#1
Don't worry, I feel sure that at the right moment, when things have gone to h___, that Obama will tell the world that he's "very concerned and deeply troubled." There, don't you feel better now?
It aint going to be pretty when millions can'taccess their money cos their bank is insolvent. Never mind the economic crash when credit dissapears and businesses can't pay their creditors.
China is not just content to have the Norks as a convenient yapping dog. It is using North Korea as a colony; buying out its natural resources and using it as a captive market for cheap manufactured goods. The cash goes straight to the Nork military on their side, and to the Chinese military on their side. It's one of the more important reasons why China won't curb their dog.
Cash Aids Military, May Offset Sanctions
SEOUL -- Behaving badly hasn't hurt the bottom line in North Korea. Thanks to China, foreign trade has soared since Kim Jong Il's government began detonating nuclear bombs nearly three years ago. As U.N. sanctions mount and business between the two Koreas fizzles, North Korea's trade with China is setting new records. It rose 41 percent last year, while China's share of the North's overseas trade mushroomed to 73 percent.
In recent months, exceptional eruptions of North Korean belligerence have been attributed to the murky logic of hereditary succession as Kim, ailing since he had a stroke last year, positions his third son to take command of the communist country. Kim Jong Un is just 26, and many analysts have explained the North's missile launches, a second nuclear test in May and repeated threats of "merciless war" as a way of cementing the young man's credibility as a fearsome and deserving heir.
While that may be true -- and few outsiders really know what's up in Pyongyang -- there is another way to understand the North's willingness to antagonize much of the world: Chinese buyers of North Korean minerals don't seem to mind.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Is china sending FOOD
Yes/no
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/30/2009 0:53 Comments ||
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#2
North Korea sells donated US food aid to China.
Posted by: ed ||
06/30/2009 8:57 Comments ||
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The poor budget outlook may impel the administration to follow up health-care legislation with an effort to fix Social Security. The shortfall in Social Security's trust funds -- which adds to the long-term deficit -- is much smaller than the companion problem in Medicare funding. Public anxiety over deficits may make this fix possible now even though it has been elusive for years. If this could be done, confidence in Washington's capacity to address its debt challenge would rise.
But even with a Social Security fix the medium-term deficit outlook will be poor. Sometime soon, perhaps in 2010, Main Street and financial markets will exert irresistible pressure to reduce the deficit.
The problem is the deficit's sheer size, which goes way beyond potential savings from cuts in discretionary spending or defense. It's entirely possible that Medicare and Social Security will already have been addressed, and thus taken off the table. In short we'll have to raise taxes.
Today, the U.S. ranks next to last among the 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in total federal revenue as a share of GDP. Our federal revenues represent 18% of national output, down from 20% just 10 years ago. That makes the mismatch between our spending and our revenue very large, producing the huge deficits we face.
We all know the recent and bitter history of tax struggles in Washington, let alone Mr. Obama's pledge to exempt those earning less than $250,000 from higher income taxes. This suggests that, possibly next year, Congress will seriously consider a value-added tax (VAT). A bipartisan deficit reduction commission, structured like the one on Social Security headed by Alan Greenspan in 1982, may be necessary to create sufficient support for a VAT or other new taxes.
#1
Today, the U.S. ranks next to last among the 28 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in total federal revenue as a share of GDP.
Love the way these guys always ignore state and local taxes when comparing to other countries.
#3
When you pay over 50% of your income on federal, state, and local taxes, fees, and levies, you exist to serve the state. Nice how the Donks finally got a work around on the 13th Amendment they unsuccessfully opposed in the first place. In the past the serf was tied to the land because the land was the source of income for the lord. Now they allow the serfs to move around, but still keep the income generated for the ruling class to use as they see fit.
#6
#4 "Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us." Posted by: Barack Oborgma
Not as long as I have a short rope, a long drop, and a good foot to assist the maneuver, it ain't. It's gettin' closer and closer to time for pitchforks and shotguns. It's well past time Congress learned once again they are our servants, not our masters.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/30/2009 19:04 Comments ||
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Less than two years after its discreet sealing, the truce between ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) seems to have ended. The publication June 12 of an article in Taraf, a liberal newspaper, of an alleged plan by army officers to overthrow the government and incriminate Fethullah Gulen, a religious leader and founder of the country's largest Muslim brotherhood, revived the polemic over the role of the military in the governance of the nation.
Although Taraf's scoop stirred indignation among politicians from all sides, the spirits remained calm for the past two weeks. But the verdict last Wednesday of the General Staff military prosecutor that the plan revealed was not prepared at TSK headquarters, and his decision not to file charges against the plan's purported author, Colonel Dursun Cicek, an officer serving in the army's psychological warfare unit, triggered the ire of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The plan, according to the accusations by Taraf and AKP, contemplates mobilizing agents controlled within AKP to discredit the party through their actions and words.
I guess I'm simple-minded. It seems to me that is how a political party ought to be discredited.
It also envisages planting of weapons in the homes of members of Gulen's movement, in order to make a convincing case that its members are "terrorists" with links to separatist Kurdish PKK rebels.
Manipulation of the media for igniting nationalistic and anti-Greek and Armenian feelings among the public is another milestone in the plan.
Military coups are a periodical occurrence in Turkish politics. Since the end of World War II, there have been three dictatorships, in 1960, 1971 and 1980, and a "post-modern" coup, when on Febuary 28, 1997 the National Security Council demanded that "the forces of reaction should be confronted," precipitating the collapse of the government and its replacement by a secularist coalition.
The "forces of reaction" in the event was a reference to the Welfare Party (RP), the first Islamist political movement to have won legislative elections in the country. Its leadership, including Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul, was banned from politics for several years. Erdogan also served time in prison as a result of this crisis. After the victory of the newly formed AKP, successor to RP, in the 2002 national elections, and especially after the return in 2003 to politics of Erdogan and his appointment to premiership, senior army officers again became more vigilant.
When, in April 2007, Abdullah Gul, a leader within AKP, remained the sole candidate to the presidency of the state, the Chief of the General Staff, at that time General Yasar Buyukanit, issued a warning against the appointment of an Islamist at the top office of the republic, implying that the armed forces might intervene. An arm-wrestling contest began, which ended in August at a confidential meeting between Erdogan and Buyukanit.
No spectacular incidents have been observed since. On August 28, 2007, Gul was elected President by the AKP-dominated parliament. His swearing-in ceremony, held the same day, was not attended by the Chief of the General Staff. Tradition, supported by certain articles of the Constitution, calls for the army's allegiance to the principles defended by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a resolute secularist.
Gul is the first head of the state to have an Islamist background. He served between 1983 and 1991 at the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia, where his wife Hayrunnisa completed her university studies. The First Lady wears the Islamic headscarf in all her appearances. The President is a supporter of Fethullah Gulen, who is resident in the US.
Political life seemingly took its normal course. This was the case on the surface only, however, because in the meantime the government had started legal proceedings to bring to justice 89 politicians, journalists, and retired military officers, suspected to have conspired to overthrow the government. Their trial began last October, on the basis of a 2,500-page indictment, but 39 new arrests, including active officers, were added earlier this year.
The trial has been stretching the nerves of the officers at all levels. Most at TSK believe that the plot is a set-up to discredit the armed forces. The government claim that the "action plan" to fight Islamic fundamentalism, revealed by Tafar, was masterminded at TSK headquarters could be the drop that will make the vase overflow.
Prime Minister Erdogan and General Iker Basbug, the Chief of General Staff, met at the end of last week privately for over an hour.
Their respective positions seem to have remained unchanged. Gen. Basbug has backed the decision of the military prosecutor, and insisted that the document was not produced at his headquarters. Erdogan remained convinced that the plan is an official army document, and declared that the quest for culprits will be pursued unrelentingly.
This clash may just be the top of the iceberg. Public opinion, which, according to polls, considers the armed forces the most trusted institution of the country, has shown since 2007 that military juntas are no longer in fashion. A plan for a coup could therefore only be the work of an isolated group of officers. What may be more likely as the cause of the crisis is the diverging agendas of the government and the military on a number of issues, including Cyprus, the Kurdish issue, the recent rapprochement with Armenia, the low-key but systematic introduction of laws that favor Islamist practices in everyday life, the dosed purge of 300 TSK officers this decade so far, and the new constitution intended by AKP which will aim at clipping the wings of the military in order to prove Turkey's adherence to the process for accessing the European Union.
As the economy is still away from recovery, in spite of daily assurances of local pundits, and the regional situation increasingly unstable, the protagonists of this new version of AKP-TSK performance are stuck in a prisoner's dilemma.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/30/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
ION TOPIX > TURKEY WILL NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS THAN FULL [EU] MEMBERSHIP. 'Tis "All or Nothing".
A couple we know got a rude interruption on Saturday night. The two had settled into their seats at the AMC Cupertino Square 16 theater and were enjoying The Taking of Pelham 123, a thriller remake starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington. But Pelham 123 never finished; the theater lost its electrical power. The cause was a rolling brownout, due to a California heat wave and excessive use of air conditioning.
Electricity is a good thing. It powers your computer, drives economic growth, transmits images from Tehran streets, keeps preemies alive in hospitals, prevents meat from rotting and enchants and cools you in movie theaters.
Yes, electricity is a good thing. Where does it come from?
In the U.S., electricity is produced from these sources. If you are reading this on a handheld and can't read Wikipedia's wonderful pie chart, here is the breakdown:
Got that? A tick over 88% of U.S. electricity comes from three sources: coal, gas and nuclear. Petroleum brings the contribution of so-called "evil" energy--that is, energy that is carbon- or uranium-based--to almost 90%.
The remaining sources of U.S. electricity, the renewables, are, by comparison, tiny players:
7.1% -- Hydroelectric
2.4% -- Other Renewables
0.7% -- Other
Hydroelectric accounts for 70% of renewable energy in America. But, of course, hydro is mostly tapped out. Almost every dam that could be built has been built. Ironically enough, political opposition to building more dams comes from the same crowd of tree huggers who oppose coal, gas and uranium.
Do you see where I'm going?
The Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House on Friday by a 219-212 margin will punitively tax energy sources that contribute 90% of current U.S. electricity (or 71% if you want to leave out nuclear). The taxes will be used to subsidize the 10% renewable contributors (but really just 3% after you leave out hydro).
In other words, Waxman-Markey is betting the future of U.S. electricity production on sources that now contribute 3% or supply 10 million Americans with electricity. That's enough juice for the people in Waxman's Los Angeles County. Or, if you prefer, for Nancy Pelosi's metro San Francisco plus Markey's metro Boston.
Well, what about electricity for the other 295 million? You can't get there from here with Waxman-Markey. At very best, solar, wind and cellulosic ethanol will make 20% contributions by 2025. The smart money would bet on 10%.
Renewable dreamers, such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, believe this magical 3% is somehow different than the 97%. Different in the way the silicon chip is different than the Eniac computer. In other words, they believe the 3% will see Moore's Law exponential gains that will grow mighty in a decade. That is precisely the bet being made by the giant venture capital fund Kleiner Perkins with its billion-dollar-plus green fund. The firm's alpha dog and green weeper, John Doerr, is convinced that solar and cellulosic ethanol will see Moore's Law gains if you assemble the world's best and brightest minds to work on it.
I see no evidence of that. Now, it is true that solar and maybe cellulosic ethanol have the potential of making bigger technological leaps than traditional sources. But not at the pace of Moore's Law, or even close.
Meanwhile, traditional sources of electricity that are progressing in the direction of cleaner and more efficient are being ignored (or dissed by Waxman-Markey). Here are two must reads--the first on clean coal by Gregg Easterbrook, the second on fission energy by Robert Metcalfe. Study them if you take electricity production seriously.
Bottom line: There is no way the U.S. economy can enjoy future prosperity without the big three electrical energy sources of clean coal, natural gas and nuclear.
#4
In other news... Claiming that the substance made "some boys happy", the Obama administration has moved to impose strict Federal licencing regimes including special taxes and use permits on the polluting and highly, white, waxy solid highly toxic chemical meta-terphenyl, commonly known as "item no. 2911."
As the end of California's fiscal year approaches, the Governor and state legislators confront a $24 billion deficit. While Republicans and Democrats wrangle over how to address the gaping shortfall, some members of the press have started to look for a scapegoat for the fiscal train wreck. Many have blamed the California taxpayer's only protection: Prop. 13, the 1978 measure capping state property taxes at 1% of a home's assessed value.
Perhaps the most egregious example of the finger-pointing is a recent piece from TIME's Kevin O'Leary, moaning that "Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase." He insists that "at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13," and concludes that "in California, the conservative legacy lives on."
How ridiculous. Of all the problems contributing to the fiscal mess, state under-taxation is the least of them. California's sales and gas taxes are the highest in the country - and it has the highest vehicle license fees and the second-highest top-bracket income tax, too. Its corporate tax rates are the highest of all Western states, and for the fourth year in a row, a survey of 543 CEO's found that California's toxic combination of high taxes and intrusive regulations made it the worst place in the nation to do business.
In fact, at the real root of California's fiscal misery is the profligacy of arrogant, big-spending, left-wing legislators, who have treated taxpayers as if they exist only to support the government. Their attitude was exemplified in a recent statement from state assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), chairman of the state Budget Conference Committee, repudiating the governor's call for the state to "live within its means":
Well, there is this mantra out there - "live within our means" - and while that sounds really nice . . . and it sounds really responsible, it's meaningless. Our means are completely within our control . . . We have just given away huge corporate subsidies in February; we have given away other tax reductions over many, many years; we've created tax loopholes; in good times, we routinely give away taxes, and then in lean times we never replace those tax deductions or close those loopholes. . . . So "live within our means" doesn't mean anything. The fact is, we have a state with a population that have [sic] needs that we have a moral obligation to provide.
Her assertions - and the obnoxious sense of entitlement underlying them - defy credulity. For politicians like Evans (and the legislature is full of them!), when the hardworking or productive keep more of what they have earned, it's only because politicians have been "giving away" the tax revenues that purportedly belong to them. In this mindset, meeting the "needs" of a greedy, ever-expanding government is the only imperative; taxpayers are nothing more than cash cows, commanded to provide the fodder that allows Evans and those like her to meet their "moral obligations" with other people's money.
Remarkably, even as they have driven California into the fiscal ditch (and demanded ever-higher taxes from its citizens), Evans and her colleagues remain the most highly compensated state legislators in the nation. Along with their six-figure salaries, taxpayers supply them with cars, gasoline and auto maintenance. As regular Californians' budgets are stretched to the limit, many of the "cuts" the state Senate is debating for itself are laughable. They include whether to reduce the benefit that provides their staffers with two new pairs of glasses yearly (or sunglasses, for those who don't wear glasses). The change would limit workers to one new pair - of course, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Ultimately, any honest assessment of California's plight must assign responsibility for the state's fiscal crisis - not to the taxpayers who voted for Prop. 13 three decades ago - but to the politicians who have subsequently exploited them without mercy. Indeed, if spending had simply reflected average population growth plus the average increase in the cost of living since 1991, there would now be a $15 billion surplus. After adjusting for inflation, the state now spends nearly 20% more per capita than it did 18 years ago; even as California's tax revenues increased by 167% during that period, state spending exploded by 189%.
Left-wing legislators like Noreen Evans can demand more taxes and journalists like Kevin O'Leary can bemoan the existence of Prop. 13 all they like. The people know better. And when voters overwhelmingly rejected further tax increases last month, they sent a clear message: It's time for the politicians to start working for Californians again, rather than the other way around.
#1
How voters chose games over bread in California
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. - attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee
#2
Smooth and easy is the road
That leads to hell and destruction.
Down grade all the way,
The further you travel, the faster you go.
No need to trudge and sweat and toil,
Just slip and slide and slip and slide
Till you bang up against hell's iron gate.
#4
The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: âYou vote for revenue and your career is over.â I donât know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess itâs about free speech, but itâs extremely unfair. - California Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass (D)
Any surprise that California is bankrupt with morons like her running the government.
#1
I get the drift from the NY Times; Obama is good and noble, but all things American are bad and therefore American projects face a bleak future. For a more balanced view, it would be better to read the BBC news on the web. The BBC is not as anti-American as the NY Times.
#2
We once hoped that a clear timetable for an American withdrawal would finally persuade Iraqs leaders to make the political compromises Indeed there are worrying signs that Iraqi politicians are doing the opposite.
By using the inclusive term We instead of Congressional Democrats the NYTs proves once again it is nothing more then a disingenuous arm of the political left. They conveniently omit the fact that there was a fierce debate over the logic of an announced withdrawal date. And now that some of those concerns have materialized they insinuate it was an all-encompassing decision. They also fail to mention that without the success of the so-called Surge, the strategy they so vehemently opposed, a timetable was completely unthinkable. But, of course, if they were to do otherwise it might prevent them from proceeding to say,
Mr. Obama was right to commit to a carefully paced and responsible withdrawal
Who'd a thunk that we are so efficient that we could steal all the oil before 2009 was thru?
Posted by: Kelly ||
06/30/2009 19:45 Comments ||
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#5
NO surprise here - ala historical enemy "decisive" operations agz the USMC at CHOSIN + KHE SANH, etc, to validate His "DIVINE LEGITIMACY" it would behoove Radical Islam's HIDDEN IMAM-MAHDI to plan and launch a "decisive battle/campaign" [ground] agz US ELITE FORCES, inclusing as combined wid other US ALLIES [read, ELITE EURO UNITS] WHICH AS PER US HISTOIRE' + MSM-NET WOULD PROB BE AGZ THE MARINE PRESENCE OR WHAT REMAINS OF SAME???
For a brief moment it seemed that US President Barack Obama was moved by the recent events in Iran. On Friday, he issued his harshest statement yet on the mullocracy's barbaric clampdown against its brave citizens who dared to demand freedom in the aftermath of June 12's stolen presidential elections.
...Alas, it was a false alarm. On Sunday Obama dispatched his surrogates - presidential adviser David Axelrod and UN Ambassador Susan Rice - to the morning talk shows to make clear that he has not allowed mere events to influence his policies.
...whether an America-hating regime is legitimate or not is completely insignificant to the White House. All the Obama administration wants to do is go back to its plan to appease the mullahs into reaching an agreement about their nuclear aspirations. And for some yet-to-be-explained reason, Obama and his associates believe they can make this regime -- which as recently as Friday called for the mass murder of its own citizens, and as recently as Saturday blamed the US for the Iranian people's decision to rise up against the mullahs -- reach such an agreement.
...Perhaps what is most significant about Obama's decision to side with anti-American tyrants against pro-American democrats in Iran is that it is utterly consistent with his policies throughout the world. From Latin America to Asia to the Middle East and beyond, after six months of the Obama administration it is clear that in its pursuit of good ties with America's adversaries at the expense of America's allies, it will not allow actual events to influence its "hard-nosed" judgments.
TAKE THE ADMINISTRATION'S response to the Honduran military coup on Sunday. While the term "military coup" has a lousy ring to it, the Honduran military ejected president Manuel Zelaya from office after he ignored a Supreme Court ruling backed by the Honduran Congress which barred him from holding a referendum this week that would have empowered him to endanger democracy.
Taking a page out of his mentor Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's playbook, Zelaya acted in contempt of his country's democratic institutions to move forward with his plan to empower himself to serve another term in office. To push forward with his illegal goal, Zelaya fired the army's chief of staff. And so, in an apparent bid to prevent Honduras from going the way of Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua and becoming yet another anti-American Venezuelan satellite, the military - backed by Congress and the Supreme Court - ejected Zelaya from office.
And how did Obama respond? By seemingly siding with Zelaya against the democratic forces in Honduras who are fighting him. Obama said in a written statement: "I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of president Mel Zelaya."
...Like Carter before him, Obama may succeed for a time in evading public scrutiny for his foreign-policy failures because the public will be too concerned with his domestic failures to notice them. But in the end, his slavish devotion to his radical ideological agenda will ensure that his failures reach a critical mass.
#1
When he was opposing Arnold, Huffington and the others for the governor seat I liked him the best. He was the only real conservative on the ticket. Arnold was more popular but McClintock was obviously more capable imho.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
