— three towns in Chihuahua state south of Luna County.
"It's a continuation of the efforts of the drug-trafficking organizations to take control of those activities in the vicinity of Palomas and the corridor from Nuevo Casas Grandes, Cobos said in a telephone interview Friday. He said the fighting apparently involves elements of competing drug-trafficking organizations from Ciudad Juárez and Sinaloa.
Cobos said various law enforcement agents from Border Patrol, Immigration , Customs Enforcement, New Mexico State Police, and the Luna County Sheriff's Department, met Wednesday at the Columbus port of entry to discuss contingency plans in the event Palomas violence spills over into New Mexico.
Cobos said, "Since they are shooting down there, and it's on the streets, and the streets are very, very close to the port of entry, the likelihood of someone following a car to finish them (a victim) off there at the port of entry is a realistic possibility."
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Mortgage Misrepresentation Explained
This is a little complicated but stick with it - I find it very enlightening and depressing at the same time - I feel I have no say in it or many other things that are going on behind the scenes that effect me directly - I'm not involved in this mortgage mess but I still feel angered by the panic and ignorance of the financial world by most of the general public.
It's not possible to know everything nor do it care to, but I want to feel secure in that those in charge have my best interests foremost. Yeah right! How does the saying go, "trust but verify".
Read on and keep the faith.
*“A very significant misrepresentation*.
The bond insurers that put their AAA ratings behind the least risky pieces of the CDOs have not defaulted. Nor have they been asked to make any principal or interest payments at this point in time. The village in Norway hasn't lost a penny and is still receiving all its principal and interest payments if it holds the AAA rated CDO.
““The presentation is playing out the worst case scenario, where mortgage defaults in the CDOs are so high that they actually threaten to bankrupt the bond insurers (Ambac, FSA, MBIA and FGIC are the names of the major bond insurance companies). This has not happened. The default rate and resulting losses due to foreclosure on the underlying mortgages would need to exceed 20% or more before the bond house were required to start paying the village in Norway. Even then they are not obligated to pay off the securities holders' balances.”“
All they are obligated to do is make principal and interest payments as they come due according to the repayment schedule in the notes. In return they get the collateral and that means they own the mortgages and ultimately the houses. They may not be able to liquidate the houses for all of the value that was advanced, but the mortgages and houses are not worthless. Over time the bond insurers are likely to realize most of the amount they guaranteed.
Their problem is one of cash flow in the short run if default and loss rates in the underlying mortgages are too high.”“In effect, the bond insurers have advanced 80% of the value of the house and taken the entire house as collateral. The "BBB" and "ugly" pieces of the CDOs advanced the first 20% and will absorb the first losses, just like your equity would be wiped out if you defaulted on your home mortgage with a 20% down payment and an 80% bank loan. This means that if the proceeds of sale from foreclosure are up to 80% of the original loan amount, the risky tranches are wiped out and the bond insurer (and thus the village in Norway) is whole.”
“Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and the other domestic and foreign banks that took the risky tranches of these securities had the first 20% of the risk and had to take huge write offs when default rates in the underlying mortgages started to spike. The default rates on these loans are running above projections so their tranches of securities are worth less. When the market panicked, the trading values of these securities plummeted. Accounting rules require that these securities be marked to market, thus the write downs when the values dropped. It's important to note that these are book write downs, not cash losses.”
“Only when the mortgages are actually charged off and the properties sold will the banks take the cash loss. They may very well end up with recoveries if the rates of default and losses don't reach the levels on which the market is now based. In fact, there is a buying opportunity for investors willing to bet that default rates will not be as high as expected and want to pick up these securities at fire sale prices.”
“The problem for the village in Norway is also one based on accounting and securities rules. Typically, these agencies are not allowed to hold securities that are rated less than A or AA. For now, the ratings on the CDOs the village holds are AAA. That will only change if the ratings agencies (Moody's or S&P or Fitch) downgrade the bond insurers. They have threatened to do this unless the bond insurers raise additional equity and thus contributed to the panic.”
“The panic that has gripped the market, much of it fostered by short sellers and opportunists (Warren Buffet's offer to buy the bond insurers at pennies on the dollar is a classic example of an opportunist who knows the risks are low and hopes to capitalize on the panic.), will pass.
Defaults will not reach the projected levels, but those who panic and sell now (or those who are forced to sell due to inflexible investment rules) will take huge losses and will look pretty stupid when the market recovers. What the village should do is suspend its rules temporarily and continue to hold the securities. But that's unlikely since it requires a level of financial sophistication and nerve that is sadly lacking in the advisors to most of these agencies.”
It's not possible to know everything nor do it care to, but I want to feel secure in that those in charge have my best interests foremost. Yeah right! How does the saying go, "trust but verify".
Read on and keep the faith.
*“A very significant misrepresentation*.
The bond insurers that put their AAA ratings behind the least risky pieces of the CDOs have not defaulted. Nor have they been asked to make any principal or interest payments at this point in time. The village in Norway hasn't lost a penny and is still receiving all its principal and interest payments if it holds the AAA rated CDO.
““The presentation is playing out the worst case scenario, where mortgage defaults in the CDOs are so high that they actually threaten to bankrupt the bond insurers (Ambac, FSA, MBIA and FGIC are the names of the major bond insurance companies). This has not happened. The default rate and resulting losses due to foreclosure on the underlying mortgages would need to exceed 20% or more before the bond house were required to start paying the village in Norway. Even then they are not obligated to pay off the securities holders' balances.”“
All they are obligated to do is make principal and interest payments as they come due according to the repayment schedule in the notes. In return they get the collateral and that means they own the mortgages and ultimately the houses. They may not be able to liquidate the houses for all of the value that was advanced, but the mortgages and houses are not worthless. Over time the bond insurers are likely to realize most of the amount they guaranteed.
Their problem is one of cash flow in the short run if default and loss rates in the underlying mortgages are too high.”“In effect, the bond insurers have advanced 80% of the value of the house and taken the entire house as collateral. The "BBB" and "ugly" pieces of the CDOs advanced the first 20% and will absorb the first losses, just like your equity would be wiped out if you defaulted on your home mortgage with a 20% down payment and an 80% bank loan. This means that if the proceeds of sale from foreclosure are up to 80% of the original loan amount, the risky tranches are wiped out and the bond insurer (and thus the village in Norway) is whole.”
“Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and the other domestic and foreign banks that took the risky tranches of these securities had the first 20% of the risk and had to take huge write offs when default rates in the underlying mortgages started to spike. The default rates on these loans are running above projections so their tranches of securities are worth less. When the market panicked, the trading values of these securities plummeted. Accounting rules require that these securities be marked to market, thus the write downs when the values dropped. It's important to note that these are book write downs, not cash losses.”
“Only when the mortgages are actually charged off and the properties sold will the banks take the cash loss. They may very well end up with recoveries if the rates of default and losses don't reach the levels on which the market is now based. In fact, there is a buying opportunity for investors willing to bet that default rates will not be as high as expected and want to pick up these securities at fire sale prices.”
“The problem for the village in Norway is also one based on accounting and securities rules. Typically, these agencies are not allowed to hold securities that are rated less than A or AA. For now, the ratings on the CDOs the village holds are AAA. That will only change if the ratings agencies (Moody's or S&P or Fitch) downgrade the bond insurers. They have threatened to do this unless the bond insurers raise additional equity and thus contributed to the panic.”
“The panic that has gripped the market, much of it fostered by short sellers and opportunists (Warren Buffet's offer to buy the bond insurers at pennies on the dollar is a classic example of an opportunist who knows the risks are low and hopes to capitalize on the panic.), will pass.
Defaults will not reach the projected levels, but those who panic and sell now (or those who are forced to sell due to inflexible investment rules) will take huge losses and will look pretty stupid when the market recovers. What the village should do is suspend its rules temporarily and continue to hold the securities. But that's unlikely since it requires a level of financial sophistication and nerve that is sadly lacking in the advisors to most of these agencies.”
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
New Records Set for Global Cooling
Al Gore and his disciples in the 'church of global warming' have a problem - how do you keep the faithful, faithful to the cause when they are freezing their collective butts off.
All of the catch phrases that they have used, 'the polar bears are disappearing, the ice is melting at the north pole and we are all going to die in the flood or just plain burn up from the heat' aren't going to sound very convincing when church members are dressed in parkas.
What now - if the world is going to freeze, what about the nut jobs do that are living in tents and eating bark and grubs? hmmm
These scientists actually have facts to back up their claim that solar interference has more to do with global warming then CO2 produced by man. Now, with the cooling trend as a result of a reduction is solar activity, we can look forward to snow until July, then it will warm up for two weeks then turn cold again for the rest of the year - like Minnesota- heh
Stay warm and keep the faith, the battle is joined!
'Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling' World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming. Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
All of the catch phrases that they have used, 'the polar bears are disappearing, the ice is melting at the north pole and we are all going to die in the flood or just plain burn up from the heat' aren't going to sound very convincing when church members are dressed in parkas.
What now - if the world is going to freeze, what about the nut jobs do that are living in tents and eating bark and grubs? hmmm
These scientists actually have facts to back up their claim that solar interference has more to do with global warming then CO2 produced by man. Now, with the cooling trend as a result of a reduction is solar activity, we can look forward to snow until July, then it will warm up for two weeks then turn cold again for the rest of the year - like Minnesota- heh
Stay warm and keep the faith, the battle is joined!
'Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling' World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming. Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
Syrian Islamofascist Leader Killed : Pay Back Time
This is good stuff - just when I thought we wouldn't be able to take the war to the monsters in their own countries because of the socialists/communists in our own government, a bomb takes out one of the big guys in the world wide terrorists network.
The liberal Democrats can not be pleased about this as these people are heroes to liberals. Jimmy Carter loves mass killers and tyrants of any strip. The Democrats rely on terrorist to defeat the US military in Iraq and elsewhere - the socialists can not gain a foot hold in this country as long as we have a all voluntary army.
This attack is long over due - I hope who ever did this, it would be great to find out that is was the US military, will strike again and soon, but I'm afraid we don't have the will to actually take the offensive against such people - congress would be horrified - just the thought of killing one of the worst butchers of humanity in all of the world would be devastating to the liberals in our government. Reid would faint on the floor of the senate. Jimmy Carter would have a heart attack.
But somewhere there is someone that has taken the burden upon themselves to strike a blow for what's right in this world : Pay back time for the good guys!!
Hallelujah - keep the faith, the battle is jointed
Mughniyeh's Death: Keystone Kops in Damascus
February 18 2008
There is something deeply satisfying about the flawlessly executed assassination of Islamofascist terror master Imad Mughniyeh, writes *Youssef Ibrahim*. “Sometimes a single bullet, or mini-bomb, blazes a path to clarity. This upset shook a Syrian edifice of invulnerable macho terror, showing a way to widen a breach.”
By Youssef M. Ibrahim
Celebrating a car bomb is not the politically correct thing to do. Yet there is something deeply satisfying about the assassination of Islamofascist terror master Imad Mughniyeh before the stroke of midnight the other day in the central command post of Islamofascist movements inside Damascus, Syria.
Whoever planned it scored a blow so hard, so disturbing, it brought the secret services of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah all together into Syria’s capital where they are now trying to figure out what happened.
In a chaotic eulogy, the man’s boss Hezbollah’s chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, practically promised war on Israel -the presumed doer-, America, and the West. Following nearly 24 hours of silence, the Syrian official media acknowledged the bomb in its bosom; decrying it as a ”flagrant violation of international law” the first time such concern for civility has been demonstrated by a regime steeped in murder.
Iran, the undisputed Godfather to Hezbollah and hostage taking, dispatched its foreign minister and its Revolutionary Guards Corps commander of the Quds force to commiserate. In Beirut two rallies of a hundred thousand each took place simultaneously the day after, one marking the 3-year anniversary of the murder of Prime Minister Hariri presumably by Syria, and another with uniformed Hezbollah mourners marching behind Mughniyeh’s coffin led by his mother screaming ”Look what they did to my boy”. (Never mind the same Mrs. Mughniyeh lost two more boys, Jihad and Fouad, in 1984 and 1985, to car bombings of their own that went bad).
Is this much ado about one terrorist? Not this case and not this one. Sometimes a single bullet, or mini-bomb, blazes a path to clarity. This upset shook a Syrian edifice of invulnerable macho terror, showing a way to widen a breach.
In short order the man in charge of Hezbollah’s special operations for nearly three decades, wanted in 42 countries, a killer of hundreds of Americans including Marines, CIA folks and diplomats, a man whose reach wrecked a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires as well an American oil workers’ housing complex in Saudi Arabia, a multinational terrorist born in Lebanon, who resides in Tehran and travels under deepest Syrian cover, was blown away as he stepped out of an intelligence meeting in a plush Damascus residential neighborhood of his mentor state. And no one left a note.
The Islamofascist association is right to be upset. This is the sort of thing that can spread. For years car bombs made in Damascus have blown up Lebanese nationalists starting in 2005 with a spectacular murder of a Prime Minister and 22 others. He was followed to the grave by scores of Lebanese other victims, parliamentarians, journalists, civil servants and army generals at regular intervals, plus a three month war with ”Fattah Al Islam” a Syrian-trained Islamofascist Palestinian group sent to wage war in Lebanon’s refugee camps last year.
For President Bashar Assad the Damascus call last week was the first time he got return postage. Now new vistas open along with— macabre as it is— a new path, namely that bombings are a game good guys can play too, and very close to where President Assad lives and plans his.
It had all seemed to be too much of one-way traffic in these past years anyway. Even Arabs were pining for a slap back, by Israel or some Lebanese. A verity reported not often enough is that Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all grate badly the Arab underbelly and have for some time.
In the summer of 2006 the Arabs were all cheering on the Israeli army in its botched war on Hezbollah I the first weeks. Similarly in Gaza, Arabs look at the Israeli army retaliation against Hamas and its economic squeeze of Gaza favorably. A similar situation exists today over Syria with many hoping someone (Israel again?) will take it down. Hence the suppressed Arab cheers for that Damascus bombing —whoever planted it.
Arab pundits never shy away from noting that for all its talk of militancy about Israel, and its proxy wars waged via Palestinians or Hezbollah, Syria has never fired a shot ”in anger” to liberate its own Golan Heights taken by Israel way back in 1967.
Syrian bravado notwithstanding, Damascus’ terror mask melted a bit the other day with the knowledge there is a lot more where this came from. Syrian calling stations are plentiful at home, in the Persian Gulf region and in Europe as well as in Beirut, where the same sender can deposit new calling cards.
We may not know who did the deed, but it was so well done we know it can be done again. So why not sit back and watch Bashar Assad’s best men taken out for another dance?
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the /New York Times/ and Energy Editor of the /Wall Street Journal/ is a freelance writer and Mideast political risk consultant based in New York.
The liberal Democrats can not be pleased about this as these people are heroes to liberals. Jimmy Carter loves mass killers and tyrants of any strip. The Democrats rely on terrorist to defeat the US military in Iraq and elsewhere - the socialists can not gain a foot hold in this country as long as we have a all voluntary army.
This attack is long over due - I hope who ever did this, it would be great to find out that is was the US military, will strike again and soon, but I'm afraid we don't have the will to actually take the offensive against such people - congress would be horrified - just the thought of killing one of the worst butchers of humanity in all of the world would be devastating to the liberals in our government. Reid would faint on the floor of the senate. Jimmy Carter would have a heart attack.
But somewhere there is someone that has taken the burden upon themselves to strike a blow for what's right in this world : Pay back time for the good guys!!
Hallelujah - keep the faith, the battle is jointed
Mughniyeh's Death: Keystone Kops in Damascus
February 18 2008
There is something deeply satisfying about the flawlessly executed assassination of Islamofascist terror master Imad Mughniyeh, writes *Youssef Ibrahim*. “Sometimes a single bullet, or mini-bomb, blazes a path to clarity. This upset shook a Syrian edifice of invulnerable macho terror, showing a way to widen a breach.”
By Youssef M. Ibrahim
Celebrating a car bomb is not the politically correct thing to do. Yet there is something deeply satisfying about the assassination of Islamofascist terror master Imad Mughniyeh before the stroke of midnight the other day in the central command post of Islamofascist movements inside Damascus, Syria.
Whoever planned it scored a blow so hard, so disturbing, it brought the secret services of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah all together into Syria’s capital where they are now trying to figure out what happened.
In a chaotic eulogy, the man’s boss Hezbollah’s chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, practically promised war on Israel -the presumed doer-, America, and the West. Following nearly 24 hours of silence, the Syrian official media acknowledged the bomb in its bosom; decrying it as a ”flagrant violation of international law” the first time such concern for civility has been demonstrated by a regime steeped in murder.
Iran, the undisputed Godfather to Hezbollah and hostage taking, dispatched its foreign minister and its Revolutionary Guards Corps commander of the Quds force to commiserate. In Beirut two rallies of a hundred thousand each took place simultaneously the day after, one marking the 3-year anniversary of the murder of Prime Minister Hariri presumably by Syria, and another with uniformed Hezbollah mourners marching behind Mughniyeh’s coffin led by his mother screaming ”Look what they did to my boy”. (Never mind the same Mrs. Mughniyeh lost two more boys, Jihad and Fouad, in 1984 and 1985, to car bombings of their own that went bad).
Is this much ado about one terrorist? Not this case and not this one. Sometimes a single bullet, or mini-bomb, blazes a path to clarity. This upset shook a Syrian edifice of invulnerable macho terror, showing a way to widen a breach.
In short order the man in charge of Hezbollah’s special operations for nearly three decades, wanted in 42 countries, a killer of hundreds of Americans including Marines, CIA folks and diplomats, a man whose reach wrecked a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires as well an American oil workers’ housing complex in Saudi Arabia, a multinational terrorist born in Lebanon, who resides in Tehran and travels under deepest Syrian cover, was blown away as he stepped out of an intelligence meeting in a plush Damascus residential neighborhood of his mentor state. And no one left a note.
The Islamofascist association is right to be upset. This is the sort of thing that can spread. For years car bombs made in Damascus have blown up Lebanese nationalists starting in 2005 with a spectacular murder of a Prime Minister and 22 others. He was followed to the grave by scores of Lebanese other victims, parliamentarians, journalists, civil servants and army generals at regular intervals, plus a three month war with ”Fattah Al Islam” a Syrian-trained Islamofascist Palestinian group sent to wage war in Lebanon’s refugee camps last year.
For President Bashar Assad the Damascus call last week was the first time he got return postage. Now new vistas open along with— macabre as it is— a new path, namely that bombings are a game good guys can play too, and very close to where President Assad lives and plans his.
It had all seemed to be too much of one-way traffic in these past years anyway. Even Arabs were pining for a slap back, by Israel or some Lebanese. A verity reported not often enough is that Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all grate badly the Arab underbelly and have for some time.
In the summer of 2006 the Arabs were all cheering on the Israeli army in its botched war on Hezbollah I the first weeks. Similarly in Gaza, Arabs look at the Israeli army retaliation against Hamas and its economic squeeze of Gaza favorably. A similar situation exists today over Syria with many hoping someone (Israel again?) will take it down. Hence the suppressed Arab cheers for that Damascus bombing —whoever planted it.
Arab pundits never shy away from noting that for all its talk of militancy about Israel, and its proxy wars waged via Palestinians or Hezbollah, Syria has never fired a shot ”in anger” to liberate its own Golan Heights taken by Israel way back in 1967.
Syrian bravado notwithstanding, Damascus’ terror mask melted a bit the other day with the knowledge there is a lot more where this came from. Syrian calling stations are plentiful at home, in the Persian Gulf region and in Europe as well as in Beirut, where the same sender can deposit new calling cards.
We may not know who did the deed, but it was so well done we know it can be done again. So why not sit back and watch Bashar Assad’s best men taken out for another dance?
Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former Middle East correspondent for the /New York Times/ and Energy Editor of the /Wall Street Journal/ is a freelance writer and Mideast political risk consultant based in New York.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Psychiatrist Concludes liberals Mentally Defective
This is something that I have always known - liberals are genetic inferior to other humans - but maybe I am off base here as I am assuming that they are human - maybe the are normal where they come from. Certainly they are not like the rest of humanity that have a soul and a back bone, has the capacity to know right from wrong and the ability to act on the side of what's right.
This article is an real eye opener - very enjoyable and absolutely true - we see and hear about this every day. I have always had questions about why they are the way they are, now I know -
Be glade that humainty can stand erect - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
This article is an real eye opener - very enjoyable and absolutely true - we see and hear about this every day. I have always had questions about why they are the way they are, now I know -
Be glade that humainty can stand erect - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*Top psychiatrist concludes liberals are clinically nuts!***
Makes the case of ideology as a mental disorder
February 15, 2008, WorldNetDailyWASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.
"Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness."
"Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy."
Over 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.
Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by the two major candidates for the Democratic Party presidential nomination can only be understood as a psychological disorder."A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do.
And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."
Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:
· creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
· satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
· augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
· rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.
"The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind," he says. "When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious."
Monday, February 25, 2008
What is Poverty in America? Who is Poor?
I just read an article in the Heritage Foundation news letter that lays out a different take on what is poverty and who is really defined as poor.
A few days ago I posted a note about the poor in Wisconsin defined by "experts" and I found it astounding to say the least and mostly unbelievable - remember the post - the Wisconsin agency said that one in eleven families in southwestern Wisconsin could be defined as poor - ? What? Just think about that for a moment - this is just in the southwestern part of the state alone and Wisconsin is the center of liberal thinking. Champions of the poor and the down trodden? Yikes!
The media in this country wants everyone to believe that poverty is rampant and that the rich get richer, i.e. tax breaks for the rich, and the poor get nothing - read this as instigation class warfare, the liberal left wants to drive a wedge between the 'have and the have nots'.
A researcher, Robert Rector, for Heritage, did some very interesting research with the Census Bureau figures, his outcomes don't match the general knowledge or what the Bureau report wants us to believe what poverty is and who is poor. The socialist in our government agencies want us to believe all has run-a-muck in this country. It's time to dump the tax cuts, raise taxes on everyone so we can level the playing field. Where have I heard that one?
The reality of poverty is something much different then the report released by the Census Bureau. According to the Heritage report, Rector says No one will disagree that "there are real material poor in this country", but, Rector says " it is limited in scope and seventy".
Rector observations, " most of America's poor live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago." Check these findings out to see if they match anyone that you know. I bet not. Someone could be judged poor if they don't own two cars or don't go on vacation every year. Maybe it's you! Oh, come on - - - just maybe. Bill Gates would have a different definition of who is poor than you or me.
43% of all poor households actually own their own homes
80% have air conditioning compared to 36% of the entire US population in 1970
97% have a color TV
78% have a VCR or DVD player
89% own microwaves
What I want to know is, who do you know that fits the definition of being poor? Do you know someone that knows someone that's poor? I bet not - yeah I know, just look at the inner city of Milwaukee or some other large city but by whose standards and compared to what or whom.
Here again - listen carefully to what people say about anything, especially if they are very passionate - case in point the 'church of global warming'. Need I say more.
Chin up, ears open, brain in gear and keep the faith, the battle is joined!
A few days ago I posted a note about the poor in Wisconsin defined by "experts" and I found it astounding to say the least and mostly unbelievable - remember the post - the Wisconsin agency said that one in eleven families in southwestern Wisconsin could be defined as poor - ? What? Just think about that for a moment - this is just in the southwestern part of the state alone and Wisconsin is the center of liberal thinking. Champions of the poor and the down trodden? Yikes!
The media in this country wants everyone to believe that poverty is rampant and that the rich get richer, i.e. tax breaks for the rich, and the poor get nothing - read this as instigation class warfare, the liberal left wants to drive a wedge between the 'have and the have nots'.
A researcher, Robert Rector, for Heritage, did some very interesting research with the Census Bureau figures, his outcomes don't match the general knowledge or what the Bureau report wants us to believe what poverty is and who is poor. The socialist in our government agencies want us to believe all has run-a-muck in this country. It's time to dump the tax cuts, raise taxes on everyone so we can level the playing field. Where have I heard that one?
The reality of poverty is something much different then the report released by the Census Bureau. According to the Heritage report, Rector says No one will disagree that "there are real material poor in this country", but, Rector says " it is limited in scope and seventy".
Rector observations, " most of America's poor live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago." Check these findings out to see if they match anyone that you know. I bet not. Someone could be judged poor if they don't own two cars or don't go on vacation every year. Maybe it's you! Oh, come on - - - just maybe. Bill Gates would have a different definition of who is poor than you or me.
43% of all poor households actually own their own homes
80% have air conditioning compared to 36% of the entire US population in 1970
97% have a color TV
78% have a VCR or DVD player
89% own microwaves
What I want to know is, who do you know that fits the definition of being poor? Do you know someone that knows someone that's poor? I bet not - yeah I know, just look at the inner city of Milwaukee or some other large city but by whose standards and compared to what or whom.
Here again - listen carefully to what people say about anything, especially if they are very passionate - case in point the 'church of global warming'. Need I say more.
Chin up, ears open, brain in gear and keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The Family Except Dad
It's always a problem to get the family and kids to hold still for pictures - but here we have mother, daughter and the two kids - what a delight they continue to be -
Something for Democrats and the Media
"Nothing ruins the truth like stretching it."
Proverbs 19 : 9 "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish"
What a good lesson for the "drive-by media" - but then they are just the public voice of the Democratic Party including the Democrat National Committee.
Proverbs 19 : 9 "A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will perish"
What a good lesson for the "drive-by media" - but then they are just the public voice of the Democratic Party including the Democrat National Committee.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Liberals Want Money : National Security be Damned
I know this is a little after the fact but when I read this I felt saddened and angered at the same time - these senators call themselves Americans but in reality they are not and never have been - they are liberal Democrats which puts them in a separate class from normal people. People that take responsibility for their actions. People that have moral fiber and are appalled at exposing innocent people to death and destruction. LIBERALS DO NOT CARE!
The liberal Democrat cares nothing for national security or anything else except get and keeping power. If thousands have to die because of it, too bad. Nancy Pelosi knew what her job was when she decided to not bring this bill to the floor, it would die. That it sailed through the House with a majority matter not at all - rather than lose the support of the trail lawyers she decided that America could stand another attack and survive. She left for a weeks vacation. Conscience clear.
After all, wants more important, American lives or money and power - da
Again, listen to what the presidential candidates have say and then decide, but really listen, don't just wish them to say what you want them to say. Big difference.
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*Why Torts Trumped Terrorism*
By Robert D. Novak Monday, February 18, 2008
A closed-door caucus of House Democrats last Wednesday took a risky political course. By 4 to 1, they instructed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Bush's bluff on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue eavesdropping on suspected foreign terrorists. Rather than passing the bill with a minority of the House's Democratic majority, Pelosi obeyed her caucus and left town for a week-long recess without renewing the government's eroding intelligence capability.
Pelosi could have exercised leadership prerogatives and called up the FISA bill to pass with unanimous Republican support. Instead, she refused to bring to the floor a bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate.
House Democratic opposition included left-wing members typified by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, but they were only a small faction of those opposed.
The true reason for blocking the bill was Senate-passed retroactive immunity to protect from lawsuits private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.
The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party 's most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving individuals' personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant.
Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism. Big money is involved. Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama)
Eric A. Isaacson of San Diego one of the telecommunications plaintiffs' lawyers, contributed to the recent unsuccessful presidential campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd who led the Senate fight against the bill containing immunity. The bill passed the Senate 68 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting aye. They included intelligence committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and three senators who defeated Republican incumbents in the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jim Webb of Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
That opened the door for Pelosi to pass the bill with minority Democratic support. A Jan. 28 letter to the speaker signed by 21 House Blue Dogs (moderate Democrats) urged passage of Rockefeller's bill containing immunity. Democrats supporting it could exceed 40 in a House vote, easily enough for passage. Instead, the Democratic leadership Wednesday brought up another bill simply extending FISA authority, this time for 21 days. Republicans refused to go along because it did not provide phone companies with the necessary immunity. It still could have passed with support from Democrats alone, and the leadership surely thought that would happen when it was brought to the floor Wednesday. But it failed, 229 to 191, with 34 Democrats voting no despite pleas for support from their leaders.
The opponents included three congressmen who signed the letter to Pelosi advocating immunity from lawsuits, but most were Kucinich Democrats who intuitively oppose any anti-terrorist proposal. Clearly, opposition to the Rockefeller bill shown in the subsequent House Democratic caucus derived less from Kucinich's phobia about tough anti-terror countermeasures than obeisance to generous trial lawyers. Pelosi had to decide whether to pass the bill with a minority of her party, which can be dangerous for any leader of a House majority.
In October 1998, Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich passed the Clinton administration's budget with 30 percent Republican support, less than a month before GOP losses in midterm elections forced his resignation from Congress.
Nothing will be done until the House formally returns Feb. 25, and the adjournment resolution was constructed so that Bush cannot summon Congress back into session. Last Friday morning, debating two backbench Republicans on a nearly deserted House floor, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there was no danger in letting the FISA legislation lapse temporarily. Democrats hope that will be the reaction of voters, as Republicans attack what happened last week.
The liberal Democrat cares nothing for national security or anything else except get and keeping power. If thousands have to die because of it, too bad. Nancy Pelosi knew what her job was when she decided to not bring this bill to the floor, it would die. That it sailed through the House with a majority matter not at all - rather than lose the support of the trail lawyers she decided that America could stand another attack and survive. She left for a weeks vacation. Conscience clear.
After all, wants more important, American lives or money and power - da
Again, listen to what the presidential candidates have say and then decide, but really listen, don't just wish them to say what you want them to say. Big difference.
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*Why Torts Trumped Terrorism*
By Robert D. Novak Monday, February 18, 2008
A closed-door caucus of House Democrats last Wednesday took a risky political course. By 4 to 1, they instructed Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call President Bush's bluff on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to continue eavesdropping on suspected foreign terrorists. Rather than passing the bill with a minority of the House's Democratic majority, Pelosi obeyed her caucus and left town for a week-long recess without renewing the government's eroding intelligence capability.
Pelosi could have exercised leadership prerogatives and called up the FISA bill to pass with unanimous Republican support. Instead, she refused to bring to the floor a bill approved overwhelmingly by the Senate.
House Democratic opposition included left-wing members typified by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, but they were only a small faction of those opposed.
The true reason for blocking the bill was Senate-passed retroactive immunity to protect from lawsuits private telecommunications firms asked to eavesdrop by the government. The nation's torts bar, vigorously pursuing such suits, has spent months lobbying hard against immunity.
The recess by House Democrats amounts to a judgment that losing the generous support of trial lawyers, the Democratic Party 's most important financial base, would be more dangerous than losing the anti-terrorist issue to Republicans. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the phone companies for giving individuals' personal information to intelligence agencies without a warrant.
Mike McConnell, the nonpartisan director of national intelligence, says delay in congressional action deters cooperation in detecting terrorism. Big money is involved. Amanda Carpenter, a Townhall.com columnist, has prepared a spreadsheet showing that 66 trial lawyers representing plaintiffs in the telecommunications suits have contributed $1.5 million to Democratic senators and causes. Of the 29 Democratic senators who voted against the FISA bill last Tuesday, 24 took money from the trial lawyers (as did two absent senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama)
Eric A. Isaacson of San Diego one of the telecommunications plaintiffs' lawyers, contributed to the recent unsuccessful presidential campaign of Sen. Chris Dodd who led the Senate fight against the bill containing immunity. The bill passed the Senate 68 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting aye. They included intelligence committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller and three senators who defeated Republican incumbents in the 2006 Democratic takeover of Congress: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jim Webb of Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
That opened the door for Pelosi to pass the bill with minority Democratic support. A Jan. 28 letter to the speaker signed by 21 House Blue Dogs (moderate Democrats) urged passage of Rockefeller's bill containing immunity. Democrats supporting it could exceed 40 in a House vote, easily enough for passage. Instead, the Democratic leadership Wednesday brought up another bill simply extending FISA authority, this time for 21 days. Republicans refused to go along because it did not provide phone companies with the necessary immunity. It still could have passed with support from Democrats alone, and the leadership surely thought that would happen when it was brought to the floor Wednesday. But it failed, 229 to 191, with 34 Democrats voting no despite pleas for support from their leaders.
The opponents included three congressmen who signed the letter to Pelosi advocating immunity from lawsuits, but most were Kucinich Democrats who intuitively oppose any anti-terrorist proposal. Clearly, opposition to the Rockefeller bill shown in the subsequent House Democratic caucus derived less from Kucinich's phobia about tough anti-terror countermeasures than obeisance to generous trial lawyers. Pelosi had to decide whether to pass the bill with a minority of her party, which can be dangerous for any leader of a House majority.
In October 1998, Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich passed the Clinton administration's budget with 30 percent Republican support, less than a month before GOP losses in midterm elections forced his resignation from Congress.
Nothing will be done until the House formally returns Feb. 25, and the adjournment resolution was constructed so that Bush cannot summon Congress back into session. Last Friday morning, debating two backbench Republicans on a nearly deserted House floor, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said there was no danger in letting the FISA legislation lapse temporarily. Democrats hope that will be the reaction of voters, as Republicans attack what happened last week.
Friday, February 22, 2008
The United States Marine Corp.: The Very Best
The United States has the best military in the world and probably the best military in all of history - it is this way because conservative presidents have always known that for America to be strong we have to have an unbeatable military.
History, for thousands of years, has shown good intentions and dialogue will work only to a certain point, then for freedom and democacy to succeed, military force will be need to stop mass killers and tyrants from dominating our world. There is no exception to this rule.
Liberal socialists that demand America stand down from protecting itself around the world and rely on other world leaders to make decesions for us will in the end find themselves living in a defeated empty shell that was once the most power and free country in the world.
The crime here is that this is what liberal socialists wanted in the first place.
A vote for the liberal Democrats will bring it all the pass.
But stand fast, the Marines are coming, so keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*USMC Rules for Gunfighting*
1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Your life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on 'pucker factor' than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
9.5 Use a gun that works EVERY TIME.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but he should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. ('In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.')
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commit ment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a '.4'
Rules to live by -
History, for thousands of years, has shown good intentions and dialogue will work only to a certain point, then for freedom and democacy to succeed, military force will be need to stop mass killers and tyrants from dominating our world. There is no exception to this rule.
Liberal socialists that demand America stand down from protecting itself around the world and rely on other world leaders to make decesions for us will in the end find themselves living in a defeated empty shell that was once the most power and free country in the world.
The crime here is that this is what liberal socialists wanted in the first place.
A vote for the liberal Democrats will bring it all the pass.
But stand fast, the Marines are coming, so keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*USMC Rules for Gunfighting*
1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Your life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on 'pucker factor' than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
9.5 Use a gun that works EVERY TIME.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but he should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. Have a plan.
13. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won't work.
14. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
15. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
16. Don't drop your guard.
17. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
18. Watch their hands. Hands kill. ('In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them.')
19. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
20. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
22. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
23. Your number one Option for Personal Security is a lifelong commit ment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a '.4'
Rules to live by -
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Free Markets Work : Looking for More Oil
If you ever thought the American dream for success was lost, just read this story - the spirit of adventure and the chance to become self sufficient, maybe even rich, drives people on to be what their dreams said they could be.
But the political climate today will crush this spirit if we allow it to happen. With the religious fanatics in the global warming church of surrender and socialism demanding we all eat bark and live in tents to save the world, the liberal Democrats demading any profit made by us must be shared with those that arn't smart enough to turn a profit, taxing the population out of existence to pay for social programs that only feed on more social programs that have proven over the years not to work, and believing we must stop using oil to drive our economy as it is destroying our planet.
When this all fails, the liberal will fall back on the one best excuse in their bag of tricks, that damn Bush - and you know a majority of the population will believe it - look how many voted for John Kerry - that alone defies explanation.
The American spirit of success is not dead yet and I believe it can not be easliy defeated. Take a long look at the candidates for president - find out what they believe and what they want to do to make this country better. Remember, Facts, not fantasy, must drive your decisions.
America lives - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
As Oil Prices Soar, Prospectors Return To Pennsylvania*
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.
Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.
Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks." His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.
*Budding Titan*
Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.
Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs.
Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr.
Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.
A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.
To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.
*Grand Ideas*
Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.
One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.
Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County. All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.
*McClintock No. 1*
Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact
But the political climate today will crush this spirit if we allow it to happen. With the religious fanatics in the global warming church of surrender and socialism demanding we all eat bark and live in tents to save the world, the liberal Democrats demading any profit made by us must be shared with those that arn't smart enough to turn a profit, taxing the population out of existence to pay for social programs that only feed on more social programs that have proven over the years not to work, and believing we must stop using oil to drive our economy as it is destroying our planet.
When this all fails, the liberal will fall back on the one best excuse in their bag of tricks, that damn Bush - and you know a majority of the population will believe it - look how many voted for John Kerry - that alone defies explanation.
The American spirit of success is not dead yet and I believe it can not be easliy defeated. Take a long look at the candidates for president - find out what they believe and what they want to do to make this country better. Remember, Facts, not fantasy, must drive your decisions.
America lives - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
As Oil Prices Soar, Prospectors Return To Pennsylvania*
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.
Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.
Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks." His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.
*Budding Titan*
Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.
Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs.
Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr.
Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.
A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.
To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.
*Grand Ideas*
Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.
One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.
Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County. All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.
*McClintock No. 1*
Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact
As Oil Prices Soar, Prospectors Return To Pennsylvania*
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks."[map]His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.*Budding Titan*Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs. Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr. Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.*Grand Ideas*Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County.All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.*McClintock No. 1*Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact.*Write to *Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com^1
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks."[map]His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.*Budding Titan*Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs. Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr. Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.*Grand Ideas*Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County.All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.*McClintock No. 1*Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact.*Write to *Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com
As Oil Prices Soar, Prospectors Return To Pennsylvania*
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks."[map]His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.*Budding Titan*Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs. Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr. Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.*Grand Ideas*Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County.All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.*McClintock No. 1*Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact.*Write to *Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com^1
Old-Timers and Upstarts Chase After What's Left;
Sipping a Few Barrels**
By NEIL KING JR.February 19, 2008*
OIL CITY, Pa. -- In 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world's first commercial oil well in this rural corner of northwestern Pennsylvania, helping kindle the petroleum age. But over time, most of the easy oil was extracted and the big companies moved on, leaving rusty oil wells and shut-down refineries in their wake.Sky-high crude prices have now sparked what some locals see as the storied area's last hurrah. Hoping for a final gulp of black gold, old-timers and upstarts are going after what's left in the world's original oil patch with drill bits, nuclear scanning machines, dynamite, chemical explosives, high-pressure water -- and plain old grit. Soon they'll even try digging it up.Piloting his truck up a newly carved road, Ronald Beck recalls questioning his own sanity in 2004, when he quit his timber-cutting job and poured his savings into installing an old drilling rig in the muddy oak forests here along the Allegheny River. "I was all twisted up inside," Mr. Beck says, swerving to avoid a fallen tree. "I couldn't sleep for weeks."[map]His well, up a wooded incline, was no gusher. It gave up around 50 barrels a day for a month or so and then dwindled to less than a single, 42-gallon barrel a day. That may be miniscule amounts by industry standards, but with Pennsylvania crude then fetching around $34 a barrel, Mr. Beck managed to cover his $35,000 in expenses in less than a month.*Budding Titan*Today, the same high-quality crude earns over $90 a barrel, turning 33-year-old Mr. Beck into something of a budding oil titan. He has drilled 31 other new wells and hopes to double that number this year. Along with dozens of decades-old wells he took over from his late father, Mr. Beck now has some 160 small rigs pecking up crude across 10,000 acres of leases.Dressed in stained coveralls and a baseball cap, Mr. Beck won't talk exact profits or production figures. "I don't want hate mail," he says, citing the difficult economic conditions faced by many of his neighbors. Like most everyone else here, Mr. Beck has good reason to believe that the good times won't last.Venango County's oily substrata has fueled and broken its share of dreams over the past 149 years. First the oil flowed by the boatload from boomtowns like Titusville and Pithole. Later the waxy stuff -- Pennsylvania crude's high wax content made it a popular engine lubricant -- trickled in dribs and drabs. Mr. Drake, the first oil prospector, died broke. Refineries opened and closed. Pennzoil-Quaker State Co., once based in Oil City, moved on. Oil City and Titusville, the two county pillars, are hollowed-out versions of their former selves."This area has seen its share of depression," says Randy Seitz, who runs a civic group called the Oil Region Alliance that's trying to spur new development.Mr. Beck operates his IMOD Oil Production LLC out of an office in his mother's house. His father, a former steel worker, bought up scads of old mineral leases through the lean years of the 1990s from Quaker State and other oil companies. He died in 2003 -- "just before the business got good again," his son says. IMOD stands for In Memory of Dad.A few miles south, William Huber has responded in a simpler way to galloping oil prices. His father and grandfather, both lone operators like him, "used to make the earth shake" with the nitroglycerine they stuffed into the family's aging wells, he says. After the government banned nitro use for security reasons, Mr. Huber turned to dynamite to free up pockets of crude."This guy was down to a teacup a day until I dropped in a few sticks" of dynamite, Mr. Huber says, patting a rusty rig that emits an eerie squeal through the forest as it bobs up and down. The well -- circa 1920 -- now belches up a few barrels a week.To survive the 1990s, when oil prices were languishing below $20-a-barrel, Mr. Huber and his wife boarded dogs in a kennel behind their house. Dogs still yap in the backyard, but 67-year-old Mr. Huber now pumps around 25 barrels a week from wells scattered through the surrounding woods. The income, around $9,000 a month at today's prices, "has made the dogs a lot less necessary," he says.Mr. Huber is also bringing some of his more decrepit wells back on line. He has ordered a few spare parts to revive one well, vintage 1865, down the road from his house. He's hoping the work will nab him a quick 50-barrel spurt before the well settles down to a few gallons a day.*Grand Ideas*Other folks have grander ideas. As is the case with most tapped out oil fields, geologists estimate that around 70% of the oil that was here when Drake arrived is still locked underground. The trick is how to get it.One Canadian company, Rock Well Petroleum Inc., thinks it's got the solution. Having acquired the rights to 8,000 acres in the heart of Venango County, the company plans to dig several huge caverns, each more than 800-feet deep but large enough to drive a truck into. Miners will then bore and drill outward, letting the oil drain into the caverns. Pumps will bring the crude to the surface.Rock Well already has an oil-mining venture at the old Greybull Field in central Wyoming. Dug last year, the operation is expected to drain off around 300 barrels of oil a day for the next 15 years. John Hoak, a Titusville native who runs Rock Well, told a gathering last month that the venture will suck millions of barrels from Venango County.All of which has spurred talk that sky-high oil prices may finally finish off the world's original oil patch. "If Rock Well does what it says, they could pretty much drain everything left in the sands around here," says 79-year-old Augie Holtz, an old Quaker State well operator and one of the county's most veteran oil men.*McClintock No. 1*Still, he is hesitant to be too absolute in his prediction. Mr. Holtz serves as caretaker to the world's oldest operating well, the famed McClintock No. 1, on behalf of the Drake Well Museum.Drilled in 1861 just north of Oil City, the well these days churns out mainly salt water. Dropping by one recent morning, Mr. Holtz catches a handful of the oily brine and takes a small slurp. "Tasty," he says.But give the well enough time, he says proudly, "and it comes up with oil, too." About 38 barrels last year, to be exact.*Write to *Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
More Money for Trail Lawyers / Liberal Democrats
Here we have just one more indication of how the liberal establishment will run our lives by giving trail lawyers more power with consent from a liberal government.
This is just one more nail in our own coffin if we allow this to become law - as this article lays out, it has already passed the house and will more than likely pass in the senate -
When do you think it will be time to step up the the plate and say enough is enough of this nonsense? I can guarantee it will mushroom if you vote for the liberal Democrats, progressives and socialists.
Stand fast and 'Keep the faith, the battle is joined!'
'SAFETY' INSANITY'
By JEFF STIER February 20, 2008 --
CONGRESS is poised to pass a massive giveaway to the ambulance-chasing trial attorneys - under the guise of protecting consumers. The proposed law would give the 50 state attorneys general new powers to sue the makers of allegedly unsafe products - and even to demand help in their suits from the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Headline-hungry AGs will even be able to sue over products the CPSC has already found to be safe. In other words, national standards will effectively go out the window, as politically ambitious AGs compete to bash business so as to win popularity for future elections. The legislation - which the House has already passed and the Senate's likely to pass - would hamper CPSC's mission by creating multiple unscientific "safety" standards. Each AG's vision of what the latest scientific studies imply about purported dangers would prevail in a given state, rather than the CPSC's own (far more expert) findings.
All this would mean a bonanza to trial lawyers - who'd stand to make hundreds of millions from relentless lawsuits within just a few years, since each state would become a new roulette-wheel of potential jury verdicts against manufacturers. The bill would also require the CPSC to immediately post even the most preliminary reports of allegedly hazardous products to a public database - a plain incitement to hasty panic, preparing the ground for future suits.
This would discourage manufacturers from providing important information to the agency early on - and so could harm CPSC's ability to prevent real potential hazards. Further encouraging bogus complaints, the bill would grant unprecedented "whistle-blower" protection to any employee who alleges a fear of product danger - an easy way to secure your job until your case is adjudicated.
The Senate version of the bill grants unprecedented powers to state attorneys general to enforce federal safety laws. As acting CPSC Chairwoman Nancy Nord explains, that would undermine one of the main reasons the agency was created - to establish national product-safety standards.
For example, California recently chose to ban phthalates (an important and safe component of some plastics) - a foolish and unscientific policy, but at least one that the state's Legislature and governor adopted democratically. But under Congress' "reform," each of the 50 state AGs could not only bypass federal officials but also his or her state lawmakers, and unilaterally drive phthalate-containing products from the shelves in his or her state, declaring them a "banned hazardous substance" despite their proven safety.
Federal scientists and local lawmakers alike would be shunted aside in favor of the wisdom (or lack thereof) of your local crusading AG, effectively one of America's 50 new science czars. It would then be up to a federal district court to decide whether the product was in fact a hazard.
Imagine the chaos, with various AGs targeting different products in the different states. It would be a nightmare for manufacturers and for consumers, who'd no longer know what was safe. Activist groups have also succeeded in getting wording into the bill that lowers the level of allowed lead paint - even though the current limit already incorporates the precaution of allowing far less than science tells us is safe. But only lawyers and ideologues support the false claim that "there is no safe level of exposure to lead.
"The current, already extra-safe, lead standards caused an unprecedented number of toy recalls last year - such as a callback of Barbie dolls because the paint in the iris of the doll's eye exceeded federal guidelines. In fact, children were never at risk from such tiny amounts.Yet the publicity from those recalls may prompt Congress to lower the allowable level to an even more minuscule level - and to forbid the CPSC from considering whether a child is likely actually to be exposed to dangerous levels. And recalls would be mandatory in all cases.
Let's be clear: Setting tougher standards because of last year's record number of recalls is the same as lowering the speed limit simply because more people were caught speeding - even though the highways remained just as safe. There's no logic to it. Government agencies usually like to gain more power. Rarely is legislation so bad that the agency being offered new powers say it doesn't want them. Yet Chairwoman Nord complained that the Senate bill "would harm product safety and put the American people at greater risk.
"The only real winners here are avaracious plaintiff's lawyers and ambitious AGs.
Jeff Stier is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org).
This is just one more nail in our own coffin if we allow this to become law - as this article lays out, it has already passed the house and will more than likely pass in the senate -
When do you think it will be time to step up the the plate and say enough is enough of this nonsense? I can guarantee it will mushroom if you vote for the liberal Democrats, progressives and socialists.
Stand fast and 'Keep the faith, the battle is joined!'
'SAFETY' INSANITY'
By JEFF STIER February 20, 2008 --
CONGRESS is poised to pass a massive giveaway to the ambulance-chasing trial attorneys - under the guise of protecting consumers. The proposed law would give the 50 state attorneys general new powers to sue the makers of allegedly unsafe products - and even to demand help in their suits from the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Headline-hungry AGs will even be able to sue over products the CPSC has already found to be safe. In other words, national standards will effectively go out the window, as politically ambitious AGs compete to bash business so as to win popularity for future elections. The legislation - which the House has already passed and the Senate's likely to pass - would hamper CPSC's mission by creating multiple unscientific "safety" standards. Each AG's vision of what the latest scientific studies imply about purported dangers would prevail in a given state, rather than the CPSC's own (far more expert) findings.
All this would mean a bonanza to trial lawyers - who'd stand to make hundreds of millions from relentless lawsuits within just a few years, since each state would become a new roulette-wheel of potential jury verdicts against manufacturers. The bill would also require the CPSC to immediately post even the most preliminary reports of allegedly hazardous products to a public database - a plain incitement to hasty panic, preparing the ground for future suits.
This would discourage manufacturers from providing important information to the agency early on - and so could harm CPSC's ability to prevent real potential hazards. Further encouraging bogus complaints, the bill would grant unprecedented "whistle-blower" protection to any employee who alleges a fear of product danger - an easy way to secure your job until your case is adjudicated.
The Senate version of the bill grants unprecedented powers to state attorneys general to enforce federal safety laws. As acting CPSC Chairwoman Nancy Nord explains, that would undermine one of the main reasons the agency was created - to establish national product-safety standards.
For example, California recently chose to ban phthalates (an important and safe component of some plastics) - a foolish and unscientific policy, but at least one that the state's Legislature and governor adopted democratically. But under Congress' "reform," each of the 50 state AGs could not only bypass federal officials but also his or her state lawmakers, and unilaterally drive phthalate-containing products from the shelves in his or her state, declaring them a "banned hazardous substance" despite their proven safety.
Federal scientists and local lawmakers alike would be shunted aside in favor of the wisdom (or lack thereof) of your local crusading AG, effectively one of America's 50 new science czars. It would then be up to a federal district court to decide whether the product was in fact a hazard.
Imagine the chaos, with various AGs targeting different products in the different states. It would be a nightmare for manufacturers and for consumers, who'd no longer know what was safe. Activist groups have also succeeded in getting wording into the bill that lowers the level of allowed lead paint - even though the current limit already incorporates the precaution of allowing far less than science tells us is safe. But only lawyers and ideologues support the false claim that "there is no safe level of exposure to lead.
"The current, already extra-safe, lead standards caused an unprecedented number of toy recalls last year - such as a callback of Barbie dolls because the paint in the iris of the doll's eye exceeded federal guidelines. In fact, children were never at risk from such tiny amounts.Yet the publicity from those recalls may prompt Congress to lower the allowable level to an even more minuscule level - and to forbid the CPSC from considering whether a child is likely actually to be exposed to dangerous levels. And recalls would be mandatory in all cases.
Let's be clear: Setting tougher standards because of last year's record number of recalls is the same as lowering the speed limit simply because more people were caught speeding - even though the highways remained just as safe. There's no logic to it. Government agencies usually like to gain more power. Rarely is legislation so bad that the agency being offered new powers say it doesn't want them. Yet Chairwoman Nord complained that the Senate bill "would harm product safety and put the American people at greater risk.
"The only real winners here are avaracious plaintiff's lawyers and ambitious AGs.
Jeff Stier is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org).
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
What a Fantastic Medical System - Shoulder Surgery
I just went under the knife for a bone spur in my shoulder so I won't be posting for a few days -
What a good medical system we have in this country - in and out in three hours, no huge waiting times like with Hillary Care, that is socialized medicine, where the ordinary people die because no one cares anymore or the system just doesn't work, i.e. Canada or England. Even illegals and the poor have the same access here. I pay $250 per month plus Medicare and a co-pay - the poor person or illegal pays nothing. How can this be? The liberals say it's not so - but we all know liberals lie a lot.
It's the same medical system that the liberals want to scrap in favor of the socialist system in Cananda, England and or even Cuba - really, that's what they want for you and me, but wait - oh no, not for them, no, no, they will have the good system because they are our leaders and therefore must have the best care. Remember they are so much smarter then anyone else in the room.
We will get what we deserve and what we are worth as that is how the liberals see us, make no mistake about that. Prepare to die in the waiting room.
But hang in there, I will be back shortly to save the world from the corrupt liberals and other nasty nut jobs - heh -
Keep the faith, the battle is joined..
The Slickster!
What a good medical system we have in this country - in and out in three hours, no huge waiting times like with Hillary Care, that is socialized medicine, where the ordinary people die because no one cares anymore or the system just doesn't work, i.e. Canada or England. Even illegals and the poor have the same access here. I pay $250 per month plus Medicare and a co-pay - the poor person or illegal pays nothing. How can this be? The liberals say it's not so - but we all know liberals lie a lot.
It's the same medical system that the liberals want to scrap in favor of the socialist system in Cananda, England and or even Cuba - really, that's what they want for you and me, but wait - oh no, not for them, no, no, they will have the good system because they are our leaders and therefore must have the best care. Remember they are so much smarter then anyone else in the room.
We will get what we deserve and what we are worth as that is how the liberals see us, make no mistake about that. Prepare to die in the waiting room.
But hang in there, I will be back shortly to save the world from the corrupt liberals and other nasty nut jobs - heh -
Keep the faith, the battle is joined..
The Slickster!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Global Warming : Record Cold and Snow
Well, I wonder what the faithful will have to say about the weather this year and how it's all due to global warming - hehWhen you belong to a religion, like the religion of Jim Jones, no matter what anyone says or thinks, they are wrong - global warming is all man made and we must destroy ourselves so we can start again and do it right the next time.
Extreem you say? Not at all - the followers of Jim Jones thaught nothing of killing themselves in the name of Jim Jones. The followers of the global warming faith are just a dedicated and just as uneffected by facts.
Global warming can not be defended by scientific facts and with good reason, there arn't any - a consensus of scientists has nothing to do with scientifc research.
I have always been told that you never discuss politics or religion in polite company - now with global warming you have both - agian it's about power over other people and using any means possible - as the saying goes about gaining power," power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
This is the ultimate goal of the global warming religion - the numbers of the faithful grow by the hour. Unthinking and unconcerned, willing to be lead to the edge and then blindly jumping into the abys.
But keep your coat handy and keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Europe Sill Loves Socialism
It's a sad day when after all of these years, the European community still can not come to grips with the fact that they have to defend themselves.
To this day, as witnessed in this NewsMax article, the European states that are associated with NATO refuse to believe that they are in danger for Islam, the Russians and the Chinese.
I guess it's their history that will destroy them in the end. I pray they won't take us down with them. But given the climate of liberalism in this country and Europe, our chances of surviving a socialist president don't look good.
But keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Editor's Note: Newsmax Publisher Christopher Ruddy joined Senator Joseph Lieberman and the U.S. Delegation to the Munich Conference on Security Policy last week in Germany. Please read his report below.
Munich Conference Reveals European Complacency
By: Christopher Ruddy
Last week I had the honor of joining the U.S. delegation to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, held in Munich, Germany.
The congressional delegation was headed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham.
The Munich Conference — closely associated with the NATO alliance — has drawn headlines in recent years.
Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin set off a firestorm with an acerbic speech that evoked fears of a new Cold War.
Story continues below . . .
“The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres, economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," Putin said. He stridently rapped the U.S. for its missile defense system plans, its desire for an independent Kosovo, and what Putin called the U.S.’ “hyper-inflated use of force" — a clear reference to Iraq.
This year, the talk was muted over U.S policies, perhaps owing to the fact the Bush administration is soon exiting. Europeans believe the next administration led by Democrats will be more sympathetic to their views.
Today, Europe appears to have a mindset of accommodation and complacency. Appeasement might be too strong of a word, since there is no Hitler-like figure marching through European capitals to acquiesce to.
A U.S. official with NATO told our delegation that throughout Europe, our allies are not making the connection between their own security and the alliance’s work to keep the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan.
In some countries where the mission has been explained well by their governments, such as in Britain and Denmark, support for the NATO effort remains strong.
It is important to remember that NATO was created as a defensive organization to protect the member states against attack. On Sept. 11, al-Qaida, which had found safe harbor and backing in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, attacked a member state.
Though NATO fully supported the U.S. effort to keep the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies from power in Kabul, that support is waning.
Even the French, who early on supported the Afghanistan mission, are having doubts.
"Military is only one element," Herve Morin, the French defense minister, said of the Afghanistan operation, suggesting the NATO alliance had ignored the "civilian element." In a somewhat contradictory statement, he castigated the U.S. for attempting to foster democracy in the region.
The failure of NATO to back the mission in Afghanistan drew a strong rebuke from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called Islamic terror a “cancer” that will “metastasize” if it isn’t aggressively attacked.
"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," he told the European leaders. Gates noted that numerous terror plots aimed at European targets had been thwarted, partly thanks to U.S. efforts to combat terror cells abroad.
Gates also suggested the stakes are extremely high.
"Imagine if Islamic terrorists had managed to strike your capitals on the same scale as they struck in New York," he said. "Imagine if they had laid their hands on weapons and materials with even greater destructive capability . . . We forget at our peril that the ambition of Islamic extremists is limited only by opportunity."
Lieberman Takes on Iran
Europe has been moving toward a similar accommodational approach to Iran, a nation that has been developing weapons of mass destruction. Though there is little doubt that Iran, unless stopped, will acquire nuclear weapons, NATO is unwilling to aggressively tackle the threat.
Iran already has the ballistic missile capability to strike Europe. And its leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called Israel a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map,” adding menacingly that the Jewish state is “heading toward annihilation.”
Sen. Lieberman told the conference that Iran must be reckoned with "before it is too late." He pleaded with European and U.N. member states to use their economic leverage over Iran to stop its nuclear weapons plans.
"The dangers of a nuclear Iran cannot be denied, diminished, or dismissed. There is no room for complacency, and no excuse for inaction, about this threat," he warned.
Lieberman also clarified press reports suggesting that the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran’s nuclear program was not a serious threat.
"The NIE itself expresses only 'moderate' confidence that Iran has not already done so,” Lieberman said, referring to Iran’s program to develop nuclear weapons. “And other respected national intelligence services believe that Iran already has restarted its nuclear weaponization program."
Concerted action today could prevent a worse solution, he suggested.
"Military action to destroy or deter Iran's nuclear arsenal is not an option we seek, but it is also not an option that we can eliminate," he said.
The Russia Bear: Follow the Money
Despite Russia’s numerous policy disagreements with the United States over Iran, missile defense, Kosovo and Iraq, a senior Russian diplomat told me, “We are partners with America.”
Russia today is confident and cocky. But it was just over 15 years ago that the U.S. was airlifting food supplies to Russia.
The economic situation there has improved dramatically. With skyrocketing oil and gas prices, Russia has developed a remarkable war chest.
One U.S. general told me the Pentagon has been suspicious of Russia because no one knows what the nation plans to do with its vast wealth.
He also noted that Russia is “unquestionably the nuclear superpower of the world,” noting the vast arsenal it has maintained after the end of the Cold War.
Russia’s deputy prime minister, Sergey Ivanov, bragged during his speech in Munich that in recent years Russia had acquired $500 billion in gold and cash reserves, with another $150 billion in a national welfare fund.
To understand the vastness of these $650 billion in reserves, consider that China has about double this amount. But Russia has less than one-tenth the population of China.
Ivanov said that Russia estimates it would need $1 trillion to rebuild his dilapidated country — for airports, roads, water projects, etc.
But then Ivanov made clear to the delegates that Russia had no plans to use these funds for infrastructure. Instead, Russia would rely on private investment for infrastructure projects.
He did say Russia would focus on supporting key industries, which Ivanov noted included “aircraft engineering and production, shipbuilding, atomic energy, missile and space technologies.” It is interesting that all these sectors are closely associated with Russia’s military.
But there’s no reason to worry, Ivanov assured the gathering, since his country’s “revival” was nothing more than a peaceful democracy seeking its place on the world economic stage, adding that Russia had no intention of “establishing military blocs or engaging in open confrontation with our partners.”
Ivanov’s comments would be reassuring if Russia was truly a democracy and partner of ours. The facts suggest otherwise.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
To this day, as witnessed in this NewsMax article, the European states that are associated with NATO refuse to believe that they are in danger for Islam, the Russians and the Chinese.
I guess it's their history that will destroy them in the end. I pray they won't take us down with them. But given the climate of liberalism in this country and Europe, our chances of surviving a socialist president don't look good.
But keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Editor's Note: Newsmax Publisher Christopher Ruddy joined Senator Joseph Lieberman and the U.S. Delegation to the Munich Conference on Security Policy last week in Germany. Please read his report below.
Munich Conference Reveals European Complacency
By: Christopher Ruddy
Last week I had the honor of joining the U.S. delegation to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, held in Munich, Germany.
The congressional delegation was headed by Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham.
The Munich Conference — closely associated with the NATO alliance — has drawn headlines in recent years.
Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin set off a firestorm with an acerbic speech that evoked fears of a new Cold War.
Story continues below . . .
“The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres, economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," Putin said. He stridently rapped the U.S. for its missile defense system plans, its desire for an independent Kosovo, and what Putin called the U.S.’ “hyper-inflated use of force" — a clear reference to Iraq.
This year, the talk was muted over U.S policies, perhaps owing to the fact the Bush administration is soon exiting. Europeans believe the next administration led by Democrats will be more sympathetic to their views.
Today, Europe appears to have a mindset of accommodation and complacency. Appeasement might be too strong of a word, since there is no Hitler-like figure marching through European capitals to acquiesce to.
A U.S. official with NATO told our delegation that throughout Europe, our allies are not making the connection between their own security and the alliance’s work to keep the Taliban out of power in Afghanistan.
In some countries where the mission has been explained well by their governments, such as in Britain and Denmark, support for the NATO effort remains strong.
It is important to remember that NATO was created as a defensive organization to protect the member states against attack. On Sept. 11, al-Qaida, which had found safe harbor and backing in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, attacked a member state.
Though NATO fully supported the U.S. effort to keep the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies from power in Kabul, that support is waning.
Even the French, who early on supported the Afghanistan mission, are having doubts.
"Military is only one element," Herve Morin, the French defense minister, said of the Afghanistan operation, suggesting the NATO alliance had ignored the "civilian element." In a somewhat contradictory statement, he castigated the U.S. for attempting to foster democracy in the region.
The failure of NATO to back the mission in Afghanistan drew a strong rebuke from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called Islamic terror a “cancer” that will “metastasize” if it isn’t aggressively attacked.
"I am concerned that many people on this continent may not comprehend the magnitude of the direct threat to European security," he told the European leaders. Gates noted that numerous terror plots aimed at European targets had been thwarted, partly thanks to U.S. efforts to combat terror cells abroad.
Gates also suggested the stakes are extremely high.
"Imagine if Islamic terrorists had managed to strike your capitals on the same scale as they struck in New York," he said. "Imagine if they had laid their hands on weapons and materials with even greater destructive capability . . . We forget at our peril that the ambition of Islamic extremists is limited only by opportunity."
Lieberman Takes on Iran
Europe has been moving toward a similar accommodational approach to Iran, a nation that has been developing weapons of mass destruction. Though there is little doubt that Iran, unless stopped, will acquire nuclear weapons, NATO is unwilling to aggressively tackle the threat.
Iran already has the ballistic missile capability to strike Europe. And its leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called Israel a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map,” adding menacingly that the Jewish state is “heading toward annihilation.”
Sen. Lieberman told the conference that Iran must be reckoned with "before it is too late." He pleaded with European and U.N. member states to use their economic leverage over Iran to stop its nuclear weapons plans.
"The dangers of a nuclear Iran cannot be denied, diminished, or dismissed. There is no room for complacency, and no excuse for inaction, about this threat," he warned.
Lieberman also clarified press reports suggesting that the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran’s nuclear program was not a serious threat.
"The NIE itself expresses only 'moderate' confidence that Iran has not already done so,” Lieberman said, referring to Iran’s program to develop nuclear weapons. “And other respected national intelligence services believe that Iran already has restarted its nuclear weaponization program."
Concerted action today could prevent a worse solution, he suggested.
"Military action to destroy or deter Iran's nuclear arsenal is not an option we seek, but it is also not an option that we can eliminate," he said.
The Russia Bear: Follow the Money
Despite Russia’s numerous policy disagreements with the United States over Iran, missile defense, Kosovo and Iraq, a senior Russian diplomat told me, “We are partners with America.”
Russia today is confident and cocky. But it was just over 15 years ago that the U.S. was airlifting food supplies to Russia.
The economic situation there has improved dramatically. With skyrocketing oil and gas prices, Russia has developed a remarkable war chest.
One U.S. general told me the Pentagon has been suspicious of Russia because no one knows what the nation plans to do with its vast wealth.
He also noted that Russia is “unquestionably the nuclear superpower of the world,” noting the vast arsenal it has maintained after the end of the Cold War.
Russia’s deputy prime minister, Sergey Ivanov, bragged during his speech in Munich that in recent years Russia had acquired $500 billion in gold and cash reserves, with another $150 billion in a national welfare fund.
To understand the vastness of these $650 billion in reserves, consider that China has about double this amount. But Russia has less than one-tenth the population of China.
Ivanov said that Russia estimates it would need $1 trillion to rebuild his dilapidated country — for airports, roads, water projects, etc.
But then Ivanov made clear to the delegates that Russia had no plans to use these funds for infrastructure. Instead, Russia would rely on private investment for infrastructure projects.
He did say Russia would focus on supporting key industries, which Ivanov noted included “aircraft engineering and production, shipbuilding, atomic energy, missile and space technologies.” It is interesting that all these sectors are closely associated with Russia’s military.
But there’s no reason to worry, Ivanov assured the gathering, since his country’s “revival” was nothing more than a peaceful democracy seeking its place on the world economic stage, adding that Russia had no intention of “establishing military blocs or engaging in open confrontation with our partners.”
Ivanov’s comments would be reassuring if Russia was truly a democracy and partner of ours. The facts suggest otherwise.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Educating Ignorant Public Top Priority
David Walkers resignation is a shocker for sure - he has always shown to be steadfast in his efforts to keep our government under control, but now it looks like he will try to do it from the outside - good luck.
This article is from the '5 Minute Forcast' that outlines Walker's new tactics to educate the public to the dangers that will befall us if we don't reign in spending and controll entitlements.
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Dear 5 reader,
Wow. Big news. So big we couldn't wait until our next edition on Tuesday. So put the kids to bed. Here we go. it's a 5 Min. Forecast OVERTIME briefing:
David Walker Resigns as U.S. Comptroller General
"As comptroller general of the United States," says David Walker, the federal government’s top accountant, "there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO's client , the Congress."
You may recall, we've been traveling with David for more than a year documenting his efforts to educate the public on the fiscal issues challenging the country. Our film, I.O.U.S.A., featuring Mr. Walker among other luminaries, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2008.
Despite the very difficult nature of Walker's decision, he has chosen to leave his post at the GAO to become the president and CEO of the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation. He made the announcement to Congress today.
"While I love both my job as comptroller general and the GAO," said Walker, "I love my country more. And I believe that leading this foundation represents a unique opportunity and will be good for my country. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action."
As the head of the Peterson Foundation, Walker will oversee the billion-dollar endowment of Pete Peterson , former Commerce Secretary, the founder of the Blackstone group, The Concord Coalition, and legendary advocate for government fiscal responsibility. Chief among Walker's duties at the Peterson Foundation will be the funding and advocating of projects that will enhance public awareness of fiscal imbalance, government deficits, and nuclear proliferation.
"We are at a make-or-break point in American history," Mr. Peterson said of his new foundation. "The entitlement monster is unfunded. We are dangerously dependent on foreign capital, our health care costs per capita are twice the level of the developed world. The goal is to integrate public policy and charitable giving and to answer this question: How do you educate a public that has become largely inert?"
It's now up to David Walker to answer that question. Walker's resignation, coupled with the launch of Peterson's fund, has broad implications for the future of fiscal responsibility in the United States, and more specifically, the development of our documentary, I.O.U.S.A.
"The foundation is also going to end up funding other related efforts," Walker told the Federal News Network in and interview this morning, "including potentially supporting one or more documentaries designed to get the message to millions of Americas' because they need to know in order to make more informed choices at the ballot box."
Interesting times. Stay tuned for further updates.
And as always, have a nice weekend,
Addison Wiggin - The 5 Min. Forecast
P.S. Here’s what the Congressional Quarterly said about Walker’s departure . And you can listen to his interview with the Federal News Network here .
This article is from the '5 Minute Forcast' that outlines Walker's new tactics to educate the public to the dangers that will befall us if we don't reign in spending and controll entitlements.
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
Dear 5 reader,
Wow. Big news. So big we couldn't wait until our next edition on Tuesday. So put the kids to bed. Here we go. it's a 5 Min. Forecast OVERTIME briefing:
David Walker Resigns as U.S. Comptroller General
"As comptroller general of the United States," says David Walker, the federal government’s top accountant, "there are real limitations on what I can do and say in connection with key public policy issues, especially issues that directly relate to GAO's client , the Congress."
You may recall, we've been traveling with David for more than a year documenting his efforts to educate the public on the fiscal issues challenging the country. Our film, I.O.U.S.A., featuring Mr. Walker among other luminaries, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2008.
Despite the very difficult nature of Walker's decision, he has chosen to leave his post at the GAO to become the president and CEO of the newly founded Peter G. Peterson Foundation. He made the announcement to Congress today.
"While I love both my job as comptroller general and the GAO," said Walker, "I love my country more. And I believe that leading this foundation represents a unique opportunity and will be good for my country. My new position will provide me with the ability and resources to more aggressively address a range of current and emerging challenges facing our country, including advocating specific policy solutions and courses of action."
As the head of the Peterson Foundation, Walker will oversee the billion-dollar endowment of Pete Peterson , former Commerce Secretary, the founder of the Blackstone group, The Concord Coalition, and legendary advocate for government fiscal responsibility. Chief among Walker's duties at the Peterson Foundation will be the funding and advocating of projects that will enhance public awareness of fiscal imbalance, government deficits, and nuclear proliferation.
"We are at a make-or-break point in American history," Mr. Peterson said of his new foundation. "The entitlement monster is unfunded. We are dangerously dependent on foreign capital, our health care costs per capita are twice the level of the developed world. The goal is to integrate public policy and charitable giving and to answer this question: How do you educate a public that has become largely inert?"
It's now up to David Walker to answer that question. Walker's resignation, coupled with the launch of Peterson's fund, has broad implications for the future of fiscal responsibility in the United States, and more specifically, the development of our documentary, I.O.U.S.A.
"The foundation is also going to end up funding other related efforts," Walker told the Federal News Network in and interview this morning, "including potentially supporting one or more documentaries designed to get the message to millions of Americas' because they need to know in order to make more informed choices at the ballot box."
Interesting times. Stay tuned for further updates.
And as always, have a nice weekend,
Addison Wiggin - The 5 Min. Forecast
P.S. Here’s what the Congressional Quarterly said about Walker’s departure . And you can listen to his interview with the Federal News Network here .
Friday, February 15, 2008
How to Make a Strong Economy
The political scene that we have in this country is utter kaos - the major theme is which presidental candidate can promise the most new programs to crush American pride and productivity, and, most of these of course, are liberal Democrats.
They make no bones about what they want to do - it's about taking from the productive, you and me, and giving it those that have no intention of producing anything at all.
Socialism is alive and growing. Socialism is destructive and not productive. History has proved this over and over. It never works!!
Wake up America - this isn't a vedio game that you can just stop playing when you get tired of it, this is for our future and our childrens future.
This a great article - Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*To Stimulate The Economy, Liberate It*
Yaron Brook 02.14.08
While some in Washington are quibbling about the details of the economic stimulus package, nearly everyone agrees with its basic idea: that our ailing economy needs Uncle Sam to play doctor and hand out some $150 billion in consumer spending money. But this sort of government intervention is not the cure for our economic troubles. It is the cause.
To understand why, we must first recognize that the key economic activity that causes growth is not consumer spending but production.
Economic growth means an increase in the amount of wealth that exists in a country--and all wealth must be produced. Houses, health care, air-conditioning and transportation do not come ready-made from nature. We have them only to the extent that individuals and businesses bring them into existence.The focus of today's stimulus packages on consumer spending is therefore completely backward.
Consumption is a consequence of production. This fact is ignored by the Bush plan, which attempts to achieve prosperity through $100 billion in deficit-spending. Though this might bring the appearance of prosperity, in the same way that an unemployed man appears prosperous if he goes on a shopping spree with his credit cards, the reality will be the opposite.
The fact is that consumer spending is slowing because production is slowing. There have been massive misallocations of capital--witness, for instance, the housing market--which are now coming home to roost. The resulting financial losses, economic uncertainty and more tenuous job market are all contributing to the American consumer's inability or unwillingness to spend.
If the Bush spending plan can't productively stimulate the economy, what government economic plan can? None. Production does not need stimulation from the government; it needs liberation from the government. What a productive, dynamic economy requires of a government is that it restrict itself to protecting property rights from force and fraud, and refrain from interfering in free production and trade.
Now it is of course popular practice to blame economic problems, not on government intervention but on the free market. But observe that all of the most prominent problems today--problems with housing, financial markets, health care, oil--involve some of the least-free sectors of our economy, those with the most government intervention.
Consider the extent of government culpability in the current subprime meltdown. There is the Federal Reserve, which wrought havoc with the markets by manipulating interest rates, first setting them below the rate of inflation and then quintupling them.The Fed's initial policy convinced subprime borrowers that if they took out mortgages tied to Fed rates, they could afford homes that they ordinarily couldn't. The Fed's artificially low rates fueled a borrowing spree and housing bubble that were instrumental in the subprime meltdown.
Then there is the network of entities backed by the government, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were big champions of subprime lending and big propagandists for the idea that everyone needs to own a home to live the American Dream.
Finally, there is the government's long-standing policy of assuring large financial institutions that they are "too big to fail," which encourages short-range, high-risk investments. Given all these influences, is it any surprise that so many people with poor credit bought expensive homes, that so many financial institutions lent them the money and that all hell broke loose once the unsustainable could no longer be sustained? In an unhampered market, private lenders and borrowers don't behave this way. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of how our government today stifles economic productivity through its gargantuan regulatory and welfare state.
Try to project the impact on productive businesses of the vast burden of federal and state regulations--regulations that render off-limits a huge range of productive endeavors. For example: If a fast-growing software company needs to quickly import a dozen eager and talented Indian programmers, it can't, thanks to our immigration laws. If a company needs to fire a group of incompetent employees to make its workforce more productive, it risks a million-dollar lawsuit. If a developer seeks to offer low-cost housing in the vast, unused tracts of land in expensive California districts, too bad--that would go against environmentalist "open space" laws.
If a health insurance company tries to win more customers with deductibles, coverage and limits that will make insurance far more affordable, the idea is sunk; states dictate the terms of health insurance contracts. If a group of venture capitalists want to invest in new nuclear power, to supply cheap energy to a new market, it cannot--environmental regulations have prevented any new plants for decades, despite the technology's stellar safety record.
If the board of a struggling public company wants to hire a top-flight CEO to turn its company around, its job is much harder (and more expensive) thanks to the CEO-repelling climate created by Sarbanes-Oxley, whose vague laws and new criminal penalties make managing a firm much riskier. Even the simple project of building a larger facility to house a growing business can easily be held up for six months, while the owner must glad-hand zoning and permit bureaucrats.
And this is just the smallest indication of the regulatory strangulation that American businesses suffer. Imagine the economic stimulus, the explosion of productivity, that would occur if these regulatory nooses were removed. For that matter, consider how our government wreaks economic destruction by taxing the wealth of the productive and diverting it unproductively.
Americans pay trillions of dollars in taxes annually--the vast majority of which is not for the agencies that protect our rights (police, military and courts), but for regulations and for entitlement programs that transfer wealth from productive individuals who have earned it to those who haven't.
Over the years, these programs have prevented individuals from investing trillions of dollars in new ventures. It took a million dollars to start Google; if the government hadn't drained us of millions of dollars, picture what other amazing technologies, products and services we would be enjoying today.The economic stimulus that would result from drastically cutting government regulation and spending (and thus taxation) is almost unimaginable.
Faced with recession, therefore, we should be asking not, "What can the government do to stimulate the economy?" but "What can it stop doing?" Washington should be debating which disastrous programs to phase out first: Sarbanes-Oxley, or the constellation of agencies that distort the housing market, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Politicians should be committing to drastically cutting government spending, so that Americans can have real and lasting tax relief.
What our economy needs is not a stimulation package, but a liberation package.
Yaron Brook is managing director of BH Equity Research and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. /
They make no bones about what they want to do - it's about taking from the productive, you and me, and giving it those that have no intention of producing anything at all.
Socialism is alive and growing. Socialism is destructive and not productive. History has proved this over and over. It never works!!
Wake up America - this isn't a vedio game that you can just stop playing when you get tired of it, this is for our future and our childrens future.
This a great article - Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*To Stimulate The Economy, Liberate It*
Yaron Brook 02.14.08
While some in Washington are quibbling about the details of the economic stimulus package, nearly everyone agrees with its basic idea: that our ailing economy needs Uncle Sam to play doctor and hand out some $150 billion in consumer spending money. But this sort of government intervention is not the cure for our economic troubles. It is the cause.
To understand why, we must first recognize that the key economic activity that causes growth is not consumer spending but production.
Economic growth means an increase in the amount of wealth that exists in a country--and all wealth must be produced. Houses, health care, air-conditioning and transportation do not come ready-made from nature. We have them only to the extent that individuals and businesses bring them into existence.The focus of today's stimulus packages on consumer spending is therefore completely backward.
Consumption is a consequence of production. This fact is ignored by the Bush plan, which attempts to achieve prosperity through $100 billion in deficit-spending. Though this might bring the appearance of prosperity, in the same way that an unemployed man appears prosperous if he goes on a shopping spree with his credit cards, the reality will be the opposite.
The fact is that consumer spending is slowing because production is slowing. There have been massive misallocations of capital--witness, for instance, the housing market--which are now coming home to roost. The resulting financial losses, economic uncertainty and more tenuous job market are all contributing to the American consumer's inability or unwillingness to spend.
If the Bush spending plan can't productively stimulate the economy, what government economic plan can? None. Production does not need stimulation from the government; it needs liberation from the government. What a productive, dynamic economy requires of a government is that it restrict itself to protecting property rights from force and fraud, and refrain from interfering in free production and trade.
Now it is of course popular practice to blame economic problems, not on government intervention but on the free market. But observe that all of the most prominent problems today--problems with housing, financial markets, health care, oil--involve some of the least-free sectors of our economy, those with the most government intervention.
Consider the extent of government culpability in the current subprime meltdown. There is the Federal Reserve, which wrought havoc with the markets by manipulating interest rates, first setting them below the rate of inflation and then quintupling them.The Fed's initial policy convinced subprime borrowers that if they took out mortgages tied to Fed rates, they could afford homes that they ordinarily couldn't. The Fed's artificially low rates fueled a borrowing spree and housing bubble that were instrumental in the subprime meltdown.
Then there is the network of entities backed by the government, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were big champions of subprime lending and big propagandists for the idea that everyone needs to own a home to live the American Dream.
Finally, there is the government's long-standing policy of assuring large financial institutions that they are "too big to fail," which encourages short-range, high-risk investments. Given all these influences, is it any surprise that so many people with poor credit bought expensive homes, that so many financial institutions lent them the money and that all hell broke loose once the unsustainable could no longer be sustained? In an unhampered market, private lenders and borrowers don't behave this way. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of how our government today stifles economic productivity through its gargantuan regulatory and welfare state.
Try to project the impact on productive businesses of the vast burden of federal and state regulations--regulations that render off-limits a huge range of productive endeavors. For example: If a fast-growing software company needs to quickly import a dozen eager and talented Indian programmers, it can't, thanks to our immigration laws. If a company needs to fire a group of incompetent employees to make its workforce more productive, it risks a million-dollar lawsuit. If a developer seeks to offer low-cost housing in the vast, unused tracts of land in expensive California districts, too bad--that would go against environmentalist "open space" laws.
If a health insurance company tries to win more customers with deductibles, coverage and limits that will make insurance far more affordable, the idea is sunk; states dictate the terms of health insurance contracts. If a group of venture capitalists want to invest in new nuclear power, to supply cheap energy to a new market, it cannot--environmental regulations have prevented any new plants for decades, despite the technology's stellar safety record.
If the board of a struggling public company wants to hire a top-flight CEO to turn its company around, its job is much harder (and more expensive) thanks to the CEO-repelling climate created by Sarbanes-Oxley, whose vague laws and new criminal penalties make managing a firm much riskier. Even the simple project of building a larger facility to house a growing business can easily be held up for six months, while the owner must glad-hand zoning and permit bureaucrats.
And this is just the smallest indication of the regulatory strangulation that American businesses suffer. Imagine the economic stimulus, the explosion of productivity, that would occur if these regulatory nooses were removed. For that matter, consider how our government wreaks economic destruction by taxing the wealth of the productive and diverting it unproductively.
Americans pay trillions of dollars in taxes annually--the vast majority of which is not for the agencies that protect our rights (police, military and courts), but for regulations and for entitlement programs that transfer wealth from productive individuals who have earned it to those who haven't.
Over the years, these programs have prevented individuals from investing trillions of dollars in new ventures. It took a million dollars to start Google; if the government hadn't drained us of millions of dollars, picture what other amazing technologies, products and services we would be enjoying today.The economic stimulus that would result from drastically cutting government regulation and spending (and thus taxation) is almost unimaginable.
Faced with recession, therefore, we should be asking not, "What can the government do to stimulate the economy?" but "What can it stop doing?" Washington should be debating which disastrous programs to phase out first: Sarbanes-Oxley, or the constellation of agencies that distort the housing market, like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Politicians should be committing to drastically cutting government spending, so that Americans can have real and lasting tax relief.
What our economy needs is not a stimulation package, but a liberation package.
Yaron Brook is managing director of BH Equity Research and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. /
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wisconsin's Hungry Looms Large
This is really a hoot - my church, here in Wisconsin, the Lutherans, have become so secular I am forced to leave and find another church. Not just another building but another Christian church like the Baptists.
I am Lutheran but they have crossed the line with me when they decided, that is voted at convention, to join the left wing liberal establishment and condemned Israel for their security wall but never mentioned the Palestinian suicide bombers that have killed thousands innocent people in Israel.
I don't attend that church anymore but I still contribute to some of their charities such as their mission churchs around the state which they do great things in new areas. This means that I am still on their mailing list and consequently receive the weekly bulletin.
Don't get me wrong, the church, as individual units, do good things in the community - I will always believe this as the Christian faith, built on the teaching of Jesus Christ, will be a force for good where ever it is established.
But this week I read in the bulletin, one of the pastors, and they have many, just returned from New Orleans and proclaimed that area to be a mess and in need of much more work - it's great that they want to stay involved, but now thay are indicating that our own state has it's own problems as well and they are no small ones. Hunger is ranpent. What? In a liberal state? That damn Bush!!
Our pastor has stated that in southwestern Wisconsin alone we may have more than 103,000 people that may go to bed hungry. 39,000 could be childern. They don't know for sure but what the heck, bad is bad, right?
Give this some thought, with a population of 5.4 million, as of the last census in 2000, and having that many hungry in just one part of the state, how many are there in the whole state? - 4 times that many? 400,000 that go hungry? More? ( see my past post on Wisconsin population decline)
Whether it's the church or some other liberal organization, it's always best to have a dieaster looming to fire up the troops - telling the truth is a thing of the past even for the church - only fools need to believe in positive outcomes for they are hard to control - the liberal intellectual elite must filter the truth out of the facts to protect us and control the outcome. The modern church is being transformed into a secular arm of this new thinking.
Peter and Paul would not known this new church.
I am Lutheran but they have crossed the line with me when they decided, that is voted at convention, to join the left wing liberal establishment and condemned Israel for their security wall but never mentioned the Palestinian suicide bombers that have killed thousands innocent people in Israel.
I don't attend that church anymore but I still contribute to some of their charities such as their mission churchs around the state which they do great things in new areas. This means that I am still on their mailing list and consequently receive the weekly bulletin.
Don't get me wrong, the church, as individual units, do good things in the community - I will always believe this as the Christian faith, built on the teaching of Jesus Christ, will be a force for good where ever it is established.
But this week I read in the bulletin, one of the pastors, and they have many, just returned from New Orleans and proclaimed that area to be a mess and in need of much more work - it's great that they want to stay involved, but now thay are indicating that our own state has it's own problems as well and they are no small ones. Hunger is ranpent. What? In a liberal state? That damn Bush!!
Our pastor has stated that in southwestern Wisconsin alone we may have more than 103,000 people that may go to bed hungry. 39,000 could be childern. They don't know for sure but what the heck, bad is bad, right?
Give this some thought, with a population of 5.4 million, as of the last census in 2000, and having that many hungry in just one part of the state, how many are there in the whole state? - 4 times that many? 400,000 that go hungry? More? ( see my past post on Wisconsin population decline)
Whether it's the church or some other liberal organization, it's always best to have a dieaster looming to fire up the troops - telling the truth is a thing of the past even for the church - only fools need to believe in positive outcomes for they are hard to control - the liberal intellectual elite must filter the truth out of the facts to protect us and control the outcome. The modern church is being transformed into a secular arm of this new thinking.
Peter and Paul would not known this new church.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Wisconsin losing Population Share
Here is a great website for any of us that lives in Wisconsin - it informs us about how we are losing people and why, and how due to this fact we are losing representation in Washington becasuse of declining population.
This is a must read for a Wisconsin resident - You don't have to wonder why we are losing people, all you have to do is live here under the liberal control of the Democrats - it will be the same no matter were you go if the state is controlled by Democrats - more taxes, more regulation, more social programs that help no one, they just cost more and more. Get the picture?
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/bb/03bb/103-106.pdf
This is a must read for a Wisconsin resident - You don't have to wonder why we are losing people, all you have to do is live here under the liberal control of the Democrats - it will be the same no matter were you go if the state is controlled by Democrats - more taxes, more regulation, more social programs that help no one, they just cost more and more. Get the picture?
http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lrb/bb/03bb/103-106.pdf
Immigration Progress by The People
Just when you thought all was lost, the people of this nation stand up and demand that our politicans actually do their job of representation - go figure.
This is only in Arziona but it is a start and maybe, just maybe, other states will find the back bone to follow suit - it would be a beautiful thing for sure.
I just love it when a plan comes together - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*THE IMMIGRATION ANSWER*
Feb 13, 2008
By KRIS W. KOBACH February 13, 2008 -
ON Jan. 1, Arizona became the first state to require all employers to confirm workers' legal status via the federal "E-Verify" system. Having survived a federal court challenge last Thursday, the law promises to transform the immigration crisis in America.
After just six weeks, Arizona's system is already working: Newspapers in the state report that illegals are self-deporting by the thousands. Apartment complexes in Phoenix and Tucson confirm that thousands of tenants have skipped town. Many are returning across the border to Mexico.This success is proof that attrition through enforcement works.
The premise is straightforward: The way to solve our illegal-immigration problem is to ratchet up enforcement while making it more difficult for employers to hire illegals. Illegal aliens are rational people. If their chance of being able to work illegally goes down, while the chance of getting detained goes up, at some point the only sensible thing to do is go home.
E-Verify is free and easy to use. The employer simply types in the employee's name, date of birth and Social Security number (or other work-authorization number). He gets an answer back from the government in seconds.More than 20,000 businesses nationwide were using E-Verify voluntarily before Jan. 1. Now Arizona's 145,000 businesses are obliged to join their ranks.
Illegals know that E-Verify makes it impossible for them to fabricate Social Security numbers and use fade IDs to obtain jobs. And when the jobs dry up, they leave. But Arizona isn't the only compelling proof that attrition through enforcement works.
We have another case study: the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System.The US Justice Department implemented the program back in 2002-03, in the wake of 9/11. It required all aliens from al Qaeda-associated countries to report to INS offices to provide fingerprints and register. The non-compliant faced stiff penalties. Of the nations concerned, Pakistan had the largest number of nationals in the US. NSEERS led directly to the deportation of some 1,500 illegal-alien Pakistanis - and also prompted about 15,000 illegals to self-deport.
All this debunks the common claim that America has only two choices - either round up all illegals and send them home; or unjustly grant amnesty to millions of lawbreakers (thereby virtually begging millions more to break the law in the future).
We now know that there's a third option - attrition through enforcement: Give illegals little choice but to self-deport.This strategy demands no government sweeps or snooping; we need only require employers nationwide to use E-Verify and increase the enforcement of current laws. Again, Arizona is a case in point. Illegals began pouring out of the state on Jan. 1 - even though no county attorney there will take any enforcement action until after March 1. No government official has yet lifted a finger - a credible threat of enforcement is all it took.
Attrition by enforcement has never been tried at the national level. Instead, the strategy for the last decade has been "triage": Deport or incarcerate alien criminals, and shut down smugglers - but rarely enforce the law against garden-variety illegals.That approach, combined with the fact that America has only a few thousand immigration-enforcement agents to cover our nation's entire vast interior, means that most illegals know their chances of being able to work are very high.
Attrition through enforcement would change the behavior of millions of illegal aliens. Even under today's relatively lax enforcement, nearly 200,000 illegals are estimated to exit each year - while more than a million enter. Attrition through enforcement could reverse those numbers. To have any hope of reducing the number of illegals in this country, our next president must aim for attrition via enforcement. By requiring every US employer in the country to use E-Verify, and significantly ratcheting up enforcement (against all illegals), it is possible solve America's illegal-immigration problem.
Kris W. Kobach teaches law at the University of Missouri (Kansas City). In 2001-03, he served as counsel to the US attorney general and was the architect of the NSEERS program. He is also a member of the legal team that defended Arizona's new law in court.
This is only in Arziona but it is a start and maybe, just maybe, other states will find the back bone to follow suit - it would be a beautiful thing for sure.
I just love it when a plan comes together - keep the faith, the battle is joined!
*THE IMMIGRATION ANSWER*
Feb 13, 2008
By KRIS W. KOBACH February 13, 2008 -
ON Jan. 1, Arizona became the first state to require all employers to confirm workers' legal status via the federal "E-Verify" system. Having survived a federal court challenge last Thursday, the law promises to transform the immigration crisis in America.
After just six weeks, Arizona's system is already working: Newspapers in the state report that illegals are self-deporting by the thousands. Apartment complexes in Phoenix and Tucson confirm that thousands of tenants have skipped town. Many are returning across the border to Mexico.This success is proof that attrition through enforcement works.
The premise is straightforward: The way to solve our illegal-immigration problem is to ratchet up enforcement while making it more difficult for employers to hire illegals. Illegal aliens are rational people. If their chance of being able to work illegally goes down, while the chance of getting detained goes up, at some point the only sensible thing to do is go home.
E-Verify is free and easy to use. The employer simply types in the employee's name, date of birth and Social Security number (or other work-authorization number). He gets an answer back from the government in seconds.More than 20,000 businesses nationwide were using E-Verify voluntarily before Jan. 1. Now Arizona's 145,000 businesses are obliged to join their ranks.
Illegals know that E-Verify makes it impossible for them to fabricate Social Security numbers and use fade IDs to obtain jobs. And when the jobs dry up, they leave. But Arizona isn't the only compelling proof that attrition through enforcement works.
We have another case study: the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System.The US Justice Department implemented the program back in 2002-03, in the wake of 9/11. It required all aliens from al Qaeda-associated countries to report to INS offices to provide fingerprints and register. The non-compliant faced stiff penalties. Of the nations concerned, Pakistan had the largest number of nationals in the US. NSEERS led directly to the deportation of some 1,500 illegal-alien Pakistanis - and also prompted about 15,000 illegals to self-deport.
All this debunks the common claim that America has only two choices - either round up all illegals and send them home; or unjustly grant amnesty to millions of lawbreakers (thereby virtually begging millions more to break the law in the future).
We now know that there's a third option - attrition through enforcement: Give illegals little choice but to self-deport.This strategy demands no government sweeps or snooping; we need only require employers nationwide to use E-Verify and increase the enforcement of current laws. Again, Arizona is a case in point. Illegals began pouring out of the state on Jan. 1 - even though no county attorney there will take any enforcement action until after March 1. No government official has yet lifted a finger - a credible threat of enforcement is all it took.
Attrition by enforcement has never been tried at the national level. Instead, the strategy for the last decade has been "triage": Deport or incarcerate alien criminals, and shut down smugglers - but rarely enforce the law against garden-variety illegals.That approach, combined with the fact that America has only a few thousand immigration-enforcement agents to cover our nation's entire vast interior, means that most illegals know their chances of being able to work are very high.
Attrition through enforcement would change the behavior of millions of illegal aliens. Even under today's relatively lax enforcement, nearly 200,000 illegals are estimated to exit each year - while more than a million enter. Attrition through enforcement could reverse those numbers. To have any hope of reducing the number of illegals in this country, our next president must aim for attrition via enforcement. By requiring every US employer in the country to use E-Verify, and significantly ratcheting up enforcement (against all illegals), it is possible solve America's illegal-immigration problem.
Kris W. Kobach teaches law at the University of Missouri (Kansas City). In 2001-03, he served as counsel to the US attorney general and was the architect of the NSEERS program. He is also a member of the legal team that defended Arizona's new law in court.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Liberal Media Agenda is Misinformation
Chech out these figures and then ask yourself why these statistics have never been seen or heard anywhere in our media - ever -
Check out the source of the facts as well so you won't think someone made them up - you know the media people havc researched them because they know them to be true, and therefore can't print them or present them on the six o'clock news. Anything that is good for America is good news and there by not printable.
Think about what you read and hear - subject it to common sense and what you know to be true. I always know that if the story is by the Associated Press, it is mostly misinformation - Knight Ridder is no better -
I don't know who compiled these figures but they sure tell a story that is differnet from our socialist friends in the media
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
MILITARY DEATHS FOR TWENTY YEARS
Ever wonder why you hear only part of the story.In this election year We need to be demanding to hear all of the story if they want to discuss an issue.
Bet you didn't know the following! I surely did not..
These are some rather eye-opening facts:
Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan , the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents (accidents that happen also in stateside training, traffic, etc.).
As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics:
The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
1980 .......... 2,392
1981 ......... 2,380
1984 .......... 1,999
1988 .......... 1,819
1989 ......... 1,636
Stateside mostly
1990 ......... 1,508
1991 .......... 1,787
1992 .......... 1,293
1993 ........ ..1,213
1994 . .........1,075
1995 ...........2,465
1996 ......... 2,318 8 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
1997 .......... 817
1998 ......... 2,252
1999 .......... 1,984
2000 .......... 1,983
2001 ......... 890
2002 .......... 1,007 7 BUSH years @ 9,016 deaths
2003 .......... 1,410
2004 .......... 1,887
2005 ......... 919
2006 .......... 920
If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.
Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency when America wasn't even involved in a war?
And, I was even more confused when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!
These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth.
Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?
Our Mainstream Print and TV media, and many Politicians like to slant that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq , are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN--- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:
European (White) ............... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3% (about the same % as in our population)Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American ................... 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%
Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:
European descent (white) .....74.31%
Hispanic .................................10.74%
Black ........................................9.67%
Asian .........................................1.81%
Native American ..................... 1.09%
Other .........................................3.30%
These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf (Please look at this report site if you have the chance.) Now ask yourself these two questions:
1. 'Why do the mainstream Print and TV Media never provide these statistics?'
2. 'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'
You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure...and they sway public opinion!
Check out the source of the facts as well so you won't think someone made them up - you know the media people havc researched them because they know them to be true, and therefore can't print them or present them on the six o'clock news. Anything that is good for America is good news and there by not printable.
Think about what you read and hear - subject it to common sense and what you know to be true. I always know that if the story is by the Associated Press, it is mostly misinformation - Knight Ridder is no better -
I don't know who compiled these figures but they sure tell a story that is differnet from our socialist friends in the media
Keep the faith, the battle is joined!
MILITARY DEATHS FOR TWENTY YEARS
Ever wonder why you hear only part of the story.In this election year We need to be demanding to hear all of the story if they want to discuss an issue.
Bet you didn't know the following! I surely did not..
These are some rather eye-opening facts:
Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan , the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents (accidents that happen also in stateside training, traffic, etc.).
As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics:
The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
1980 .......... 2,392
1981 ......... 2,380
1984 .......... 1,999
1988 .......... 1,819
1989 ......... 1,636
Stateside mostly
1990 ......... 1,508
1991 .......... 1,787
1992 .......... 1,293
1993 ........ ..1,213
1994 . .........1,075
1995 ...........2,465
1996 ......... 2,318 8 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
1997 .......... 817
1998 ......... 2,252
1999 .......... 1,984
2000 .......... 1,983
2001 ......... 890
2002 .......... 1,007 7 BUSH years @ 9,016 deaths
2003 .......... 1,410
2004 .......... 1,887
2005 ......... 919
2006 .......... 920
If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.
Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency when America wasn't even involved in a war?
And, I was even more confused when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!
These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth.
Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?
Our Mainstream Print and TV media, and many Politicians like to slant that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq , are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN--- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:
European (White) ............... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3% (about the same % as in our population)Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American ................... 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%
Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:
European descent (white) .....74.31%
Hispanic .................................10.74%
Black ........................................9.67%
Asian .........................................1.81%
Native American ..................... 1.09%
Other .........................................3.30%
These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf (Please look at this report site if you have the chance.) Now ask yourself these two questions:
1. 'Why do the mainstream Print and TV Media never provide these statistics?'
2. 'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'
You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure...and they sway public opinion!
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