New York Times: Obama a "man of the world"

 
The New York Times' money quote:

He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

Worldly!

Roger Clemens placing overseas calls to terrorists?

 
Rumor has it that Roger Clemens has begun placing overseas calls to known terrorists.

Clemens believes he can deflect attention from himself because Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives are more concerned with baseball's steroid scandal than international terrorist surveillance.

Photo o' the day

 
Buddy G has an apt caption for this picture.

Clinton Mansion

What Democrats won’t tell you about Healthcare reform

 
Namely, that frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits are one of the biggest causes for the rapid rise in healthcare costs. Why won’t Democrats tell you that? Because trial lawyers uniformly back Democrats in order to fight tort reform and maintain their multi-billion dollar revenue stream.

Watchdog site Trial Lawyers Inc. defines the term “tort tax”:

While [aggressive lawsuits have] been a bonanza for Trial Lawyers, Inc., it has been a drain on the American economy and a serious threat to the livelihood and lifestyle of many Americans. America’s tort system costs over $200 billion annually; even assuming that the underlying lawsuits have merit, much of this cost is wasteful and excessive—at least $87 billion, according to the president’s Council of Economic Advisors.

The overall cost of this “tort tax” on our economy over the next ten years will be more than $3.6 trillion... almost triple the size of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts combined.

Meritless lawsuits:

...Trial Lawyers, Inc.'s medical-malpractice lawsuits are legion: of the 46,000 members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 76 percent have been sued at least once, 57 percent at least twice, and 41.5 percent three times or more. And the litigation industry tends to file far more cases than actually have merit: nearly half of malpractice suits — 49.5 percent — are dropped, dismissed, or settled without payment. Indeed, in a study of medical-malpractice cases filed against New York hospitals, the Harvard Medical Practice Group found that in the majority of medical-malpractice claims, the plaintiff exhibited no medical injury whatsoever; the plaintiff was injured by doctor negligence only 17 percent of the time.

The High Costs of Malpractice Liability:

So if Trial Lawyers, Inc.'s suits against doctors are wide-ranging, and often meritless, just how much do they cost? By 2003, medical-malpractice liability costs in the United States had reached an astounding $26 billion annually. That staggering sum represents a 2,000 percent increase over costs in 1975. At 12 percent per year, the growth rate in medical malpractice costs since 1975 is four times the rate of inflation and twice the rate of medical-care inflation.

In jury trials, million-dollar verdicts are now the norm. Fifty-two percent of all awards exceed $1 million while the average award now weighs in at $4.7 million...

The Investments:

...PAC donations from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA)—Trial Lawyers, Inc.'s government-relations "home office"—are perennially among the nation's highest to the Democratic Party.[224] Democrats receive 93 percent of ATLA's contributions, which helps explain why every Democratic senator opposed the president's medical-malpractice reform bill in the last Congress.[225]

PAC gifts, however, only scratch the surface of litigation-industry giving, which Trial Lawyers, Inc.'s leaders and their firms bundle and distribute directly to candidates. Senator John Edwards's presidential campaign was almost wholly funded by the lawsuit industry..

Ann Coulter adds:

...the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society.

Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients.

It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last?

(Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as "Lawyers Without Borders"?)

[My ex-roomate, now a Doctor] makes $380 for an emergency appendectomy, or one-ten-thousandth of what John Edwards made suing doctors like her, and one-fourth of what John Edwards' hairdresser makes for a single shag cut.

Edwards made $30 million bringing nonsense lawsuits based on junk science against doctors. To defend themselves from parasites like Edwards, doctors now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical malpractice insurance every year.

If we're going to reform healthcare, I’d suggest we start with the trial lawyers and cap every single form of medical malpractice lawsuit.

Obama’s tired “workers”

 
With all of Obama's talk about "workers", I can't help but think of the Daily Worker newspaper, the New York Times of its day.

"[I've] talked to workers who have seen their plants shipped overseas as a consequence of bad trade deals like NAFTA..."

"...we are cracking down on employers that are taking advantage of undocumented workers..."

"We have to require that undocumented workers..."

"....we want to also provide opportunity for the 12 million undocumented workers who are here..."

"....deal with the problem of this constant influx of undocumented workers..."

Note that Obama won’t mention illegal immigrants. Remember: they're "undocumented workers."

Tennessee GOP catches hell for listing Obama's endorsements

 
The Tennessee Republican Party ran into problems today for publishing the following article entitled ANTI-SEMITES FOR OBAMA. It describes Obama's endorsements by fascist luminaries Minister Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi and Robert Malley.

The RNC asked that the group remove the article from the website, but I did capture a copy in the Google cache.

The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.

“It’s time to set the record straight about Barack Obama and where he really stands on vital issues such as national security and the security of Israel,” said Robin Smith, chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. “Voters need to know about two items that surfaced today which strongly suggest that an Obama presidency will view Israel as a problem rather than a partner for peace in the Middle East.

On Sunday, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday likened Obama to a new messiah, calling him “the hope of the entire world.” That’s the same Louis Farrakhan who has a history of making openly anti-Semitic statements, calling Judaism a “gutter religion,” and suggesting that crack cocaine might have been a CIA plot to enslave blacks.

Farrakhan, addressing 20,000 people at the annual Savior’s Day celebration in Chicago, praised the Democrat presidential candidate, calling Obama “The hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better.”

He also compared Obama to the founder of Islam, remarking that both had a white mother and black father, according to the Associated Press. “A black man with a white mother became a savior to us,” Farrakhan said. “A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”

Obama (pictured dressed in Muslim attire in a 2006 visit to Africa) has on the campaign trail pledged to rapidly remove American soldiers from Iraq regardless of the resulting instability and the creation of opening that would be filled by Islamic extremists, like Al Qaeda, in Iraq’s government and military.

Obama has pledged to hold a Muslim Summit to determine Middle East policy with the very leaders that have as their goal to remove Israel from the map, referenced Jews to be “dogs” and “pigs,” among other vile references.

Over the weekend, news reports surfaced casting more disturbing evidence of Obama’s anti-Israel leanings.

The board of a nonprofit organization on which Obama served as a paid director alongside a confessed domestic terrorist granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a “catastrophe.”

The co-founder of that organization, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, who also has held a fundraiser for Obama, is a harsh critic of Israel and has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror. Khalidi reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.

The Woods Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit that describes itself as a group helping the disadvantaged, provided a $40,000 grant in 2001 to the Arab American Action Network, or AAAN, for which Khalidi’s wife, Mona, serves as president. The Fund provided a second grant to the AAAN for $35,000 in 2002. Obama was a director of the Woods Fund board from 1999 to Dec. 11, 2002, according to the Fund’s website. Tax records show he was paid $6,000 per year for his service in 1999 and 2001.

Also serving on the Wood’s Fund board alongside Obama was current University of Illinois-Chicago professor William C. Ayers, who was a member of the Weathermen terrorist group which sought to overthrow of the U.S. government and took responsibility for bombing the U.S. Capitol in 1971.

“You don’t even have to go outside Obama’s campaign to find advisers who are anti-Israel,” said Bill Hobbs, communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party. “Robert Malley, a principal foreign policy adviser to Obama, has advocated negotiations with the Iranian-funded radical terrorist group Hamas and urged that Hamas – which sends suicide bombers to kill innocent women and children - receive international assistance.”

According to DiscoverTheNetworks.org, an online guide to the political Left, Malley “consistently condemns Israel, exonerates Palestinians, urges U.S. disengagement from Israel, and recommends that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies.”

“Nothing in Barack Obama’s history or his choice of advisers suggests he will be a friend to Israel,” said Hobbs. “On the contrary, supporters of Israel should view a possible Obama administration with extreme caution, as America’s ally is being put in the cross-hairs by the anti-Jewish left.”

A Spry Farrakhan Sings Obama’s Praises
Associated Press
http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=D8V13IMO1&show_article=1

Farrakhan: Obama is the ‘hope of the entire world’
Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/811444,CST-NWS-farr25.article

Islamic Links on Obama Web Site Stir Criticism
CNS News
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200802/NAT20080225a.html

Robert Malley
DiscoverTheNetworks.org
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2310

Is there anything inaccurate or inappropriate in this article?

Carter violates the rules of the ex-Presidents Club -- again

 
Jimmy Carter violated the ex-Presidents Club rules yet again, criticizing the Bush administration for the umpteenth time -- this time for excessive "secrecy".


If there is an afterlife, I'm guessing Carter won't be participating in this card game. Perhaps he, Idi Amin and Pol Pot can drum up a fourth on the banks of the River Cocytus.

Comcast's blocking: first the Internet — now public debate

 
Cable provider Comcast was recently caught throttling consumer file-sharing using an approach that some term a "denial-of-service" attack. In other words, Comcast specifically squelched legal, online video sharing. Technology experts, including those involved in the creation of the Internet (no, not you, Al Gore) strongly oppose Comcast's tactics.

When the Beltway Insiders Club known as the FCC reluctantly became involved, it scheduled a public hearing. But rather than allow public debate, Comcast paid uninterested observers to fill the room. The general public, which had arrived 90 minutes ahead of time, was unable to attend the meeting.

Put simply, Comcast's paid seat-warmers had blocked the public, just as they blocked the legal use of BitTorrent and other applications. Did Comcast squelch BitTorrent in order to promote their own, "high-performing" video-on-demand services? That question has yet to be answered, but there's a certain whiff of rot in the air.

This is the Comcast's Internet without Network Neutrality

Watch the video, then go to Save the Internet and make your voice heard.

Engineering Question o' the Day

 
Question: How much does a house weigh?

Answer: More than a rural, two-lane bridge can hold.



Another question:

Is this covered by Home-owner's Insurance, Auto Insurance, or Roadside Assistance?

Hat tip: DSC

Moonbat-provoking questions o' the day

 
During last night's debate, Tim Russert asked Barack Obama a series of questions regarding Louis Farrakhan, president of Nation of Islam.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Obama, one of the things in a campaign is that you have to react to unexpected developments.

On Sunday, the headline in your hometown paper, Chicago Tribune: "Louis Farrakhan Backs Obama for President at Nation of Islam Convention in Chicago." Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, I have been very clear... [remainder of non-answer omitted]

MR. RUSSERT: Do you reject his support?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, Tim, you know, I can't say to somebody that he can't say that he thinks I'm a good guy. (Laughter.) You know, I — you know, I — I have been very clear... [remainder of non-answer omitted]

MR. RUSSERT: The problem some voters may have is, as you know, Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism "gutter religion."

OBAMA: Tim, I think — I am very familiar with his record, as are the American people. That's why I have consistently denounced it... [remainder of non-answer omitted]

RUSSERT: The title of one of your books, "Audacity of Hope," you acknowledge you got from a sermon from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the head of the Trinity United Church [which Obama attends]. He said that Louis Farrakhan "epitomizes greatness."

He said that he went to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan to visit with Moammar Gadhafi and that, when your political opponents found out about that, quote, "your Jewish support would dry up quicker than a snowball in Hell."

What do you do to assure Jewish-Americans that, whether it's Farrakhan's support or the activities of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, your pastor, you are consistent with issues regarding Israel and not in any way suggesting that Farrakhan epitomizes greatness?

As one might expect, thoughtful questions such as these provoked outrage on the left.

TPM, the mysteriously named Liberal Values, the more appropriately named Comments from Left Field, the DailyKos, the aptly named Crooks and Liars, the non-sequiterish FireDogLake, and the catchily named NewsHoggers represent some of the left's responses to questioner Russert's --er-- questions.

Andrew Sullivan's response is worth noting:

Does Obama understand that saying he has consistently denounced him is not the same as simply saying, "I denounce him"? A weak response - reminiscent of Dukakis. (By the way, why is it somehow only a question for Jewish Americans that Farrakhan is a fascist hate-monger? It's a question for all Americans.) Obama's Farrakhan response suggests to me he is reluctant to attack a black demagogue. Maybe he wants to avoid a racial melee. But he has one. He needs to get real on this. Weak, weak, weak.

Clinton sees an opening and pounces. She wins this round. He is forced to adjust. His worst moment in any debate since this campaign started. I'm astounded he couldn't be more forceful. His inability to say by himself, unprompted, that Farrakhan's support repels him and he rejects it outright really unsettles me.

I have not believed that Obama has an ounce of sympathy for a creep like Farrakhan. But Obama has now made me doubt this. If David Duke called John McCain a good man, would McCain hesitate to say he'd rather Duke opposed him? If this is how Obama wants to tackle this emotive issue, he needs to get real...

Barack Dukakis... I like that!

Hat tips: Don Surber and Larwyn

Comprehensive list of Barack Obama's accomplishments

 
Fascinating!

Must-watch video: Barack Obama promises to disarm America

 
This video -- presumably made for a very, very, very liberal audience -- is evidence that Barack Obama is ill-prepared, at best, to serve as America's Commander-in-Chief.

The video should be called The Obama Plan to disarm America. In the video, Obama states:

...I will cut investments in unproven [sic] missile defense systems... ...I will not weaponize space... ...I will slow development of Future Combat Systems... ...and I will institute a "Defense Priorities Board" to [prevent] unnecessary spending... ...I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons... ...and to seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons... ...I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material... ...and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert... ...and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals...

Translation: Unilateral Disarmament. If Barack Obama believes that evil, despotic regimes can be trusted to disarm themselves, he's not suited to be a Senator, much less President.

It didn't work with North Korea. It didn't work with Iraq. And it's not working with Iran.

Net result: The United States would be powerless; left at the mercy of China, Iran and Russia.

But then, Obama's voting record reflects that:

· Voted against extending the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends.

· Voted against permanently repealing the Death Tax. (Called the cuts a "Paris Hilton" tax break for "billionaire heirs and heiresses")

· Voted against CAFTA.

· Voted YES on raising the minimum wage to $7.25 rather than $6.25.

· Opposed the lifting of $0.54 per gallon tariff on cheaper Brazillian ethanol. Said, "ethanol imports are neither necessary nor a practical response to current gasoline prices."

· Voted against the bankruptcy abuse bill.

· Opposes privatizing Social Security

· Voted against drilling in ANWR.

· Voted against confirmation of Sam Alito and John Roberts as chief justice.

· Voted against extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provision.

· Opposed any bans on partial birth abortions.

Unbelievable.

Update: Gateway Pundit is covering the debate and reports there have been no chokings or stabbings (thus far).

Update II: Reliapundit posted regarding the same video... at almost the exact same time!

The verdict is in: Earth in midst of widescale global cooling

 
DailyTech's latest bulletin confirms that the last twelve months have seen a long drop in world temperatures that literally 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.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down...

Sounds like I need to sell my hybrid and buy a traditional gas-guzzler. My shpringies are getting frostbitten.

And I wonder how long Al Gore's carbon-offset bunko scam is going to last when penguins start freezing to death.

"I blew myself up for this?"

 
Email from my Dad.

These virgins pack a mean punch.

Unintended consequences

 
Reposted as the Pelosi-led Congress returns to work after a ten-day gap in terrorist surveillance.

* * *
These are the switches once used to wiretap terrorists living in the Middle East who called into America.

These are the politicians that stopped international terrorist wiretaps in a play for political power.

This is the terrorist who received the call in Newark, New Jersey from a handler in Damascus.

These are the home-made explosives that were manufactured by the New Jersey terrorist cell using instructions found on a Syrian website.

This is the cell phone, wired for use as an igniter.

This is a cancer therapy machine, which uses a radioactive source called Cesium-137.

This is some of the Cesium-137 stolen from a facility that houses cancer therapy machines.

This is the van that carried the dirty bomb built using home-made explosives and Cesium-137.

This is the van parked on Wall Street several blocks away from the New York Stock Exchange.

This is the van after it detonated, scattering radioactive material over several square miles during a windy day.

This is one of the innocents killed by the explosion, who happened to be standing nearby.

This is one of the Hazmat teams, decontaminating after hours of cleanup.

These are Manhattan workers, leaving the city after being told to evacuate by emergency personnel.

This is a portion of Manhattan rendered uninhabitable for two to four years by the dirty bomb.

These are the politicians that stopped international terrorist wiretaps in a play for political power.

Peter D. Zimmerman, New York Times: Seize the Cesium

The ancients predicted the savior would come!

 
This rare collection of artwork from antiquity proves that his coming was foretold by the ancients!



I'm so excited!

Did the Clinton campaign release pictures of Obama in Somali Muslim Garb?

 
US News & World Report implies that the Clintons may have been behind the controversial photo of Obama wearing Somali Muslim clothing during his 2006 visit to Kenya.

An internet posting of a simple photo of Sen. Barack Obama today became the best example yet of how the Democratic presidential campaign has turned into a nasty and bitter fight as Sen. Hillary Clinton sinks from the inevitable nominee to an also-ran. It all started early today when the Drudge Report posted the picture of Obama in a tunic and turban while visiting Wajir, a rural area in northeastern Kenya in 2006. It was standard stuff, apparently, as visiting dignitaries typically try on the local garb, our friend Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Matt Drudge wrote that the photo was being circulated by Clinton staffers in an apparent attempt at fear-mongering. Said his sources: "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?" the standard reference to Clinton...

Error Theory, Sweetness and Light, Astute Blogger and Gateway Pundit have excellent follow-ups on the controversial photo.

Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube outage

 
Worried about a movie trailer by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, the country of Pakistan attempted to block in-country access to YouTube. The result: two-thirds of the world's Internet users lost their access to the popular video-sharing site.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc...

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals...

Two apparent errors allowed the outage to propagate beyond Pakistan, according to Todd Underwood, vice president and general manager of Internet community services at Renesys... Pakistan Telecom established a route that directed requests for YouTube videos from local Internet subscribers to a "black hole," where the data was discarded, according to Renesys. Pakistan Telecom's mistake was that it then published that route to its international data carrier, PCCW Ltd. of Hong Kong, Underwood said.

The second mistake was that PCCW accepted that route, Underwood said. It started directing requests from its customers for YouTube data to Pakistan. And since PCCW is one of the world's 20 largest data carriers, its routing table was passed along to other large carriers without any attempt at verification...

Shutting down YouTube because of a controversial video? Enlightened!