Mull This Over

US National Debt surpasses 100% of GDP

2012-02-25T16:12:00.003-08:00

Last month America's national debt increased to 101% of our gross domestic product. The dubious threshold was crossed with the latest issuance of $32 billion in 2year US Treasury bonds. Unfortunately, the event passed without much fanfare or media headline.

Tyler Durden reports for ZeroHedge that it was just three weeks ago, on January 30, that our debt-to-GDP ratio went from double to triple digits. It has taken the federal government a mere twenty one days to add a full percentage point to this most critical of debt sustainability ratios.

And the reaction from useless Congress, the two useless political parties, the GOP candidates, and of course Obama is one of indifference and bickering. With just under $1 trillion in new debt issuance on deck in the next nine months, the US national debt will be at 110% of GDP in no time! Where will we be with four more years of Obama and another $10 trillion in national debt.........

Into the abyss we go.

Research showing Mars extreme drought for millions of years

2012-02-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Mars may have been extremely dry for more as much as the last 600 million years, making it too hostile for any life to survive on the planet's surface. This finding comes from researchers who have been carrying out the painstaking task of analysing individual particles of Martian soil. Dr Tom Pike, from Imperial College London, will discuss the team's analysis at a European Space Agency (ESA) meeting on February 7th, 2012.

The researchers have spent three years analysing data on Martian soil that was collected during the 2008 NASA Phoenix mission to Mars. Phoenix touched down in the northern arctic region of the planet to search for signs that it was habitable and to analyse ice and soil on the surface.

The results of the soil analysis at the Phoenix site suggest the surface of Mars has been arid for hundreds of millions of years, despite the presence of ice and the fact that previous research has shown that Mars may have had a warmer and wetter period in its earlier history more than three billion years ago. The team also estimated that the soil on Mars had been exposed to liquid water for at most 5,000 years since its formation billions of years ago. They also found that Martian and Moon soil is being formed under the same extremely dry conditions.

Satellite images and previous studies have proven that the soil on Mars is uniform across the planet, which suggests that the results from the team's analysis could be applied to all of Mars. This implies that liquid water has been on the surface of Mars for far too short a time for life to maintain a foothold on the surface.
Dr Pike, from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial, who is lead author on the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains:
"We found that even though there is an abundance of ice, Mars has been experiencing a super-drought that may well have lasted hundreds of millions of years. We think the Mars we know today contrasts sharply with its earlier history, which had warmer and wetter periods and which may have been more suited to life. Future NASA and ESA missions that are planned for Mars will have to dig deeper to search for evidence of life, which may still be taking refuge underground."

The latest Miley Cyrus smoking pictures!

2012-01-30T10:56:00.000-08:00

Well it seems like once a month we are treated to a new batch of Miley Cyrus smoking pictures. The latest big batch came from Hawaii and they were simply wonderful. I wish we would get the definitive exhale picture though. It is just a matter of time at this pace of course. Hopefully within the next few weeks it will surface! In the meantime enjoy these.

Last week we got a couple of candids while she was riding in a car. Nothing spectacular but anything of Miley Cyrus smoking is worthy in my opinion. She is definitely not shy about being seen enjoying a cigarette in public these days.

Now we can just wait for the next batch of Miley Cyrus smoking pictures. We also can look forward to a movie called LOL to be released in the near future. Miley does smoke in the movie according to reports.

Check out our previous story with pictures of Miley Cyrus smoking.

Haiti still in ruins two years after earthquake

2012-01-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

It has been two years since the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed Haiti and yet even after all the humanitarian efforts that have gone on, the country is still basically in ruins. The presidential palace is nothing more than a pile of rubble still. Port-au-Prince's cathedral also offers a striking symbol of the failure of an international aid effort.

"I've been here for the past two years," Wilbert told AFP, admitting he found it hard emotionally to move on from the disaster. "I cannot detach myself from this place where I lost my two legs," he said.

UN fact sheets highlighted the hundreds of thousands of people relocated from tent cities in 2011 but the pace of reconstruction has been painfully slow. That is partly explained by the cataclysmic scale of the January 12, 2010 disaster, which killed, injured or displaced one in six of the Caribbean nation's entire population, razing some 250,000 homes in the capital alone. But Haiti was also already the economic basket case of the Western Hemisphere, a dysfunctional country often ruled by a corrupt elite while 80% of the population lived below the poverty line, most in stinking slums.

Despite considerable achievements, including in the areas of rubble removal and the resettlement of displaced persons, many Haitians remain in need of international assistance," Ban said.

Another year, Another BCS fail

2011-12-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well what is new. Another college football season and another totally failed BCS system. Now don't quit reading yet. I don't have a big problem with the LSU - Alabama rematch in the National Championship game. I agree they are most likely the two best teams in the country (no doubt about LSU).

Oklahoma State has a bit of an argument as they did beat more teams with a winning record than Alabama did (7 - 3), but in the end LSU - Alabama looks solid. Just keep your fingers crossed that someone can at least score a touchdown this time before half the country falls asleep in another 6-6 snorefest.

The Rose Bowl got it right. Just like last year when they had TCU and Wisconsin in a wonderful game, this year they have Oregon facing Wisconsin. A great matchup of contrasting styles. The high flying offense of Oregon against the powerful running game of Wisconsin.

Credit to the Fiesta Bowl as well. #3 Oklahoma State against #4 Stanford. Offense, offense and more offense. It's the other BCS games I have issue with.

The Sugar Bowl completely flopped. #14 Michigan? Sure they have a very high profile quarterback and will bring a zillion fans, but come on. Even worse...Virginia Tech. Didn't they get blasted by Clemson in the ACC Title game? Who wants to watch this game? Boise State - Michigan would have been fascinating. Instead #6, #7, #8 and #9 all got passed over for this gobbler.

And now the Orange Bowl. They give tickets away for $1 to get fans to come to the Orange Bowl lately. This year's matchup is no better at all. West Virginia - Clemson. #15 against #23. Ouch. In truth it will probably be an entertaining game, but nobody west of the Mississippi will tune in at all.

The real problem is that the BCS ignored top teams that played all year to get a top 10 ranking. Instead the BCS went with #11, #14, #15 and #23. Yuck. Please give us a playoff!

Super Committee not so Super

2011-11-21T15:46:00.000-08:00

The name definitely must be changed. The so-called Super Committee appointed by Congress to come up with budget cuts and save the country from our crippling debt has failed. In fact they have crashed and burned in grand fashion.

No deal coming. No compromise. After weeks and weeks some of the most powerful people in Washington DC have absolutely nothing to show.

Now we will get $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts. $550 billion from defense. The rest from medicare and other programs. Republicans are already working on legislation to overturn them. Obama is already saying he will veto any such legislation.

And now the war of words begins. President Obama spouted at a news conference today blaming Republicans (as he always does). Seems to me the Super Committee was an even six from both parties. Blame should fall evenly on both sides.

A total political failure. I guess it should have been expected. All we have seen now for a few years are total political failures. Congress is a joke. The Presidential leadership is a joke. It's basically a total disaster.

Look around the world. Europe is in tatters. Egypt is once again blowing up. The Middle East is a powder keg that we will reignite over the next few weeks. We have the Occupy Wall Street movement (as goofy as it is). And we don't have twelve people from Congress that can sit down and come to any agreement.

Goodness things are bad.

Go get your Meteorology Degree!

2011-11-09T14:20:00.001-08:00

I always tell my soccer players to go get a meteorology degree when they head for college. I was always joking because we live here in Dallas, Texas. So all summer long it just doesn't take much talent to be a weatherman. Everyday is 100 and sunny. The seven day forecast is 100, 102, 101, 102, 101, 103 and 102.

Not a cloud in the sky. Just doesn't seem like too difficult a job to me. If it does accidentally rain nobody cares that you missed the forecast because it rained! Even in the more difficult times where we get thunderstorms or cold fronts it just doesn't matter if you miss the forecast. The weathercasters on the local news here have been there for decades. David Finfrock can barely say a full sentence anymore without having to take pause. They have their jobs forever....no matter how many predictions they miss.

Well, seems my advice is even better now. A new article hit showing the college degrees with the least unemployment for graduates and meteorologist is listed at 0%. So get a meteorology degree and get a job for sure. Not too shabby.

A guaranteed job. Almost perfect job security. And a job where you can be wrong all the time with a summer that you basically have to do nothing. That's the ticket!

Lindsey Lohan released from jail after only five hours!

2011-11-07T10:25:00.001-08:00

So Lindsey Lohan was sentenced to another jail term for her continued transgressions and her continued attitude towards the law. This time she was given a 30 days sentence at the Los Angeles County jail for failure to take care of her community service requirements from a previous sentence.

Well Lindsey Lohan reported for jail last night and served a grand total of five hours. Yes that's right. Five hours. A few hours and she was released. So her fifth jail sentence lasted only a few hours. That is less than 1% of her sentence served.

So she is out. Lindsey is required to go to psychothereapy and perform all her old community service at the county morgue rather than the women's shelter as was previously assigned. She has to serve 423 hours at the morgue where she will mop floors, clean bathrooms and wash dirty sheets.

Bet she learned her lesson on this one. Until she gets some real jail time she will never adhere to the laws and sentences. She has already received five different jail terms. It's just a matter of time until we get the sixth.

Backwards California passes law giving tax dollars to illegal immigrant students

2011-10-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

Seriously? California Governor Jerry Brown just signed a bill into law that gives illegal immigrants the use of public tax payer funds for college. Amazing what a crazy and backwards state California is. Giving American tax payer funds to illegal aliens rather than have it be used for our own students that need them.

The bill was passed by California Democrats in a party line vote. Typical Democrat crap.

Republican Tim Donnelly responded to the signing, "Citizens are having a hard enough time getting the classes they need now. Legally documented students from the next state over can only dream of such a benefit."

What part of "illegal" do these people not understand. They are "illegal immigrants" and using our tax payer dollars that should go to legal students!

Emma Roberts - Hollywood's Hottest Young Smoker

2011-09-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Move over there is a new young beauty on the scene in Hollywood. Well maybe not new in Hollywood as Emma Roberts has been around a few years on the acting scene, but definitely new as an out in the public smoker. Over the last year Emma Roberts has not been afraid to flaunt her smoking and has even been a bit outspoken about it. Quite brash and a bit sexy for someone so young.

Pictures of Emma Roberts smoking have been surfacing slowly but regulary for about a year now. Pretty much everytime a new candid hits it is stunning. Emma Roberts is truly Hollywood's hottest young smoker.

She has been acting for years getting a foothold in the industry as a result of being related to Julia Roberts and Eric Roberts. As a youngster she got solid roles in Nancy Drew and Hotel for Dogs. She has already smoked onscreen in Lymelife and her smoking scene in The Art of Getting By is fabulous. With new movies Adult World and Celeste and Jesse Forever we can only hope for more scenes. She is definitely not shy about smoking in the movies or out in public.

Below are four wonderful pictures of Emma Roberts smoking. She is easily my pick for Hollywood's hottest young smoker right now. Be on the lookout for more wonderful pictures of her to surface in the weeks and months ahead!

Obama twisting the truth on how much taxes the rich actually pay

2011-09-20T12:22:00.000-07:00

Here goes President Obama twisting the facts once again. His statement that high income families pay less in taxes than middle class families is nothing short of a lie. Here are some facts about our Federal Taxes straight from the Congressional Budget Office.

According to the latest IRS figures. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4% of their income in federal income taxes. Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9% in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3%. So as you can clearly see Obama's statement is not even close to being accurate at all.

The 10% of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70% of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Obama still not getting it - Wants to hike taxes to pay for his jobs bill

2011-09-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

President Obama just doesn't get it. His lack of business background and business sense continues to show as he tries the same failing tactics to turn around the poor US economy. In a sharp challenge to the GOP, President Barack Obama proposed paying for his costly new jobs plan Monday with tax hikes that Republicans have already emphatically rejected. The reception to his new proposal was no more welcoming, setting the stage for a likely new fight with Congress.

Flanked at the White House by workers he said the legislation would help, Obama declared, "This is the bill that Congress needs to pass. No games. No politics. No delays." He sent it to Capitol Hill saying, "The only thing that's stopping it is politics."

The president's proposal drew criticism from House Speaker John Boehner, who'd previously responded in cautious but somewhat receptive tones to the $447 billion jobs plan made up of tax cuts and new spending that Obama first proposed in an address to Congress last Thursday.

"It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past. We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn't appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit," Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said.

The biggest piece of the payment plan would raise about $400 billion by eliminating certain deductions, including on charitable contributions, that can be claimed by wealthy taxpayers. Obama has proposed that in the past — to help pay for his health care overhaul, for example — and it's been shot down by Republican lawmakers along with some Democrats.

Yet by daring Republicans anew to reject tax hikes on the rich Obama could gain a talking point as the 2012 presidential campaign moves forward, if not a legislative victory.

At a Rose Garden event Monday, Obama brandished his jobs bill in the air and surrounded himself with police officers, firefighters, teachers, construction workers and others he said would be helped by it. Adopting a newly combative tone that's been welcomed by dispirited Democrats, Obama demanded immediate action on the legislation, which the White House sent to Capitol Hill Monday afternoon.

"Instead of just talking about America's job creators, let's actually do something for America's job creators."

Michigan toughens welfare laws, limit to 48 months

2011-09-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

Thank you Mr Governor for helping to move this country away from the socialist/freeloading agenda!

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on Tuesday signed into law a stricter, four-year lifetime limit on cash welfare benefits, prompting advocates for the poor to warn that tens of thousands of residents will find themselves without cash assistance on October 1.

Michigan's first-year Republican chief executive said the state will offer exemptions to the limit for those with a disability who can't work, those who care for a disabled spouse or child and those who are 65 or older and don't qualify for Social Security benefits or receive very low benefits. Some recipients who are the victims of domestic violence also may be temporarily exempted.

"We are returning cash assistance to its original intent as a transitional program to help families while they work toward self-sufficiency," Snyder said in a statement. He noted that the state still will help the poor by offering food stamps, health care coverage through Medicaid, child care and emergency services.

Then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, signed a bill that created a four-year limit starting in 2007. But that law exempted many welfare recipients, including those whose caseworkers said they were making progress toward finding employment.
The 2010 election of Snyder and the simultaneous Republican takeover of the Michigan House gave the GOP a free hand to set its own course on public assistance.

The change gives Michigan the Midwest's toughest welfare time limit, according to a survey by The Detroit News. It said there are five-year limits in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin. Indiana has a two-year limit for adults — but none for children.

Gilda Jacobs of the Michigan League for Human Services said she expects about 41,000 people to lose their cash assistance payments on October 1 when the state's new budget year begins. That includes 29,700 children, according to the Michigan Department of Human Services.

"We're very, very concerned," Jacobs said. "As the days go by, new people will be meeting the 48-month limit. ... More will be falling off that cliff."

The new law will reduce the number of children and adults receiving cash assistance by nearly 20%, from more than 221,000 to around 180,000. Enforcing a four-year limit will save the state more than $60 million annually, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis.

Jacobs said it's hard to see how 11,000 adults will find a job when Michigan's July unemployment rate was 10.9%, tied with South Carolina for third-highest in the nation.

"We still have to preserve a safety net for people who, through no fault of their own, can't find a job," she said, noting that most cash assistance goes to help poor residents pay their rent. "There's obviously a lot of anxiety out there. Folks aren't sure exactly what this means to them."

State officials say they're working with nonprofit organizations to direct welfare recipients to other services and provide a "soft landing" as they lose benefits. Recipients will be connected with other resources, given housing and job placement assistance for up to three months beyond October and mentored by trained job navigators.

"Michigan continues to face financial challenges, and the fiscal reality is that we cannot afford to provide lifetime cash assistance to recipients who are able to work," Health and Human Services director Maura Corrigan said in a statement. "Enforcing lifetime limits for cash assistance ensures that available funds are targeted toward those recipients who need a helping hand while they find employment."
Michigan ranked 38th in child poverty for 2009, defined as income below $21,756 for a family of two adults and two children. About 23% of Michigan's children lived in poverty in 2009, compared with 20% nationally. In 2000, only 14% of Michigan children lived in poverty. The average age of a child in a family receiving cash assistance is around 7 years old.

Snyder, a Republican, has said reducing the number of children living in poverty is a priority of his administration.

Barack Obama's Legacy - A Failed Recovery

2011-08-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

There will be no significant recovery in the United States of America while Barack Obama is President. The evidence is overwhelming: everything Obama has tried to fuel a recovery (with his Democratic allies in Congress) has failed. Statistics claiming jobs saved by the stimulus package were mostly fiction, and cost American taxpayers about $275,000 each. Nearly 2-1/2 million fewer Americans have jobs than before the stimulus.

Barack Obama has been President for 30 months—2-1/2 years. He spent the first year obsessed with passing Obamacare, a program that doesn’t create jobs, but might destroy a lot of them. He “bailed out” GM, but many believe that his interference didn’t save GM; it merely cost taxpayers an extra $15-20 billion, and stole from legitimate investors to buy off the UAW. His broken campaign promises are too numerous to list. At some point, his statute of limitations on blaming Bush runs out. The latest joke is that the White House is that named the location of East Coast earthquake near DC “Bush’s Fault.”

Obama himself said, “…that after three years, if the economy wasn’t fixed he should be a one-term president.” Clearly the economic malaise started on George W. Bush’s watch. Its causes will be argued for decades, but most of them are traceable to irresponsible lending and excessive spending— both by government and the American people. The trouble that started before 2008 is directly traceable to actions (or inactions) of Bush and GOP allies in Congress. They spent America into the start of the current deficit during his eight years in the White House.

But that was then, and this is now. Since Obama took office the situation has gotten much, much worse. Obama has run up the deficit at more than twice the rate Bush did. During the first quarter of 2011, the US economy “barely grew” —at 0.4%—that was followed by second quarter’s “anemic growth” of 1%. This was during the period when the Obama recovery was supposed to be well underway. Employment data is unremittingly terrible: new jobless claims are stuck at 400,000+/- each month, with job creation well below what it takes just to absorb new workforce entrants. More Americans have been unemployed longer than ever in our history. And looking ahead, the news is not good.

This is Obama’s failed American recovery, and in the near future, Obama’s impending double-dip recession (thanks in no small part to his three consecutive years with Trillion-dollar in deficits that have inflated the national deficit to soaring heights—$14+ Trillion.) That legacy clearly belongs to President Barack Obama and with help from the Congress led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi during 2008-2010. Thanks to them, our country hasn’t even had a budget since Obama took office.

Face it folks: This is Obama’s failed recovery. And if (or when) it comes to pass, this “double-dip” recession (just around the corner) is his too.
Make no mistake, there IS plenty of blame to go around. About 75% of Americans are fed up with both Obama and Congress. The conservative and liberal factions of the House and Senate behaved badly in the recent debt ceiling negotiation. President Obama wanted to stay above the fray so he provided no leadership. He didn’t even know how to bring the opposing viewpoints together. He talked about bi-partisanship and consensus, but his actions disproved his words.

Until the president saw an impending disaster, he sat on the sidelines, afraid to do anything that might hinder his reelection campaign. Then, when his intervention didn’t help, and arguably hurt the progress, he grew impatient, petulant and angry.
John Boehner, however, did an admirable job trying to build a compromise deal on the debt ceiling, and get his own Caucus to support such a plan. Except, Obama was attacked by his liberal base for even considering the “grand bargain,” so he came in and dumped another “raise taxes more” demand on Boehner. I’d have walked out too, which Boehner was right to do.

Whatever happens, this failed recovery and impending recession belong to President Barack Obama. His condescending explanations of why “we Americans” don’t get it, how “this will take a long time,” this recovery, and his “class warfare” about “millionaires and billionaires” versus the “common folk” are all wearing thin.

The stock market is feeding the current economic fear

2011-08-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Instead of reflecting the current economic cloudiness, the US stock market is starting to feed economic fear. Stocks have fallen for a disheartening four weeks in a row. Some on Wall Street worry that the resulting blow to confidence, not to mention 401k statements, has set off a spiral of fear that could push prices even lower, cause people and businesses to pull back and tip the economy into a new recession.

"I'm nervous that fear will lead companies to stop hiring and people to stop spending," says Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist of Wells Capital Management, famous for his usually bullish take on the markets.

A home sales report this past week showed that more sales than usual fell apart at the last minute, which suggests plunging stocks and dismal economic news gave buyers cold feet. At least 16% of deals were canceled ahead of closings last month.

Beth Ann Bovino, senior economist at Standard & Poor's, says that another big plunge in stocks could "push us closer to the brink." The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index ended Friday at 1,123.53, down 5% for the week. The average is down 16% during the four-week losing streak. One reason for the drop is fear that another recession, if not certain, is more likely now.

The run of bad economic news started last month when the government said the economy grew much more weakly in the first half of this year than thought. Growth, at a paltry annual rate of 0.8%, was the slowest since the Great Recession ended in June 2009.

The economic weakness has made investors more likely to sell stocks at the first hint that things are getting worse. And last week, they got signs aplenty. A regional survey by the Federal Reserve said manufacturing had slowed in the mid-Atlantic states by the most in more than two years. Existing home sales fell in July for third time in four months. Another report showed that exports from Japan, the world's third-biggest economy, had slumped for the fifth straight month. Japan is still reeling from the effects of an earthquake and tsunami in March.

The housing market, which usually helps lead an economic recovery, keeps getting worse. The plunging stock market and scary economic news won't make it any better.

"What you're seeing with the economy, on the job front, it's scaring a lot of people," says Brian Fine, a loan manager at Mortgage Master in Rockville, Md. He says the housing market will languish until buyers and sellers feel more secure about the economy.

"People are really motivated by larger economic trends. It's all about if you feel confident enough to buy a home right now," he says.

The news from Europe got worse, too. Its economy has slowed considerably — even in Germany, which has been its greatest source of strength. Fear spread that European banks, already ailing because they hold bonds of countries that are struggling with debt, were having trouble getting short-term loans to pay for day-to-day activities.

Some Wall Street analysts say reports of trouble were exaggerated, but that didn't seem to matter. For investors, the prospect of banks scrambling for cash dredged up bad memories of the global credit freeze that hit in the fall of 2008, and they sold stocks.

"A negative feedback loop ... appears to be in the making," two economists at Morgan Stanley wrote Thursday in a widely cited report that itself seemed to beget more fear and selling. It warned that the US was "dangerously close" to recession.

Stock investors aren't the only ones worried. Martin Fridson, global chief credit strategist at BNP Paribas Investment Partners, notes that investors in bonds issued by the riskiest American companies are dumping them, too. These investors fear that in a recession companies might not be able to pay interest on these so-called junk bonds.

The selling has forced up the average interest rate on the bonds to 8.3%. If investors had faith in the economy, the rate would be 4.6%, Fridson says. "I'm nervous. I think there's a very material risk of falling into recession."

Investors are responding to the risk by putting their money where they feel safe. Demand for the 10 yr Treasury note was so high last week that the yield dipped below 2% for the first time in half a century. And the price of gold has set one record after another. It topped $1,800 an ounce last week.

Although unemployment remains stubbornly high, at 9.1%, there are signs that the economy, while not strong, is still growing. Retail sales grew in July at the fastest pace since March. Employers added 117,000 jobs last month, but far better than the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost each month during the Great Recession. Factory production rose in July because automakers made more cars.

And Wall Street analysts who analyze companies and advise investors when to buy and sell don't seem to be worried. As stocks were falling Friday, research firm FactSet released figures that showed just how much more optimistic these analysts are than the average investor.

Stocks are priced at roughly 11 times their expected earnings per share over the next year. That's a steep discount compared with the market's long-term average of 15 times. Translation: If you believe the US will avoid recession and companies will generate profits as high as the analysts think they will, the S&P should be trading at 1,560 — just below the S&P's record high of 1,565 in October 2007.

Of course, if the economy is weak and earnings don't come in as expected, it could turn out that stocks were trading today at 15 times the next year's earnings. That's what many of today's sellers seem be expecting.

And skeptics note that analysts are notoriously bullish, and tend to overestimate profits as the economy slows. Wells Capital's Paulsen thinks stocks should be trading higher, though he suggests investors will pay a steep price if he's wrong.

"If we have a recession, we'll probably break 1,000" on the S&P index, he says.

Investors will be on edge this week as they scrutinize new data on the economy. On Tuesday, new home sales for July are released, followed on Thursday by a weekly report on how many people are joining the unemployment line. On Friday, the government will give its second estimate of how fast the economy grew from April through June.

The most anticipated event, though, is a speech the same day by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The Fed pledged earlier this month to keep interest rates low through mid-2013. Investors hope Bernanke will announce, or at least preview, further steps to help the economy. But economists say it is unlikely Bernanke will unveil anything ambitious.

With all the high emotion surrounding stocks, economist Joel Naroff cautions investors not to read too much into the recent swings. He says that stocks have a habit of running from one extreme to the other, including this spring, when he thought they were far too high. He thinks stocks may be fairly valued now.

They reflect an "economy that is growing but not growing at any great pace," he says. "It is not in recession."

More Miley Cyrus smoking pictures surface!! Finally some candids

2011-08-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

After being teased for the better part of a year we finally have the definitive Miley Cyrus smoking pictures. We have had rumours for months and an earlier picture of her with a pack of Parliaments sticking from her purse. Now a group of wonderful candid pictures have surfaced of her in Orchard Lake, Michigan. Here are 4 from the set. Looks like she is finally smoking in public and not hiding anymore. Hopefully we will see many many more pictures of her surfacing soon.

She is also going to be smoking on screen in her upcoming movie entitled LOL so we have something to look forward to there. Nothing tops true candid pictures though. and here we have 4 candids! See for yourself and comment your thoughts on Miley Cyrus smoking cigarettes.

Truly wonderful! Now that you have seen the 4 candids of Miley Cyrus smoking. What do you think? Leave us a comment!

Just Who Owns America's Debt? Americans!

2011-07-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

Truth is elusive. But it's a good thing we have math. Our friends at Business Insider know this, and put those two principles to work today in this excellent and highly informative little slideshow, made even more timely by the ongoing talks in Washington, DC aimed at staving off a US debt default.

Here's the big idea:
Many people — politicians and pundits alike — prattle on that China and, to a lesser extent Japan, own most of America's $14.3 trillion in government debt. But there's one little problem with that conventional wisdom: it's just not true. While the Chinese, Japanese and plenty of other foreigners own substantial amounts, it's really Americans who hold most of America's debt. Here's a quick and fascinating breakdown by total amount held and percentage of total US debt, according to Business Insider:

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9%)
Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1%)
Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1%)
Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5%)
Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6%)
Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2%)
Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1%)
State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2%)
Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4%)
United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4%)
Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5%)
State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5%)
Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4%)
US households: $959.4 billion (6.6%)
China: $1.16 trillion (8%)
The US Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3%)
US Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19%)

So foreigners own about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion and there's where a default would hurt the worst!

Obama using scare tactics via television interviews rather than working on the problem

2011-07-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well President Obama warned us yesterday that retirees might not receive their Social Security checks in August if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on how to reduce the federal debt.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Obama told CBS's Scott Pelley in an interview set to air tonight on the CBS Evening News.

Here's my response....."Why don't you quit giving all these television interviews and actually go work on fixing the problem?"

Roughly $20 billion in Social Security checks are set to be mailed out on Aug. 3--a day after the Treasury Department says the US will begin defaulting on its financial obligations unless the debt ceiling is raised.

But the president cautioned that it's more than just Social Security checks that could be affected. "These are veterans' checks. These are folks on disability," Obama said, according to excerpts released by CBS News. "There are about 70 million checks that go out."

The president's comments come a day after he warned of dire financial consequences should Republicans and Democrats fail to come to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling and paying down the deficit. In a press conference yesterday, Obama said if Republicans fail to compromise on a debt deal that it could "throw millions of more people out of work."

Obama and congressional leaders are set to meet again later today as the two sides continue to bicker over the debt ceiling and how to shore up the nation's dire fiscal state. The White House is pressing for an agreement by July 22nd (a little over a week before Aug 2), the date when Treasury officials say the US will hit its debt limit.

Get to work please Mr President and stop running around using fear tactics on the American public. Get a room. Sit both leaderships down. Hammer out a compromise. Get on with business rather than promoting your own personal agenda that is not in the best interests of our country!

US House of Representatives sends Obama message on Libya

2011-06-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama asked Congress for the authority for US military operations against Libya. On Friday the House of Representatives sent a resounding vote of no. In a repudiation of the commander in chief, the House voted overwhelmingly against a resolution that would have favored letting the mission continue for one year while barring American ground forces.

Even after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a final hour plea the vote was 295-123, with 70 Democrats abandoning Obama's stance on Libya. The Republican leader of the House, Speaker John Boehner, said he supported the president's authority as commander in chief. "But when the president chooses to challenge the powers of the Congress, I as speaker of the House will defend the constitutional authority of the Legislature," he said.

House Republicans and some Democrats are furious with Obama for failing to seek congressional authorization as required under the War Powers Resolution. The 1973 law, often ignored by Republican and Democratic presidents, says the commander in chief must seek congressional consent for military actions within 60 days. That deadline has long passed.

Earlier this month, the House voted 268-145 to rebuke Obama for failing to provide a "compelling rationale" for the Libyan mission and for launching US military forces without congressional approval.

Pottermore - All Things for the Harry Potter fan

2011-06-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today famous author J.K. Rowling introduced the newest saga for the Harry Potter fan. Pottermore. The announcement was made via youtube and had been eagerly awaited for months by Potter fans. Details about the site come after months of guessing and social media hype.

The site goes live on July 31 when 1 million registered users will be chosen through an online competition to help flesh out the Pottermore world. Visitors can register now to enter that competition.

Rowling said she created the website to give back to Harry Potter's "muggle" followers. At Pottermore, users will be able to share comments, ideas and drawings about all things Harry Potter and even buy Harry Potter e-books. There is also a puzzle map called "Secret Street View," where users can enter secret map coordinates that spell out p-o-t-t-e-r-m-o-r-e.

The site lets fans delve into Harry Potter's beloved Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They can shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary Platform 9 3/4 at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts school houses by the perceptive Sorting Hat.

The deal brings longtime e-book refusnik Rowling into the digital fold, but comes as a bitter potion to established booksellers, who will be shut out of the latest chapter of a vastly profitable saga.

"You can't hold back progress," Rowling told reporters in London. "E-books are here and they are here to stay."

Rowling reiterated that she will not write any more Harry Potter books and that she is done writing in the immensely popular series. There could be an encyclopedia compiled though. The seven Harry Potter novels have made Rowling one of the world's richest women, with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1 billion.

Michelle Obama wasting American taxpayer dollars on another vacation

2011-06-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

Well it seems Michelle Obama is off on another one of her famous "vacations". Last fall it was Spain where US taxpayers picked up the tab for Air Force One and $100s of thousands of dollars for 70 secret service and security personnel. This time it is Africa and the taxpayer is footing the bill once again.

Just so Michelle Obama, her mom and kids can go on a vacation to Africa? There's our taxpayer dollars hard at work! Oh, my bad. It is an official visit according to the White House. Botswana? Seriously? A safari? Dinner at a game preserve? Sounds like an official visit to me.

Fresh off the "London Leisure Tour" that the American taxpayers funded and now off to Botswana with the entire family in tow. Isn't it wonderful that we give millions upon millions of our money to countries that hate us. Now we have to fund vacation after vacation for the President's family and friends.

A trip to Africa to inspire African youth....how about trying to inspire American youth. How about instead of wasting $10 million taxpayer dollars on a trip to Africa we put that money to work in towns in the USA that have a need?

Some disheartening facts about the Barack Obama Presidency

2011-06-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some facts about the Barack Obama Presidency thus far. Nothing short of disheartening to say the least.

1. Doubled the national debt in a single year

2. Proposed to double the debt again within 10 years

3. Joined the country of Mexico and sued a state in the United States to force that state to continue to allow illegal immigration

4. Put 87,000 workers out of work by arbitrarily placing a moratorium on offshore oil drilling on companies that have one of the best safety records of any industry because one foreign company had an accident

5. Used a forged document as the basis of the moratorium that would render 87,000 American workers unemployed

6. Spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take his First Lady to a play in NYC

7. Reduced your retirement plan holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM

8. Given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift

9. Given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches

10. Visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language"

11. Stated that there were 57 states in the United States

12. Flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in his home town

13. Been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again

14. Burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day

15. Ok'd Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic

16. Failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans

17. Created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate confirmation process

WAKE UP FOLKS. These are not "political assertions" designed to make BO "look bad" (he does a very fine job of that without any help) - they are simply just some of the facts of his actions.

Now, the question before the good people of America is: Can we really stand anymore of him in office?

President Obama completely out of touch with Texas border problems

2011-05-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

Tuesday President Barack Obama visited El Paso, Texas and proved just how out of touch he was with the border issues facing Texas. Fighting political gridlock that has doomed immigration legislation for years, President Obama made his first visit to the border since taking office and told activists and immigrant rights supporters it’s up to them to force Congress to act.

Instead, he made the case that with more Border Patrol agents, a border fence and falling crime rates, he has checked border security off the to-do list. Obama proclaimed the border fence done and the Texas-Mexican border secure drawing jeers and boos from the crowd. Obviously he has not been keeping up with the press reports over the last few years giving evidence of out of control drug cartels and murder after murder.

Illegal immigration continues to be out of control with immigrants crossing the border and receiving free benefits from the American taxpayers. The border has been reported as 44% secure. Texans begged to differ with the Obama position.

“Mr. President, 44% is a failing grade,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican. “If 44% is the most secure the border has ever been, it’s time to get to work to improve the grade. The American people expect nothing less than an A+ on border security.”

The President was booed once again when he said his administration is just a few miles shy of completing hundreds of miles of border fencing - something he supported when he was in the Senate. In truth there are hundreds of miles of unsecured and completely open border.

Miley Cyrus smoking Parliament cigarettes

2011-04-29T18:14:00.002-07:00

Well it seems our young Miley Cyrus is growing up. Rumours of Miley Cyrus smoking have been around for months, but there have not been any real good pictures. Now she has been pictured with a pack of Parliament cigarettes sticking out of her purse lending credibility to the smoking rumour. It should be no surprise Miley Cyrus is smoking as she joins a long list of young Hollywood actress/singers to take up smoking.

Young, attractive actesses and singers such as Kristen Stewart, Emma Roberts, Britney Spears and Hayden Panettiere all confirmed smokers. One must admit that is quite a sexy picture and the pack of cigarettes just adds to her mystery and sex appeal.

Now we are just waiting on the "definitive" smoking pictures of Miley Cyrus where she is actually photographed in the act of smoking a cigarette. Those should be coming soon as Miley is clearly becoming more bold allowing the pack of Parliaments to be seen sticking from her purse.

What are your thoughts on Miley Cyrus smoking?

How does Fukushima differ from Chernobyl?

2011-04-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

Japan has raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis to put it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world's worst nuclear power disaster. But for all their criticism of how Tokyo Electric Power and Japan's government are handling the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, experts agree with them on one point: Fukushima is not another Chernobyl.

"Fukushima has its own unique risks, but comparing it to Chernobyl is going too far. Fukushima is unlikely to have the kind of impact on the health of people in neighboring countries, the way Chernobyl did," said nuclear specialist Kenji Sumita at Osaka University.

Here are the main points of how the two accidents differ.

ARE THE TWO DESIGNS THE SAME?
Unit 4 at Chernobyl was a water-cooled and graphite-moderated reactor, a combination that can and did yield a runaway chain reaction. A series of gross errors and misjudgment by operators resulted in an explosion and fire that catapulted radioactivity into the upper atmosphere.

The resulting release of radiation has been compared to 10 times that released by the 1945 US nuclear bomb attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The boiling water reactors at Fukushima do not have a combustible graphite core. The nuclear fuel in reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 was allowed to melt at least partially, but operators have since succeeded in cooling both the reactors and the spent fuel pools and no chain reaction is happening now.

As long as cooling operations continue and Japan can prepare tanks fast enough to store the contamination overflow, Japan can still hope to buy time to figure out how to bring the reactors to a cold shutdown.

HOW DO THE CONTAINMENT STRUCTURES DIFFER?
Chernobyl had no containment structure and nothing stopped the trajectory of radioactive materials into the air. Fukushima's reactors are built on granite foundations and are surrounded by steel and concrete structures. The reactor vessels and containment structures, as well as some of the pipes leading from the reactors, are likely to have been damaged by the March 11 tsunami and recurring earthquakes. But with radiation levels now down to a sliver of what they were at the peak, experts say that the structures are still holding. Chernobyl contaminated an area as far as 300 miles from the plant, and an area spanning 18 miles around the plant is still an exclusion zone and uninhabited.

HAVE THERE BEEN FALLOUT-LINKED DEATHS IN JAPAN?
At Fukushima, there have been no deaths so far due to radiation. Eight people have been injured. More deadly have been the 9.0 magnitude quake that hit on March 11 and the aftershocks that have rocked the site while workers tried to bring the plant under control. Two have died and three have been critically injured.

At Chernobyl, the initial explosion resulted in the death of two workers. Twenty-eight of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the first three months after the explosion from acute radiation sickness and one died of cardiac arrest.

FLOW OF INFORMATION VERSUS COVER UP
Bungling, yes. Disorganized, incoherent and sometimes contradictory, yes. But it is difficult to accuse Japanese officials or TEPCO of intentionally covering up information, with round-the-clock updates and a steady stream of data.

Chernobyl was initially covered up by the secretive Soviet state, which remained silent for two days. But authorities, obliged by huge radiation releases throughout Europe, gradually disclosed details of the accident, showing unprecedented Soviet-era openness.

DOES FUKUSHIMA POSE A GREATER RISK IF IT ALL GOES WRONG?
It's not over yet. One month since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, workers still have to inject water into the reactors, creating more contaminated water that is hampering the restoration of power to pumps to cool the reactors and bring them to a cold shutdown.

The situation led a frustrated and demoralized TEPCO spokesman to say that the total fallout could exceed that of Chernobyl. Fukushima involves loss of control at four reactors and potentially more radioactive material, that could continue to seep, leak or burst into the environment. Officials have said that if power cannot be restored to the cooling pumps, there are other measures, such as air cooling, and that in a worst-case scenario, they could try water entombment in the reactors whose containment structures are sound.

Obama flip-flops on raising debt limit

2011-04-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

Talk about sounding hyporitical. Here is a speach by Obama from the Senate floor in 2006:
"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that 'the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem."

Now the same man is asking Congress top raise the debt ceiling. The country will reach its debt limit of $14.3 trillion by May 16. Instead of actually trying to do something to bring the debt down Obama is asking Congress to just raise the limit. Basically, just allowing the government to spend more mony that we don't have. Eventually the ridiculous debt is going to have to be dealt with.

"The president has asked us to increase the debt limit, in other words to increase the limit on the credit card, without doing anything about the source of the problem. And we've got to deal with the source of the problem," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Monday on Fox News Channel.

France struggling to lead UN in Libya

2011-04-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

France responded to rising criticism Wednesday from eastern Libyan rebels stating that NATO is not doing enough to protect them from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafis forces, as the air campaign nears the three-week mark. The rebels posit that NATO is overly concerned with avoiding civilian casualties, and as a result, it is allowing the Libyan army to regain territory lost during its low point last week.

Indeed, the armys most recent counteroffensive has taken it back through Brega, with Ajdabiya now within its sights once again, while the rebel enclave of Misrata in western Libya continues to get bombarded by loyalist forces on a daily basis. France, which was the biggest proponent of involvement in Libya from the start, would very much like to step up the intensity of the campaign against Gadhafi, but is handicapped by the rules of engagement that NATO is operating under and the inherent limitations of airpower.

Thus, French officials took time Wednesday to explain why it is not Parisfault that NATO jets are not pursuing the enemy more aggressively and how France was trying to adjust the way the military operation is being conducted.

French Foreign Minister Alan Juppe and French Chief of Defense Staff Adm. Edouard Guillaud both said Wednesday that NATOs aversion to killing civilians is the main problem facing the operation. While Juppe was slightly less direct in his criticism of NATO, Paris clearly sees the current situation as unlikely to lead to any real success on the battlefield. More than two weeks of daily airstrikes have taken out almost all of the easy targets, and Gadhafi has shifted his tactics to avoid drawing enemy fire, meaning that a stalemate is fast approaching.

Indeed, Juppe expressed fears that at the current pace, NATO forces risk getting bogged down in a situation that has the ability to linger on for months without producing a clear-cut winner.

NATO officials tried to defend its record in response to the rebel criticism and the French complaints, with one spokesman saying Wednesday that its planes have flown more than 1,000 sorties with at least 400 of them strike sorties in the last six days, and on April 5 alone it flew 155 sorties, with almost 200 planned for Wednesday. This is unlikely to mollify concerns from those who want more intense action, however, about the potential for the Libyan intervention to accomplish nothing but create an uneasy, de facto partition. As no one, not even Paris, wants to put boots on the ground, though, the best solution Jupee could proffer was to broach the topic of NATOs timid approach with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in a Wednesday meeting. There, he was expected to push the suggestion for NATO to create a safe sea lane connecting Misrata to Benghazi, so that supplies could be shipped in by unknown naval forces.

The Middle East Crisis Has Just Begun

2011-03-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

Despite the military drama unfolding in Libya, the Middle East is only beginning to unravel. American policy-makers have been spoiled by events in Tunisia and Egypt, both of which boast relatively sturdy institutions, civil society associations and middle classes, as well as being age-old clusters of civilization where states of one form or another have existed since antiquity. Darker terrain awaits us elsewhere in the region, where states will substantially weaken once the carapace of tyranny crumbles. The crucial tests lie ahead, beyond the distraction of Libya.

The United States may be a democracy, but it is also a status quo power, whose position in the world depends on the world staying as it is. In the Middle East, the status quo is unsustainable because populations are no longer afraid of their rulers. Every country is now in play. Even in Syria, with its grisly security services, widespread demonstrations have been reported and protesters killed. There will be no way to appease the region's rival sects, ethnicities and other interest groups except through some form of democratic representation, but anarchic quasi-democracy will satisfy no one. Other groups will emerge, and they may be distinctly illiberal.

Whatever happens in Libya, it is not necessarily a bellwether for the Middle East. The Iranian green movement knows that Western air forces and navies are not about to bomb Iran in the event of a popular uprising, so it is unclear what lesson we are providing to the region. Because outside of Iran, and with the arguable exceptions of Syria and Libya itself, there is no short-term benefit for the US in democratic revolts in the region. In fact, they could be quite destructive to our interests, even as they prove to be unstoppable.

Yemen, strategically located on the Gulf of Aden, as well as the demographic core of the Arabian Peninsula and a haunt of al Qaeda, is more important to American interests than Libya. In Yemen, too, a longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has shot protesters in the street to keep order. Yemen constitutes the most armed populace in the world, with almost four times as many firearms as people. It is fast running out of ground water, and the median age of the population is 17. This is to say nothing of the geographical, political and sectarian divisions in the sprawling, mountainous country. However badly Mr. Saleh has ruled Yemen, more chaos may follow him. Coverage by Al Jazeera can help to overthrow a government like his, but it can't help to organize new governments.

In Jordan, at the other end of the Arabian Peninsula, democratic pressure will force King Abdullah to give more power to the Islamists and to urban Palestinians. The era of a dependable, pro-Western Jordan living in peace with Israel may not go on indefinitely. Bahrain, meanwhile, may descend into a low-level civil war. The country's Shia have legitimate complaints against the ruling Sunni royal family, but their goals will play into Iranian hands.

Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain and the other Gulf states are all individually more important than Libya because they constitute Saudi Arabia's critical near-abroad. In this era of weakening central authority throughout the Middle East, the core question for the US will be which regime lasts longer: Saudi Arabia's or Iran's. If the Saudi monarchy turns out to have more staying power, we will wrest a great strategic victory from this process of unrest; if Iran's theocracy prevails, it will signal a fundamental eclipse of American influence in the Middle East.

Criticize the Saudi royals all you want—their country requires dramatic economic reform, and fast—but who and what would replace them? There is no credible successor on the horizon. Even as Saudi Arabia's youthful population, 40% of which is unemployed, becomes more restive, harmony within the royal family is beginning to fray as the present generation of leaders gives way to a new one. And nothing spells more trouble for a closed political system than a divided elite. Yes, Iran experienced massive antiregime demonstrations in 2009 and smaller ones more recently. But the opposition there is divided, and the regime encompasses various well-institutionalized power centers, thus making a decapitation strategy particularly hard to achieve. The al Sauds may yet fall before the mullahs do, and our simplistic calls for Arab democracy only increase that possibility.

Democracy is part of America's very identity, and thus we benefit in a world of more democracies. But this is no reason to delude ourselves about grand historical schemes or to forget our wider interests. Precisely because so much of the Middle East is in upheaval, we must avoid entanglements and stay out of the domestic affairs of the region. We must keep our powder dry for crises ahead that might matter much more than those of today.

Our most important national security resource is the time that our top policy makers can devote to a problem, so it is crucial to avoid distractions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fragility of Pakistan, Iran's rush to nuclear power, a possible Israeli military response—these are all major challenges that have not gone away. This is to say nothing of rising Chinese naval power and Beijing's ongoing attempt to Finlandize much of East Asia.

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power. We intervened twice in the Balkans in the 1990s only because Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic had no nuclear weapons and could not retaliate against us, unlike the Russians, whose destruction of Chechnya prompted no thought of intervention on our part (nor did ethnic cleansing elsewhere in the Caucasus, because it was in Russia's sphere of influence). At present, helping the embattled Libyan rebels does not affect our interests, so we stand up for human rights there. But helping Bahrain's embattled Shia, or Yemen's antiregime protesters, would undermine key allies, so we do nothing as demonstrators are killed in the streets.

Of course, just because we can't help everywhere does not mean we can't help somewhere. President Barack Obama has steered a reasonable middle course. He was right to delay action in Libya until the Arab League, the United Nations Security Council, France and Great Britain were fully on board, and even then to restrict our military actions and objectives. He doesn't want the US to own the Libyan problem, which could drag on chaotically for years. President Obama is not feeble, as some have said; he is cunning.

Like former President George H.W. Bush during the collapse of the Soviet Union, he intuits that when history is set in motion by forces greater than our own, we should interfere as little as possible so as not to provoke unintended consequences. The dog that didn't bark when the Berlin Wall fell was the intervention of Soviet troops to restore parts of the empire. The dog that won't bark now, we should hope, is the weakening of the Saudi monarchy, to which America's vital interests are tied. So long as the current regime in Iran remains in place, the U.S. should not do anything to encourage protests in Riyadh.

In the background of the ongoing Middle Eastern drama looms the shadow of a rising China. China is not a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, as we proclaim it should be; it is a free rider. We are at war in Afghanistan to make it a safe place for China to extract minerals and metals. We have liberated Iraq so that Chinese firms can extract its oil. Now we are at war with Libya, which further diverts us from concentrating on the western Pacific—the center of the world's economic and naval activity—which the Chinese military seeks eventually to dominate.

Every time we intervene somewhere, it quickens the pace at which China, whose leaders relish obscurity in international affairs, closes the gap with us. China will have economic and political problems of its own ahead, no doubt, and these will interrupt its rise. But China is spending much less to acquire an overseas maritime empire than we are spending, with all our interventions, merely to maintain ours.

The arch-realist approach would be to forswear a moral narrative altogether and to concentrate instead on our narrow interests in the Middle East. The problem is that if we don't provide a narrative, others will, notably al Qaeda, whose fortunes will rise as the region's dictators, with their useful security services, struggle to survive. But we should craft our narrative with care. It should focus on the need for political and social reform, not on regime change.

Order is preferable to disorder. Just consider what happened to Iraq after we toppled Saddam Hussein. The US should not want Iraq's immediate past to be a foretaste of the region's future.

Solar Energy is likely to benefit from nuclear problems

2011-03-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

With the recent problems at the nuclear power plants in Japan, solar energy is looking to be the big beneficiary of a shift to safer energy sources. Solar stocks have been on the upswing in recent weeks as Japan's tragic nuclear crisis has led investors away from nuclear stocks and towards alternative energy plays. Companies such as LDK Solar (NYSE:LDK) and Yingli Green Energy (NYSE:YGE) are expanding their business quickly.

Japan's devastating earthquake may impact solar in both the short and the long term. Japan accounts for around 10% of total world solar production, and in the near term there will be a reduction in supply of polysilicon, solar wafers, cells and modules from Japanese manufacturers that have been idled.

Longer term, alternative energy bulls are hopeful that solar will be a direct beneficiary of a shift in Japan's energy strategy. Last week Jefferies analyst Jesse Pichel argued in a research note that solar power could help Japan deal with the nuclear facility shutdowns. He asserted the country could add a significant amount of photovoltaic power over the next few months.

Recently LDK Solar swung to a 4th quarter profit as the solar wafer manufacturer posted growth in shipments and revenue. LDK said profits totaled $145.2 million compared to a loss of $24.3 million.

ESPN The Magazine ranks TCU #1 for developing NFL talent

2011-03-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

ESPN The Magazine senior writer Bruce Feldman has ranked TCU football #1 nationally for its ability to develop National Football League talent. The Horned Frogs' top ranking comes from head coach Gary Patterson being able to consistently develop NFL draft talent out of unheralded recruits.

TCU consensus first-team All-Americans Jerry Hughes (2008, 2009) and Jake Kirkpatrick (2010) were two-star recruits.

Hughes, a 2010 first-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts, won the Ted Hendricks Award as the nation's best defensive end. He was also the Lott Trophy winner. Kirkpatrick was the 2010 recipient of the Rimington Trophy, honoring the nation's top center.

Current NFL players who were also two-star recruits for TCU include tailback Aaron Brown (Detroit), offensive tackle Marshall Newhouse (Green Bay) and linebacker Jason Phillips (Baltimore).

Offensive tackle Marcus Cannon and quarterback Andy Dalton, projected draft picks this spring, were both three-star recruits. Dalton was ranked as the nation's 82nd best quarterback coming out of Katy (Texas) High School.

Among current Horned Frogs, All-America linebacker Tank Carder and 1,000-yard rusher Ed Wesley were two-star recruits that have flourished. TCU had 24 players drafted and 48 in NFL camps through Patterson's first nine years as head coach. Thirteen former TCU players are currently on NFL rosters.

In 2011, the Horned Frogs put together their first national top 25 ranked recruiting class.

Huge Earthquake moves island of Japan 8 feet

2011-03-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet and shifted the Earth on its axis.

"At this point, we know that one GPS station moved 8 feet, and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass," said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9 magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches. Friday's monster quake killed hundreds of people and caused the formation of 30 foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.

The quake was the most powerful to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed traveled across the Pacific Ocean, triggering tsunami warnings and alerts for 50 countries and territories as far away as the western coasts of Canada, the US and Chile. The quake triggered more than 160 aftershocks in the first 24 hours with 141 measuring 5.0 magnitude or more.

The quake occurred as the Earth's crust ruptured along an area about 250 miles long by 100 miles wide, as tectonic plates slipped more than 18 meters, said Shengzao Chen, a USGS geophysicist.

Japan is located along the Pacific "ring of fire," an area of high seismic and volcanic activity stretching from New Zealand in the South Pacific up through Japan, across to Alaska and down the west coasts of North and South America. The quake was "hundreds of times larger" than the 2010 quake that ravaged Haiti, said Jim Gaherty of the LaMont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

The Japanese quake was of similar strength to the 2004 earthquake in Indonesia that triggered a tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean. "The tsunami that it sent out was roughly comparable in terms of size," Gaherty said. "[The 2004 tsunami] happened to hit some regions that were not very prepared for tsunamis ... we didn't really have a very sophisticated tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean basin at the time so the damage was significantly worse."

The Japanese quake comes just weeks after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck New Zealand on February 22, toppling historic buildings and killing more than 150 people. The timeframe of the two quakes have raised questions whether the two incidents are related, but experts say the distance between the two incidents makes that unlikely.

"I would think the connection is very slim," said Prof. Stephan Grilli, ocean engineering professor at the University of Rhode Island.

Huge Earthquake strikes off Japan sending tsunami's towards US and Hawaii

2011-03-11T01:38:00.001-08:00

A monster magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off Japan's eastern coast, unleashing a 10 meter tsunami that swept boats, cars, houses and tons of debris miles inland. The quake was so strong it was felt all the way in China. Tsunami warnings have gone out all across the Pacific as tsunami fears are rising. It is officially the largest earthquke to strike Japan since records have been kept.

Fires triggered by the quake burned out of control up and down the Japan coast, including one at an oil refinery. The devastation left by the quake and the waves will be massive and the loss of life is unavaoidable. About 4.4 million people in Japan are currently without power and public transportation is at a standstill. Japan's meteorological agency said that within two hours, large tsunamis washed ashore into dozens of cities along the country's eastern shore, from the northern island of Hokkaido to central Wakayama prefecture.

The tsunami also roared over embankments in Sendai city, washing cars, houses and farm equipment inland before reversing directions and carrying them out to sea. Flames shot from some of the houses, probably because of burst gas pipes.

Hawaii is expecting several tsunami waves the first of which is expected near 3am local time and could be up to 6 feet in height. It is yet to be seen if the waves will reach all the way to the United States coast. California has issued warnings that the waves could reach there around 8am local time.

Soccer-recruiting.com for the prospective college soccer player

2011-03-10T03:22:00.000-08:00

For a club soccer player one of the ultimate goals is to get to play college ball. Soccer-recruiting.com is for all the club soccer players that have a goal of playing college soccer. Available right now from soccer-recruiting.com is a great packet with pages of useful information and advice on how to navigate the college soccer recruiting process.

Everything from identifying the right college soccer program to the best ways to contact that program as well as information on college showcasing and what to expect from the college soccer game. Here are the chapters from the packet:
I.Identifying colleges of interest - Everything from quality of soccer program and roster size to academics offered and scholarships available plus much more will be discussed in this section.
II.Communicating with target colleges - the best ways and when to make contact with your target schools. Also how to respond to coaches as well as all the NCAA recruiting rules will be the topic here.
III.Campus visits - advice on scheduling visits and topics to discuss while on the visit. Also NCAA rules for unofficial and officail visits will be outlined.
IV.Showcasing - how to best take advantage of the showcasing process from when and how to contact as well as the rules for approaching college coaches.
V.Summer camps - the advantages of the college summer camp and how to best utililize them to gain scholarships.
VI.NCAA Clearinghouse - what purpose does the NCAA Clearinghouse serves and how to register to become compliant. Information on where and when to register.
VII.Financial aid/scholarships - everything from how athletic scholarships are broken down to the financial aid part of the equation is touched upon.
VIII.Preparations for the college game - how to best prepare as a player for the step up. Advice on training and what to expect when you arrive on campus.

Trouble in Bahrain a big opportunity for Iran

2011-03-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

Several significant Bahrain-related developments occurred on March 7 as the Sunni monarchy ruling the Persian Gulf Arab kingdom tried to deal with an uprising led by its overwhelmingly Shiite population. Although Iranian state media denied earlier reports in the Arab press that a Bahraini delegation had traveled to Tehran on Feb. 27, Saudi sources said the Bahraini delegation was led by the kingdom’s Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa. There were also reports in the Saudi media discussing a March visit of the Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa to Riyadh.

While the Bahraini crown prince did indeed travel to Saudi Arabia, it is not certain Bahrain's prime minister traveled to Iran. The purpose of the purported visit was apparently to seek Iranian assistance for Manama’s attempts to pacify the Bahraini Shiites. Whether or not Bahrain sent a delegation to Tehran, the key fact remains that Bahrain is geopolitically caught between the Saudis and the Iranians.

Bahrain, an island nation, is linked via a causeway to Saudi Arabia and through its Sunni al-Khalifa rulers. At the same time, some 70% of the country's Shiite population, whose political principals are Islamist, pulls the tiny Arab country into the orbit of Iran. In fact, the country only came under Sunni Arab rule toward the end of the 18th century. Prior to that Bahrain was under various periods of Persian and Shia control for many centuries.

The unrest in the region, especially in Bahrain, provides the Iranians with a historic opportunity to wrest Bahrain from Sunni Arab control and gain a foothold on the other side of the Persian Gulf. The Iranians are not about to squander this opportunity. Tehran has long been engaged in covert intelligence operations in Bahrain.

From Iran’s point of view, the current situation where the al-Khalifas are in negotiations with the largely Shiite opposition should at the very least result in a compromise offering significant concessions to the majority community. The al-Khalifas may have to give up some powers to parliament. Such an outcome is unpalatable for Saudi Arabia and the United States.

More problematic is that Riyadh and Washington do not have many good options to prevent the empowerment of the Bahraini Shia and Tehran. The Saudis have no qualms about opposing the demand for democracy but they have very little room to maneuver. The Americans have far more room to maneuver but cannot oppose calls for the monarchy to engage in democratic political reforms.

In the end, public agitation for democracy in the Arab world is a potentially powerful tool in Tehran’s hands. First, it allows the Iranians to turn an American weapon against Washington. Second, it could do away with structures that have thus far blocked Iran. Third, it empowers the Islamic republic’s Arab Shiite allies. Regional geopolitical conditions have never been this favorable for Iran since the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic.

Hosni Mubarak - What part of "Go Away" do you not understand?

2011-02-10T13:20:00.000-08:00

Tonight Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak made a recorded speech to the Egyptian people and the world. What he had to say was just not acceptable. He did announce he was handing over some of his powers to his vice president Omar Suleiman, but basically said Mubarak would be staying on until elections in September.

Protesters in Cairo's central Tahrir Square, hoping he would announce his resignation outright, watched in stunned silence to his speech, slapping their hands to their foreheads in anger, some crying or waving their shoes in the air in a sign of contempt. After he finished, they resumed their chants of "Leave! Leave! Leave!"

Seventeen days of protests have not gotten the message across to Mubarak. Strikes have brought the economy to its knees. Yet Hosni Mubarak continues to cling to power. It is going to take a crowbar to get him out of power.

Concerns are for tomorrow as the crowd grows angrier by the minute. Shock. Disbelief. Anger. Those are the emotions in Tahrir Square and those eotions are expected to spill over when daylight comes. Will the people continue to support the military? Will the military continue to stand by? If either of those conditions erode then it could be quite ugly. So all eyes continue to be on Egypt as they struggle to move forward. Everyday that goes by without resolution moves Egypt closer to a crisis.

The Basics of Rockhounding

2011-01-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

Rockhounding can be very rewarding for both the serious collector as well as the hobbyist. I think everybody has a little rockhound in us. I can remember the times when I was a little kid searching around my grandmothers creekbed finding fossils and having a blast all by myself.

Every collector, regardless of how serious they are, will need to know a few basic tools. Everyone needs a geologists hammer (geopick). The geopick is a hammer which is flat on one end and comes wither to a point or chisel on the other. If you are more serious about your collecting you can invest in a crack hammer, pry bar, chisels and wedges to aid in your collecting.

The Do's and Dont's of Rockhounding
The Do's
1. carry lots of water
2. communicate with others where you are going
3. watch for snakes, cactus or other dangerous plants or animals
4. be careful with fires
5. watch the weather
6. carry sun lotion & wear a hat

The Dont's
1. go anywhere alone
2. drive where your vehicle cannot
3. leave trash behind
4. trespass
5. collect more than you need

Ohio State President gives senile view of BCS

2010-11-24T15:10:00.001-08:00

So the Ohio State President E Gordon Gee went off and flapped his guns the other day saying how Boise State and TCU do not deserve a shot at the national title over a 1 loss Ohio State claiming their schedules are not strong enough. First I will respond to the schedule issue.

Let's look at the Ohio State schedule for this year.....Hmmmm....Marshall, Ohio, Eastern Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois. A murderers row for sure. In fact, Ohio State will have played exactly two teams that are ranked by the end of the season and they will have lost one of those two (Iowa). One win. Boise State will have played two and TCU will have played one. So throw that schedule issue out the window.

Here are some exerpts the response from TCU AD Chris Del Conte from his interview on ESPN radio:
1. TCU is 16-3 against BCS schools over the last decade.
2. We know we've arrived when the president of a major university makes these kinds of comments, you know we are on a national stage when this happens
3. Buckeyes vs. Horned Frogs -- anytime, any place -- we'll tee it up!
4. On teams who haven't played us and don't know us yet...."When they get their teeth knocked in, they'll know who we are"....

Here is the response from the Boise State President Chadd Cripe:
1. "Presidents who stand up and talk about values and trust and fairness and access and equity speak with forked tongue when it comes to athletics — and it makes no sense to me how they can be so absolutely wrong and know it and yet stand up as the pillars of moral rectitude."

What a joke. Both TCU and Boise would blast Ohio State this year head to head. Too bad Ohio State would never schedule either school as they are too busy with a nonconference schedule of Marshall, Ohio and Eastern Michigan.

Some interesting statistics regarding ObamaCare

2010-11-16T10:40:00.000-08:00

A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization. The article included a survey comparing the US healthcare system with the socialized healthcare systems in Canada and England which ObamaCare moves the nation towards.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71%
England 14%
Canada 18%

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%

I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada.

This explains the business sense of the Obama administration

2010-11-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in the private business sector prior to their appointment to the cabinet. You know what the private business sector is... a real life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages:

T. Roosevelt........ 38%
Taft...................40%
Wilson ...............52%
Harding...............49%
Coolidge............ 48%
Hoover............... 42%
F. Roosevelt........ 50%
Truman................50%
Eisenhower...........57%
Kennedy............. 30%
Johnson...............47%
Nixon................. 53%
Ford...................42%
Carter................ 32%
Reagan................56%
GH Bush.............. 51%
Clinton ............... 39%
GW Bush.............. 55%

And the winner is:
Obama................ 8%

This alone can explain the business incompetence of this administration.
Yep! That's right! Only Eight Percent! The least by far of the last 19 presidents!! And these people are trying to tell our big corporations how to run their business? They know what's best for GM...Chrysler... Wall Street... and you and me?

How can the president of a major nation and society...the one with the most successful economic system in world history..stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one?.. or about jobs when he has never really had one??! And neither has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers! They've spent most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit jobs....or as "community organizers" when they should have been in an employment line.

Three Cheers to Oklahoma for a great Vote!

2010-11-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

Wow, there's seems to be a small patch of sanity left in this country out in Oklahoma. It's appears to be one of the few places in America that's still American. Last night's vote proved it. They rejected European health care, Mexican language, international law, Islamic law, and made it so only people who can prove they are Americans can vote. Three cheers for Oklahoma on a great vote!

Aren't these three measures common sense though? Seriously. Oklahoma passed a measure that states English is the state's "common and unifying language". Now what is wrong with that? This is America right?

Oklahoma also passed a measure stating that in order to vote you must produce a valid government-issued photo ID such as a social security card or drivers license. Any red blooded American will have no problem with this as well as we all have proper id.

Finally, Oklahoma passed a measure that prohibits state courts from considering international law or Islamic law when deciding cases. Well we are in America and when trying a case in America it probably should be based upon US laws.....just saying.....

So once again, Thank You Oklahoma for some common sense in your voting.

Thomas Sowell on the 2010 Election

2010-11-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

An important message from economist Thomas Sowell:

"Most elections are about particular policies, particular scandals or particular personalities. But these issues don't mean as much this year -- not because they are not important, but because this election is a crossroads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come. Runaway 'stimulus' spending, high unemployment and ObamaCare are all legitimate and important issues. It is just that freedom and survival are more important. For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObamaCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed. If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the Congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined. ... Other actions and proposals by this administration likewise represent moves in the direction of arbitrary rule, worthy of a banana republic, with only a mocking facade of freedom. These include threats against people who simply choose to express opinions counter to administration policy, such as a warning to an insurance company that there would be 'zero tolerance' for 'misinformation' when the insurance company said that ObamaCare would create costs that force up premiums. Zero tolerance for the right of free speech guaranteed by the Constitution? ... This election is a crossroads, because either [Barack Obama's] power will be curbed by depriving him of his huge Congressional majorities or he will continue on a road that jeopardizes both our freedom and our survival."

Eight simple ideas to promote your Facebook page

2010-10-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

Well I would venture to say that just about everybody is on Facebook these days. And with tons of individual users come the businesses and webpages that follow the potential consumer. So you want to build a Facebook page to promote your business, nonprofit or webpage? Here are 8 simple ideas to promote your Facebook page!

1.) Promote your page to your friends -- You have your own group of friends on Facebook and I am willing to bet some of them are interested in the work you do. Send them a personal message inviting them to check out your page. Just invite your friends who may truly be interested.

2.) Put a Facebook button on your webpage -- This might seem obvious, but most organizations don’t do it. Grab a button and flaunt it on your website, your blog, or anywhere else you have available pixels.

3.) Send updates to your fans -- Facebook allows you to send updates to your fans, and by all means you should. Just make sure they’re interesting to your fans, not just to yourself.

4.) Use Facebook Ads -- This is an inexpensive way to reach tons and tons of people. Create different ads targeting different chunks of your target audience, or several for the same audience, and track them to see which ones are most effective.

5.) Create an incentive to become a fan -- There are a lot of Facebook pages out there, so give people a reason to become a fan of yours. Have a monthly prize draw just for your fans, offer a discount to an upcoming event, or make special announcements on your page before you do elsewhere.

6.) Keep your Facebook page fresh -- Do not make the mistake of neglecting your Facebook page. Keep the content fresh. Don’t forget the viral nature of Facebook. When someone interacts on your page it may appear on that person’s Facebook feed, promoting your page to their friends.

7.) Interact with your fans -- Don’t leave your fans hanging. Respond to comments on your page. Ask them questions in the discussion board. When someone new becomes a fan of your page, sent them a message to say hello.

8.) Do not SPAM! This is actually one way not to promote your Facebook page, but just don’t do it. No one likes to receive Facebook updates every other day from anyone, so don’t abuse the privilege.

Best of luck on your Facebook journey. We have been using the above ideas to help promote our two Facebook pages, Soccermogul and Ecoistabode. Feel free to check us out on Facebook and we hope you enjoyed our eight simple ideas to promote your Facebook page!

What is BYU thinking?

2010-08-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, talk about dumbest move of the century. BYU going independent in football has to be one of the most ill-thought moves in college football history. BYU was already a program drifting downward. They have fallen well behind fellow Moutain West mates Utah and TCU. Adding Boise State to the MWC made BYU want to do nothing but run for the hills.

So what will be the result? BYU gets a game against Texas and then what is left of the WAC (not much after Boise, Neveada and Fresno are gone) is going to supplement part of the schedule. OK. So that's a game with Texas followed with Utah State, Hawaii, Idaho Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State. Now that's a great schedule shaping up there. Fill it out with other schools that aren't playing conference games in November that are willing to play.....ok so we'll finish the schedule with Akron, Memphis and North Texas.

Whew that's some bigtime college football there. But hey, at least BYU can air all their games on BYUTV and they won't have to get plastered by TCU on ESPN anymore.

Let's not even bring up the rest of BYU athletics which get thrown out the window completely. They get to play in the WCC conference. So much for BYU basketball. Can't wait for that conference home and home schedule of Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine, Portland and St Mary's.

So once again....BYU what are you thinking?

Welcome to the University of Texas Conference

2010-06-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Eliminate Nebraska: Check.

Eliminate Colorado: Check.

Eliminate Big 12 Championship Game, a game in which we came within an eyelash of losing last year: Check.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the University of Texas Conference.

When the Big 12 lost Colorado and Nebraska last week, the conference was on life support. Apparently that's right where Texas wanted it to be. UT manipulated this entire realignment situation to get more money while playing weaker competition.

Mission accomplished.

The resurrection of the Big 12 is nothing more than a stay of execution for the embattled conference. Sure, the conference higher ups will tell you that it's in the best interest of the league to continue on as a 10 team conference. They'd be wrong. The shift of power to the south, which is what ultimately sent Colorado and Nebraska packing, only becomes amplified with this 11th hour deal. In this new look Big 12, the winner of the Red River shootout between Texas and Oklahoma will essentially have a cake walk to the BCS Championship Game. Something tells me that's not going to go over well in the long run.

Texas' manipulation of the rest of the Big 12 is baffling, but the big picture is even more frustrating. College football took two steps toward the era of the super-conference last week. Sure, it wouldn't be a playoff, but it'd be a nice substitute. After all, we may not settle it on the field, but eventually, the major players would be on equal footing.

Monday evening, it took four steps back.

With this new Big 12 setup, we are farther away from a college football playoff than we've been since the pre-Bowl Coalition days. Do you think that the other conferences are going to allow a playoff to exist when they're not playing on equal ground? I don't.

Texas gets TV money. Texas gets its TV network. Texas will probably get a lot of Big 12 championships too. But it made a lot of enemies in the process. Hope it was worth it.

TCU athletics in select company

2010-06-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Only four schools in the country have top ten football and baseball programs this year. TCU, Texas, Alabama and Florida. All finished in the top 10 in football and have baseball teams make the super regional round.

It marks the second year in a row for TCU, a little fish in a big pond. The Horned Frogs are a small private school in Fort Worth that doesn't even have an enrollment of 10,000 students. Yet, they are becoming a force in college athletics. The football team has three top 10 finishes in the last five years. The baseball team is in their 2nd super regional in a row.

TCU baseball opens Super Regional play Friday at Texas. First pitch is 2 pm on ESPN2. Saturday's game is at noon on ESPN. Sunday's contest, if necessary, is at 3pm on ESPN.

Is War coming between North Korea and South Korea?

2010-05-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Is war coming between North Korea and South Korea? Last month's sinking of a South Korean warship and the recently released findings from the investigation have stoked the fire of hatred between the two countries. Tensions were rising on the divided Korean peninsula in the wake of an investigation report blaming North Korea for a torpedo attack that sank the Cheonan warship killing 46 South Korean sailors.

South Korea announced yesterday plans to slash trade with the North and to not allow North Korean shipping to pass through South Korean waters. Today North Korea responded by declaring it would cut all ties with the South until President Lee Myung-bak leaves office in early 2013. South Korean ships and airliners will be banned from passing through its territory and the North will start "all-out counterattacks" against the South's psychological warfare.

South Korea also wants to bring North Korea before the UN Security Council over the sinking. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he expects the council to take action against North Korea, but China has so far done little but urge calm on all sides.

Hopefully the sides will stop escalating tensions and avoid some sort of war.

Mountain West fires back at BCS

2010-05-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

From Sports Illustrated

The BCS fired back at Washington last week with a long letter in which BCS coordinator Bill Hancock, in the nicest possible way, asked Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and his congressional cronies to butt out and let the Old Boy Network keep running college football with the completely voluntary BCS. On Monday, the Washington-based law firm representing the Mountain West Conference and Boise State fired back at the BCS by presenting an intriguing question.

Why does the BCS offer automatic bids to conferences that don't hold up their end of the bargain competitively or economically? And why do some major bowls continue to do business with the group when they know they're going to get lower ratings and draw teams that bring fewer fans? Using data available on the Web sites of the BCS and the NCAA, attorneys at Arent Fox showed that since the end of the 2006 season, the Mountain West and WAC champions that have played in BCS bowls have, on average, been ranked higher, drawn better TV ratings and brought more fans to BCS games than the ACC and Big East champions -- which are guaranteed a spot in a BCS bowl because the ACC and Big East are part of the cartel that created the BCS in 1998.

This information isn't new, but this is the first time anyone has presented the data this way. It begs another question: Why do the ACC and Big East still hold automatic qualifying spots if they can't outdraw or beat in the ratings conferences with far fewer advantages? Obviously, the ACC and Big East beat the WAC and Mountain West in attendance and ratings during the regular season, but, as BCS leaders often point out, the BCS only controls college football's postseason.

Nothing can be done about this now, because all the contracts are signed through 2014. But when the BCS deal comes up for renewal, these questions should be asked. Because if the conferences and bowls that make up the BCS aren't acting in their own economic and competitive best interests, they're at best extremely poor businesspeople -- at worst guilty of collusion.

So with all due respect to Hancock and his request that the government butt out of the business of more than 100 taxpayer-funded universities, maybe the Justice Department has some evidence if it wants to investigate whether the BCS violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.

(A note before we go any further. The proposed Big Ten expansion and possible domino effect could render this discussion moot. The Big East and Big 12 could look radically different, and that could change the dynamics of the automatic qualifying berths. For now, though, we'll operate on the assumption that college football's power structure will remain essentially the same.)

BCS organizers have argued that schools such as Utah and Boise State would get far less without the BCS. That's entirely true. In his letter, Hancock argued that the 2008 Utah team would have played in the Las Vegas Bowl instead of the Sugar Bowl without BCS rules forcing one of the four BCS bowls to take the Utes. What BCS folks always fail to mention, though, is that those rules came into existence only after BCS leaders were dragged before Congress and threatened with government intervention.

So what do the Mountain West and WAC get for providing teams that make more money for the BCS' bowl and television partners than their ACC and Big East counterparts? They get to split their share of the money, the five have-nots receive about the same amount as an AQ conference that puts two teams in BCS bowls, with Conference USA, the MAC and the Sun Belt.

Hancock always argues that the five have-nots are welcome to split their share of the dough any way they wish, but consider this hypothetical. Let's say SI.com establishes a bonus pool for the writers who cover college sports and allows us to vote on how the pool is split. I have no hard data on this, but let's say Stewart Mandel brings far more traffic to the site than myself or college basketball writer Luke Winn because of his dazzling prose, devastating good looks and guilty-pleasure Lost podcasts. Let's say the discrepancy is so great that Mandel clearly deserves to keep all of the bonus money. How would Winn and I vote? We'd take the money, of course. It's human nature to look out for #1.

And that's exactly what happens with the have-nots in the BCS. This past year, the Mountain West sent TCU to the Fiesta Bowl and received $9.8 million. The WAC sent Boise State to the Fiesta Bowl and received $7.8 million. Conference USA, the MAC and the Sun Belt, which did nothing, received $2.8, $2.1 and $1.5 million, respectively. At the BCS meetings last month, Hancock said that split was the will of those conferences. Balderdash, said Alan Fishel, the Arent Fox attorney who represents the Mountain West and Boise State. "The BCS has created that fiction," Fishel said.

The Mountain West may play its way into the Old Boy Network for the final two years of this cycle. We know the bottom of the conference is keeping the Mountain West from reaching the necessary level to earn an automatic qualifying berth, but the league might soon poach Boise State from the WAC, and the Broncos would bolster all the average rankings the BCS uses to determine whether a have-not receives a golden ticket.

Still, why are golden tickets going to leagues that don't bring in additional gold? On Monday at the Big East meetings in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Big East commissioner John Marinatto said losing the conference's contractually guaranteed automatic bid is a non-issue. But why should the BCS extend the ACC and Big East's automatic qualifying status the next time around if they can't bring as much to the table as the Mountain West? The argument that the AQ conferences are more valuable commercial properties than the non-AQs is entirely correct, but all AQs are not created equal. The Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10 and SEC have pulled their weight for the BCS in the past five years by bringing in monster ratings and by filling stadiums. The Big East and ACC have not.

For sending Georgia Tech to an Orange Bowl played with empty seats and fewer television viewers than the Fiesta, the ACC received a cool $17.7 million. For argument's sake, let's assume the Fiesta Bowl's 8.23 rating, compared to the Orange's 6.80, was a result of the novelty of watching two teams from outside the power structure playing in a BCS bowl. That still doesn't explain why Georgia Tech didn't even sell its entire 17,500-ticket allotment.

That ratings discrepancy comes into sharper relief if we travel back a season. Utah's win over Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl received a 7.8 rating. Virginia Tech's win over Cincinnati in the 2009 Orange Bowl received a dismal 5.4 rating. Even more telling, the Sugar Bowl had a choice between the Mountain West's Utah and the Big East's Cincinnati. Sugar Bowl officials chose the Utes. The Mountain West received $9 million from the BCS for that season. The Big East, with a team in less demand than the team the Mountain West provided, received almost twice that.

So what will the BCS do next time around? Based on recent bowl ratings, only four conferences actually deserve automatic qualifying spots. If the government does back off and allows the BCS to keep running college football's postseason, it will be interesting to watch the next round of BCS contract negotiations. If, during those negotiations, the BCS continues to give more money and more power to conferences that can't hold up their end of the bargain, then maybe government intervention is necessary.

Because either the people running the BCS are fiscally irresponsible, or they're trying to keep the Old Boy Network in power no matter the cost.

Stephen Hawking: We should avoid contact with Aliens

2010-04-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

Famed British scientist Stephen Hawking is warning us that alien contact might not be the best thing. Hawking acknowledges that aliens could very well exist, but contact with Earth could bring devastating consequences. On the probability of alien life existing, he says: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational."

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach," warned Stephen Hawking. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."

Threats would not just be from attack. The aliens could carry diseases that Earthlife would be succeptable to.

Mankind has already made a number of attempts to contact extraterrestrial civilisations. The history of humanity's efforts to contact aliens stretches back some years. The US probes Pioneer 10 and 11 were launched in 1972 and 1973 bearing plaques of a naked man and woman and symbols seeking to convey the positions of the Earth and the Sun. Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977, each carry a gold-plated copper phonogram disk with recordings of sounds and images on Earth.

How Efficient was Cash for Clunkers?

2010-04-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

Just how efficient was the Cash for Clunkers program last year? I do agree that there is an environmental impact that cannot be quantified, but here is some number crunching to get at the monetary impact of the program. I thought it was quite interesting.

A 15 mpg clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 800 gallons of gas a year.

A 25 mpg vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year uses 480 gallons a year.

The average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

Reports were that about 700,000 clunkers were traded in using the program. So that is 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 for every dollar we saved.

The program did have some merits, but in the end it was extremely inefficient and not a good use of tax dollars........BUT......I'm pretty sure they will do a great job with our health care, though.

Democrats running scared as more announce retirements

2010-04-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Seems the Democrats forced healthcare upon us and then are running for the hills rather than face election campaigns that will more than likely see them have to answer to their contituents and most likely be voted out of office. The most controversial Democrat Representative of them all announced his plans to run away and hide i.e. retire today. Michigan Representative Bart Stupak, who sold out on the final day of the healthcare debate, announced he would not be seeking re-election.

Stupak was adamant that he was not running from the consequences of his controversial sellout.

"The tea party did not run me out," he said in a telephone interview. "If you know me and my personality, I would welcome the challenge."

Maybe the tea parties and angry constituents did not run him out, but it seems pretty obvious he is hiding from facing the music.

Bart Stupak's decision to bow out comes amid a string of recent retirements by Democrats, including Reps. William Delahunt of Massachusetts and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, and Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan.

Listen to the Texans when it comes to ObamaCare

2010-03-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

Nobody likes their freedoms and civil liberties more than Texans. Heck their state motto is "Don't Mess With Texas". The new Obama Healthcare Plan fires Texans up more than anything else. More government....socialism at its best...and forcing American citizens to take actions no matter what they feel only to be saddled with more taxation.

Here are some thoughts from the main Texas politicians on the Obama Healthcare Plan:

Governor Rick Perry, R-Texas:
"Unfortunately, the health care vote had more to do with expanding socialism on American soil than it does fixing our health care finance and delivery systems. The Obama health care bill undermines patient choice, personal responsibility, medical innovation and fiscal responsibility in America. As passed by the US House, the bill will cost Texas taxpayers billions more, and drive our nation much deeper into debt. Congress's backroom deals and parliamentary maneuvers undermined the public trust and increased cynicism in our political process. Texas leaders will continue to do everything in our power to fight this federal excess and find ways to protect our families, taxpayers and medical providers from this gross federal overreach."

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas:
“While Democrats in Washington have shown a willful disregard for the views of their constituents, I’m proud to continue to stand with the millions who have spoken out in opposition to the government takeover of our health care system. In tough economic times, the last thing our nation needs is higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, and an unconstitutional power grab by the federal government.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas:“Well, I think, you know, what this will demonstrate is the desperation of the Administration and Democrats in Congress to jam this bill through. And I don't underestimate their willingness to be ruthless about the process. So, that could happen. But I guarantee it will happen on television, on c-span, and on FOX News for 300 million people to see, and I think there will be a terrible price to be paid for this sort of defying public opinion.”

US Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio:
“The health care bill is built on the shifting sands of higher premiums, increased taxes and reduced benefits. Such a foundation cannot last and will be washed away by the American people in the November election.”

US Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin:“For Republicans our bill is too long or too short, it’s too thick or too thin, never just right, because their real answer to reform is ‘never, never, never!’ Our determined efforts should not be derided as a four letter word, but you can certainly sum up our many, many pages with 4 words—‘you’ve got health care.’"

US Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin:
“My Republican colleagues and I proposed legislation that would address the core reforms of ensuring access to care regardless of means and pre-existing conditions without needlessly punishing individuals, families and businesses, without killing jobs, and without driving an estimated one-third of doctors out of their profession, as is cited in the New England Journal of Medicine. Instead, the Democrats opted to push through their partisan, social agenda against the will of a majority of the American people.”

US Rep. John Carter, R-Georgetown:"An unconstitutional bill passed illegally will not stand as law," says Carter, a former Texas judge. Not only did President Obama and Speaker Pelosi act with utter contempt towards the voters by pushing this horror of a bill against the wishes of the majority of public, they violated House and Senate rules repeatedly to do so. This was the most convoluted, disingenuous, and deceptive legislative process in the history of Congress. This place is now truly a swamp of corruption."

William H. Fleming III, MD, president of the Texas Medical Association:
“Make no mistake — Texas physicians support health system reform — reform that truly puts our patients first. We’ve told Congress for the past year, to ‘keep what’s good and fix only what’s wrong’ in our health care system. Today, Congress did the opposite. It passed a bill that does nothing to fix glaring problems in our current health care system. Instead, it saddles Texans with higher costs, higher taxes, more red tape and more bureaucracy.”

Cathie Adams, Chairwoman, Republican Party of Texas:“To those Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats in Texas, today we send a message: In November, Texans will remember. It's time to fire Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and the surest way to do that is to vote Republican in November.”

Thomas J. Tradewell, Sr., President, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the US and its Auxiliaries:“The president and the Democratic leadership are betraying America's veterans…. And what makes matters worse is the leadership and the president knows the bill is flawed, yet they are pushing for passage today like it’s a do-or-die situation. This nation deserves the best from their elected officials, and the rush to pass legislation of this magnitude is not it.”

Healthcare win will cost Obama long term

2010-03-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama's victory on healthcare may spell defeat for his other domestic priorities if Republicans, incensed by Democrats' legislative tactics, succeed in blocking energy and immigration reform.

Obama, a Democrat, signed the controversial bill to overhaul the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry into law on Tuesday, delivering a major political victory for his party while antagonizing Republicans, who vowed to repeal the measure and fight his agenda going forward.

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of this year," Senator John McCain, Obama's opponent in the 2008 presidential election, told a radio program, criticizing the way Democrats steered the bill through Congress. "They have poisoned the well in what they have done and how they have done it," he said.

The healthcare legislation passed both houses of Congress without Republican votes, and many Democrats say the opposition party has done little to support Obama's agenda anyway.

Even so, if the legislative "well" is in fact poisoned, the impact could be broad.

Obama's hopes to upgrade US education standards, rewrite rules that govern the financial industry, fight climate change and address illegal immigration depend largely on his ability to get backing in the Senate, where Democrats lack the 60 votes necessary to overcome Republican procedural hurdles.

White House advisers, who see political momentum from the healthcare success, played down concerns about other policy initiatives being blocked.

"It would be a shame if, as a political strategy, the other side adopted a kind of 'just say no' approach," David Axelrod, one of Obama's top policy advisers, told Reuters, adding that was not what Americans wanted from their government.

"They want us to work together. They want us to disagree where we disagree and find common ground where we find common ground, and that's what the president's going to continue to work to do," he said.

Axelrod said the president would turn his attention to advancing financial regulatory reform and fighting a recent Supreme Court ruling on corporate campaign contributions, two issues the White House sees as political winners. Republicans and Democrats are both claiming momentum after the healthcare debate. The coming months will show whether that leads to progress or stalemate for both sides' policy goals.

Pelosi and Harry Reid approval ratings

2010-03-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

So you think the country was against the Obama Healthcare Plan that was rammed through the House of Representatives last night? Check out the latest CBS poll from the day after the bill passed. Not pretty at all.

Speaker Pelosi approval rating: 11% favorable

Senate majority leader Harry Reid approval rating: 8% favorable

Keep in mind this is not a Fox News poll which you might expect to have some bias....this is a CBS poll!

Can't wait to watch the carnage in the November elections later this year. I predict the largest political massacre in the history of the United States. Democrats will be voted out in droves. It's unfortunate that our many of elected officials chose to go against the will of their constituents.

What is next for Obama? Go After the Banks

2010-03-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama is clearly eager to maintain momentum after US lawmakers passed his cornerstone overhaul of healthcare on Sunday. He still faces a stack of pressing domestic issues, but it seems his next target are American banks.

HOW IS OBAMA GETTING TOUGH ON BANKS?
Obama, in a clear signal financial reform could be the next priority after healthcare passed, used his weekly address on Saturday to urge support for laws cracking down on Wall Street excess that would eat into banking profits.

On Monday, Senator Chris Dodd will lead a vote in the Senate Banking Committee over a package of measures he has crafted to prevent a repeat of mistakes that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. Republicans oppose crucial elements of the measures, allowing the White House to portray them as sticking up for rich bankers at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Dodd has enough votes without Republican support to move the bill out of committee and onto the floor of the Senate. Debate could begin after its two week Easter break. The House of Representatives passed its own bill three months ago.

Obama wants a strong consumer financial protection agency to prevent banks from luring customers into risky products they don't understand and action to prevent leading firms from getting too big to fail. Obama has also called for a tax on big banks to repay the multibillion dollar bailout they got at the height of the crisis, and a rule barring them from risky trading named after White House adviser Paul Volcker. The White House says he expects to sign a financial reform bill in 2010.

Obama Healthcare win is a perversion of Democracy

2010-03-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

So the Democrats have a healthcare win in the Houseof Representatives. This win that could prove mighty Pyrrhic. It will cost them dearly in the midterm elections as well as in 2012. Barack Obama, who seemed a lock for a second term at the time of his inauguration, will stand every chance of losing to any decent candidate the Republicans can muster. And in truth, Obama, who has collapsed in stature since the day of the inauguration will have wrought his own eclipse.

Americans have witnessed an ugly and extraordinary display of how the practice of democracy can so often overwhelm its theory. Firstly, they saw how those who claim an exalted moral stature for healthcare reform made a naked attempt to dodge a basic constitutional requirement for the passing of a bill. The subversion of the Constitution was abandoned when it became clear that the Supreme Court would not put up with a law that had been deemed to have passed.

What Americans saw next was the legislative process at its most squalid: bribing, cajoling, threatening, wheedling, all designed to bring on board those Democratic congressmen whose votes were needed to attain the number 216, and whoseprinciples were getting in the way of a yesvote. Hewing to principle is difficult, because it makes party whips angry, spoils dinner parties, and ends careers and friendships. So Kucinich, Stupak & Co. caved and succumbed. To borrow a phrase from historian Tony Judt, writing in the latest New York Review of Books: We have abandoned politics to those for whom actual power is far more interesting than its metaphorical implications.

So were now on the verge of a tectonic change in the way American society is regulateda change vigorously opposed by over 55% of all Americans. Barack Obama did, of course, promisechange in his presidential campaign. He just left out the bit about its being change in which those who think they know whatis good for us pass a law that most of us oppose with a passiona passion born not merely of political opposition, but of a sense that President Obama has dealt the nation a calamitous hand.

The State by State Roll Call from the Healthcare Vote

2010-03-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here is how every member of the US House of Representatives voted Sunday night in the Obama Healthcare Plan vote.

A "yes" vote is a vote to pass the bill.
Voting yes were 219 Democrats and 0 Republicans.
Voting no were 34 Democrats and 178 Republicans.
There are 4 vacancies in the 435-member House.

ALABAMA
Democrats -- Bright, N; Davis, N.
Republicans -- Aderholt, N; Bachus, N; Bonner, N; Griffith, N; Rogers, N.

ALASKA
Republicans -- Young, N.

ARIZONA
Democrats -- Giffords, Y; Grijalva, Y; Kirkpatrick, Y; Mitchell, Y; Pastor, Y.
Republicans -- Flake, N; Franks, N; Shadegg, N.

ARKANSAS
Democrats -- Berry, N; Ross, N; Snyder, Y.
Republicans -- Boozman, N.

CALIFORNIA
Democrats -- Baca, Y; Becerra, Y; Berman, Y; Capps, Y; Cardoza, Y; Chu, Y; Costa, Y; Davis, Y; Eshoo, Y; Farr, Y; Filner, Y; Garamendi, Y; Harman, Y; Honda, Y; Lee, Y; Lofgren, Zoe, Y; Matsui, Y; McNerney, Y; Miller, George, Y; Napolitano, Y; Pelosi, Y; Richardson, Y; Roybal-Allard, Y; Sanchez, Linda T., Y; Sanchez, Loretta, Y; Schiff, Y; Sherman, Y; Speier, Y; Stark, Y; Thompson, Y; Waters, Y; Watson, Y; Waxman, Y; Woolsey, Y.
Republicans -- Bilbray, N; Bono Mack, N; Calvert, N; Campbell, N; Dreier, N; Gallegly, N; Herger, N; Hunter, N; Issa, N; Lewis, N; Lungren, Daniel E., N; McCarthy, N; McClintock, N; McKeon, N; Miller, Gary, N; Nunes, N; Radanovich, N; Rohrabacher, N; Royce, N.

COLORADO
Democrats -- DeGette, Y; Markey, Y; Perlmutter, Y; Polis, Y; Salazar, Y.
Republicans -- Coffman, N; Lamborn, N.

CONNECTICUT
Democrats -- Courtney, Y; DeLauro, Y; Himes, Y; Larson, Y; Murphy, Y.

DELAWARE
Republicans -- Castle, N.

FLORIDA
Democrats -- Boyd, Y; Brown, Corrine, Y; Castor, Y; Grayson, Y; Hastings, Y; Klein, Y; Kosmas, Y; Meek, Y; Wasserman Schultz, Y.
Republicans -- Bilirakis, N; Brown-Waite, Ginny, N; Buchanan, N; Crenshaw, N; Diaz-Balart, L., N; Diaz-Balart, M., N; Mack, N; Mica, N; Miller, N; Posey, N; Putnam, N; Rooney, N; Ros-Lehtinen, N; Stearns, N; Young, N.

GEORGIA
Democrats -- Barrow, N; Bishop, Y; Johnson, Y; Lewis, Y; Marshall, N; Scott, Y.
Republicans -- Broun, N; Deal, N; Gingrey, N; Kingston, N; Linder, N; Price, N; Westmoreland, N.

HAWAII
Democrats -- Hirono, Y.

IDAHO
Democrats -- Minnick, N.
Republicans -- Simpson, N.

ILLINOIS
Democrats -- Bean, Y; Costello, Y; Davis, Y; Foster, Y; Gutierrez, Y; Halvorson, Y; Hare, Y; Jackson, Y; Lipinski, N; Quigley, Y; Rush, Y; Schakowsky, Y.
Republicans -- Biggert, N; Johnson, N; Kirk, N; Manzullo, N; Roskam, N; Schock, N; Shimkus, N.

INDIANA
Democrats -- Carson, Y; Donnelly, Y; Ellsworth, Y; Hill, Y; Visclosky, Y.
Republicans -- Burton, N; Buyer, N; Pence, N; Souder, N.

IOWA
Democrats -- Boswell, Y; Braley, Y; Loebsack, Y.
Republicans -- King, N; Latham, N.

KANSAS
Democrats -- Moore, Y.
Republicans -- Jenkins, N; Moran, N; Tiahrt, N.

KENTUCKY
Democrats -- Chandler, N; Yarmuth, Y.
Republicans -- Davis, N; Guthrie, N; Rogers, N; Whitfield, N.

LOUISIANA
Democrats -- Melancon, N.
Republicans -- Alexander, N; Boustany, N; Cao, N; Cassidy, N; Fleming, N; Scalise, N.

MAINE
Democrats -- Michaud, Y; Pingree, Y.

MARYLAND
Democrats -- Cummings, Y; Edwards, Y; Hoyer, Y; Kratovil, N; Ruppersberger, Y; Sarbanes, Y; Van Hollen, Y.
Republicans -- Bartlett, N.

MASSACHUSETTS
Democrats -- Capuano, Y; Delahunt, Y; Frank, Y; Lynch, N; Markey, Y; McGovern, Y; Neal, Y; Olver, Y; Tierney, Y; Tsongas, Y.

MICHIGAN
Democrats -- Conyers, Y; Dingell, Y; Kildee, Y; Kilpatrick, Y; Levin, Y; Peters, Y; Schauer, Y; Stupak, Y.

Republicans -- Camp, N; Ehlers, N; Hoekstra, N; McCotter, N; Miller, N; Rogers, N; Upton, N.

MINNESOTA
Democrats -- Ellison, Y; McCollum, Y; Oberstar, Y; Peterson, N; Walz, Y.
Republicans -- Bachmann, N; Kline, N; Paulsen, N.

MISSISSIPPI
Democrats -- Childers, N; Taylor, N; Thompson, Y.
Republicans -- Harper, N.

MISSOURI
Democrats -- Carnahan, Y; Clay, Y; Cleaver, Y; Skelton, N.
Republicans -- Akin, N; Blunt, N; Emerson, N; Graves, N; Luetkemeyer, N.

MONTANA
Republicans -- Rehberg, N.

NEBRASKA
Republicans -- Fortenberry, N; Smith, N; Terry, N.

NEVADA
Democrats -- Berkley, Y; Titus, Y.
Republicans -- Heller, N.

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Democrats -- Hodes, Y; Shea-Porter, Y.

NEW JERSEY
Democrats -- Adler, N; Andrews, Y; Holt, Y; Pallone, Y; Pascrell, Y; Payne, Y; Rothman, Y; Sires, Y.
Republicans -- Frelinghuysen, N; Garrett, N; Lance, N; LoBiondo, N; Smith, N.

NEW MEXICO
Democrats -- Heinrich, Y; Lujan, Y; Teague, N.

NEW YORK
Democrats -- Ackerman, Y; Arcuri, N; Bishop, Y; Clarke, Y; Crowley, Y; Engel, Y; Hall, Y; Higgins, Y; Hinchey, Y; Israel, Y; Lowey, Y; Maffei, Y; Maloney, Y; McCarthy, Y; McMahon, N; Meeks, Y; Murphy, Y; Nadler, Y; Owens, Y; Rangel, Y; Serrano, Y; Slaughter, Y; Tonko, Y; Towns, Y; Velazquez, Y; Weiner, Y.
Republicans -- King, N; Lee, N.

NORTH CAROLINA
Democrats -- Butterfield, Y; Etheridge, Y; Kissell, N; McIntyre, N; Miller, Y; Price, Y; Shuler, N; Watt, Y.
Republicans -- Coble, N; Foxx, N; Jones, N; McHenry, N; Myrick, N.

NORTH DAKOTA
Democrats -- Pomeroy, Y.

OHIO
Democrats -- Boccieri, Y; Driehaus, Y; Fudge, Y; Kaptur, Y; Kilroy, Y; Kucinich, Y; Ryan, Y; Space, N; Sutton, Y; Wilson, Y.
Republicans -- Austria, N; Boehner, N; Jordan, N; LaTourette, N; Latta, N; Schmidt, N; Tiberi, N; Turner, N.

OKLAHOMA
Democrats -- Boren, N.
Republicans -- Cole, N; Fallin, N; Lucas, N; Sullivan, N.

OREGON
Democrats -- Blumenauer, Y; DeFazio, Y; Schrader, Y; Wu, Y.
Republicans -- Walden, N.

PENNSYLVANIA
Democrats -- Altmire, N; Brady, Y; Carney, Y; Dahlkemper, Y; Doyle, Y; Fattah, Y; Holden, N; Kanjorski, Y; Murphy, Patrick, Y; Schwartz, Y; Sestak, Y.
Republicans -- Dent, N; Gerlach, N; Murphy, Tim, N; Pitts, N; Platts, N; Shuster, N; Thompson, N.

RHODE ISLAND
Democrats -- Kennedy, Y; Langevin, Y.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Democrats -- Clyburn, Y; Spratt, Y.
Republicans -- Barrett, N; Brown, N; Inglis, N; Wilson, N.

SOUTH DAKOTA
Democrats -- Herseth Sandlin, N.

TENNESSEE
Democrats -- Cohen, Y; Cooper, Y; Davis, N; Gordon, Y; Tanner, N.
Republicans -- Blackburn, N; Duncan, N; Roe, N; Wamp, N.

TEXAS
Democrats -- Cuellar, Y; Doggett, Y; Edwards, N; Gonzalez, Y; Green, Al, Y; Green, Gene, Y; Hinojosa, Y; Jackson Lee, Y; Johnson, E. B., Y; Ortiz, Y; Reyes, Y; Rodriguez, Y.
Republicans -- Barton, N; Brady, N; Burgess, N; Carter, N; Conaway, N; Culberson, N; Gohmert, N; Granger, N; Hall, N; Hensarling, N; Johnson, Sam, N; Marchant, N; McCaul, N; Neugebauer, N; Olson, N; Paul, N; Poe, N; Sessions, N; Smith, N; Thornberry, N.

UTAH
Democrats -- Matheson, N.
Republicans -- Bishop, N; Chaffetz, N.

VERMONT
Democrats -- Welch, Y.

VIRGINIA
Democrats -- Boucher, N; Connolly, Y; Moran, Y; Nye, N; Perriello, Y; Scott, Y.
Republicans -- Cantor, N; Forbes, N; Goodlatte, N; Wittman, N; Wolf, N.

WASHINGTON
Democrats -- Baird, Y; Dicks, Y; Inslee, Y; Larsen, Y; McDermott, Y; Smith, Y.
Republicans -- Hastings, N; McMorris Rodgers, N; Reichert, N.

WEST VIRGINIA
Democrats -- Mollohan, Y; Rahall, Y.
Republicans -- Capito, N.

WISCONSIN
Democrats -- Baldwin, Y; Kagen, Y; Kind, Y; Moore, Y; Obey, Y.
Republicans -- Petri, N; Ryan, N; Sensenbrenner, N.

WYOMING
Republicans -- Lummis, N.

Healthcare vote is the beginning of the coming war

2010-03-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

---- from OneNewsNow.com Peter Heck - Guest Columnist
When the one time pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak was stammering through his bizarre press conference announcing that he and his cohorts would support ObamaCare, a friend texted me, "That's all she wrote." I fired back, "Hardly."

Here's why: if I asked you to name a famous battle of the American Civil War, what would you say? Most would name Gettysburg, some might mention Bull Run, Antietam, Shiloh, or even Sherman's March to the Sea. But left off most everyone's list would be the battle that started it all...the firing on Fort Sumter. That's primarily due to the fact that though it was the sparking event, the skirmish paled in comparison to the back-and-forth drama that would unfold over the next half a decade.

What happened Sunday in the House of Representatives was merely the opening skirmish of a coming war over not just healthcare in America, but abortion, states' rights, and the Constitution itself.

In the days leading up to the vote, several Democrats on Capitol Hill were heard remarking that they just wanted to get this vote behind them and move on with other business. That might have been possible if they would have voted to kill this unconstitutional monstrosity that is now poised to obliterate state economies. But they didn't. Instead, they fired on Fort Sumter.

So where will we see the next offensive in this unfolding war? Most likely the federal courts will take center stage as the embittered states fight back against the betrayal of their sovereignty and the shattering of their budgets.

Here in Indiana, for example, the state has reported that the enactment of ObamaCare will open up the government-subsidized Medicaid system to approximately 500,000 Hoosiers. That means half a million more citizens will be receiving taxpayer-funded healthcare. But who will pay for it? Well, in order to carry off their outrageous lie to the American people that ObamaCare is going to save us money (the hubris behind such a laughable suggestion is impossible to fully grasp), the Democrats have mandated that the states pick up the tab for this Medicaid stampede.

Someone should tell the teachers' unions who foam at the mouth anytime someone mentions funding cuts to the public school system that they ain't seen nothin' yet. When a state like Indiana has to pick up a tab that equals billions of dollars to fund the excessive doctor and hospital visits that will soon be "free" to 500,000 more citizens, does anyone expect not to see drastic cuts in other areas, as well as massive tax increases? Yet teachers unions' continue to support the very Democrats who are forcing this funding Armageddon.

So the states will undoubtedly sue indeed somewhere between five to ten are already actively pursuing such a strategy. They will ask the federal courts to strike down multiple provisions of ObamaCare, including the blatantly unconstitutional federal mandate that all citizens purchase healthcare. (See related article: Lawsuit awaits Obama's signature on bill)

Even the most left-leaning constitutional law experts have had a hard time coming up with a defense of the individual mandate. About the best they've got is the silly suggestion that such a mandate is permissible under the Commerce Clause. But at the end of the day, they are forced to recognize that if that be the case, the Commerce Clause must be interpreted to give Congress the ability to force anyone to buy anything (next time GM is in trouble, they could just pass a law requiring you to buy a GM vehicle within a year) a clearly untenable position to anyone who is sane.

A second battle will manifest at the ballot box as Congressional Democrats face the uncomfortable reality that their president and party leadership have made them walk the plank into a sea of furious, motivated citizens. In order to secure enough votes for passage, President Obama promised wary lawmakers that their constituents would forget about this issue come Election Day. That, of course, is preposterous. The vote Sunday only guaranteed an explosion of growth for the Tea Party movement. And it also demonstrated this crystal clear reality: there is a difference between the two political parties...a BIG difference.

Say what you will about past Republican Party indiscretions (and there have been many), but not a single Republican voted for this atrocity (see 219-212 Roll Call vote). In fact, Republicans led a courageous effort to thwart the authoritarian Democrats while offering common-sense alternatives that actually would help lower healthcare costs.

So that's what's coming next. From there, it's too early to tell. Millions of citizens are preparing to engage in civil disobedience to prevent their tax money from being used to pay for abortions (as ObamaCare did, does, and will always allow), several states are reviving the nullification theory, and Republicans are promising a fight to repeal the legislation.

But this much is clear: Sunday's vote was only the beginning. Things are about to get very interesting.

Our taxpayer dollars used to send a letter warning of another letter

2010-03-10T04:34:00.000-08:00

I just received a letter telling me to be ready next week to receive another letter. How silly is that you ask? Well ridiculous. Who would ever do such a thing you ask? Well it is our US Government spending our taxpayer dollars. In this time of massive national debt, budget cuts and overruns, unemployment and tough economic times our tax money is being spent to send letters telling to expect another letter in a week.

I received a letter yesterday telling me I would get another letter next week for the US Census. I wonder how many millions of taxpayer dollars and how many hours of federal employee work time went into sending millions of US citizens the letter to watch out for another letter. What a joke.

And we wonder why government is so inneficient and runs at such a deficit. The people who decided to send the letter speaking of another letter should be fired.

Mafia Wars Bangkok is Live!

2010-01-22T18:11:00.000-08:00

Well Mafia Wars Bangkok has gone live and Zynga has given a select few special passports to gain access and play the Bangkok beta. I am level 441 and did not get one of the passports but luckily a friend did and shared one with me. So now I am live in Mafia Wars Bangkok.

Here are some of my initial thoughts. There are two factions in Mafia Wars Bangkok. Yakuza and Triad. You'll support one or the other as you progress. After perusing through the store it looks to me like Yakuza is definitely the more offensive group as they have weapons almost double the power of Triad. On the other hand, Triad is much more defensive minded offering less attack but much more defense. Yakuza offers an assassin while Triad offers a Shaolin Bodyguard instead. These are only available in the Faction Store. There is the traditional set of weaponry, vehicles and armor that is available to all.

Another very obvious issue is that the experience reward in relation to energy spent on the jobs is poor compared with New York, Cuba and Moscow. Level 1 jobs on return 47xp for 35 energy, 43xp for 31 energy and 108xp for 91 energy.

Keep an eye out as I will post more as I get deeper into Mafia Wars Bangkok.

Kraft Foods to implode Texas Stadium

2009-12-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

Kraft Foods has been chosen by the Irving City Council to be the sponsor for the implosion of famed Texas Stadium in Irving, Texas the former longtime home of the Dallas Cowboys. Kraft Foods will use the event to market its Cheddar Explosion line of Macaroni and Cheese. The company had agreed to give 75k for Irving and 75k to Irving food banks. Irving is expected to gain about a $1 million worth of public exposure through the food company’s national advertising campaign.

Texas Stadium has been home to the Dallas Cowboys for nearly 40 years until the team moved to the new stadium in Arlington this last fall. Texas Stadium has sat unused for months. Last year everything inside, including seating and the turf, was auctioned and sold to the general public. The implosion is estimated to cost the city $5.8 million.

The implosion will take place on a yet to be determined Sunday morning in March. Irving is planning a Dart rail line, restuarants and shops to take the place of the land.

TCU and Boise State BCS conspiracy

2009-12-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

From an article by Jennifer Floyd Engel

What the heck is wrong with everybody? Are we really that naïve? Of course, having TCU and Boise State play in the Fiesta Bowl is a conspiracy to keep them from being able to embarrass the power conferences yet again at their exclusionary game. Anybody who pretends anything else is:

a) Smoking crack.
b) Fibbing.
c) Has a vested interest in protecting this sham of a BcS system.

And c) obviously applies to Fiesta Bowl president John Junker, thus b) does, too, in regards to his laying kisses on TCU and unleashing his "biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard in my life" as a defense.

Where is Rep. Joe Wilson and his "you lie" shtick when really needed?

The Fiesta Bowl took one for the "team," probably in exchange for future considerations. The Fake National Championship is in Glendale in 2011 and do not be surprised if this little sacrifice guarantees a prettier pre-Fiesta Fiesta Bowl.

Spin that Fiesta honchos chose TCU because, gosh-darn-it, it was more deserving is giggle-worthy. Name the last time a big-time bowl did the right, altruistic thing? Bowls do the money thing and the money thing was to invite Iowa and all of those oft-mentioned 50,000 Hawkeyes who would pay anything and go anywhere just to get out of Iowa in January.

So why would the Fiesta pass up on that payday? Hmmmmmm, what possibly could it be? Could it be that if TCU, ranked #4 in BcS standings, played and beat Cincy or Florida, the Frogs would have a legit claim to the national championship right along with whoever wins Texas-Alabama?

And since everybody knows the Frogs have zero chance at this FNC, this only hastens calls for a playoff, and a playoff threatens to decimate their little bowl cartel. Yes, the single worst thing to happen to the BcS was what Kyle Whittingham and his fine Utah Utes team did to Alabama a year ago in the Sugar Bowl.

Say this for the BcS, it learns. No more inviting Boise to play Oklahoma and Utah to play Alabama because, instead of putting non-AQ schools in their place and shutting them up as planned, it only gave them evidence of what a sham the whole thing really is.

No way are they allowing that to happen again. So TCU plays Boise, and one ends up with a loss and the other is dismissed as still not having beaten anybody. Brilliant, as the Guinness Stout boys would say.

This is standard BcS operating procedure where C stands for conspiracy, and all that leaves is B and S.

TCU should go to Rose Bowl instead of UT

2009-12-05T21:28:00.000-08:00

Come on people! Anyone who has watched these two teams play this season can see TCU is a better football team than Texas. TCU has beaten 3 ranked teams this season and absolutely destroyed them. Texas gives up 39 points to a crummy A&M team and then follows that up varely squeeking by a Nebraska team that has the offensive talent of a high school team.

Unfortunately now the country will have to watch UT get throttled by Alabama. The only reason Texas will get the BCS Championship spot is because of what they have done in the past rather than what they have done this year. After watching both Alabama and Texas play today it won't be a match. Ashame for a TCU team with the #1 overall defense in the country and the #5 overall offense in the country.

Potential problems with the new Healthcare Plan

2009-11-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

Here is a wonderful video from youtube where Peter Schiff explains the potential problems associated with the upcoming Democratic Healthcare Plan.

So basically I will not have to buy health insurance at all. Just pay the $95 yearly penalty and wait. If I ever do get sick then just join the healthcare plan then and get the benefits I need, but up until that point I should not spend a penny on health insurance.

Mafia Wars - Moscow revamped

2009-11-11T14:30:00.001-08:00

Well it seems Mafia Wars Moscow was a little too daunting. I agree there was definitely a cash problem as it was tough to get enough to really blast through the episodes, but it also made it a challenge. Personally, I enjoyed the challenge of actually having to plan how to efficiently use energy rather than just fly right along.

I guess enough people complained though and Mafia Wars tweeked some things. It looks like the businesses now yield much much more. Looks like the payout had been tripled on each business. The other major change is the elimination of bribery. This will save tons of cash as I was paying a good 30% of each yield in bribes.

All in all Mafia Wars just became easier. I would rather have kept the challenge in the game, but either way it won't cause me to change my strategies moving forward in Mafia Wars.

Can TCU Make the BCS National Championship Game?

2009-10-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

Can TCU make the BCS national championship game? As crazy as this seemed a few weeks ago....yes they sure can. Be careful before you bring up the "they haven't palyed anybody" argument. TCU has. In fact the computers rank TCU's strength of schedule above that of Texas. TCU has road wins at Clemson (leading the ACC Atlantic Division), Virginia, and BYU as well as at Air Force in a sleet storm. TCU can flat out play.

So how do they get into the BCS title game you ask? Currently TCU is #6 in the BCS. Well let's take a look at the rest of the story. Let's start with Iowa. By far the most overrated team at the top. The masters of squeeking by bad to average teams. Barely eeked out victories over Northern Iowa and very average Michigan and Michigan State sides. Iowa loses at Ohio State November 14th.

Everyone knows Alabama and Florida will have to meet eventually....that is if they can stay unbeaten until then. Both are playing with fire lately, but still winning. One of these two in the BCS title game.

That leaves Texas and USC. Both have better shots than TCU and will both have to lose for TCU to get in. Both have 1 tough road game left. Texas must win this weekend at Oklahoma State and USC must win this weekend at Oregon. Both tricky trips. If both slipup than TCU would vault up.

I know alot has to fall in TCU's favor to get the BCS title game, but who would have seen TCU rising this far so fast anyways? Win at Clemson in front of 70,000 in a rain storm. Demolish BYU in Provo. Blast Virginia on the road. Crazier things have happened.....

Will Americans be Forced to Buy Health Insurance?

2009-10-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

The new Health Bill is coming. Make no bones about it. The Democrats are going to force it through whether it is good for the country or not. A requirement of the new healthcare bill will be that all Americans will be forced to buy health insurance. Isn't a major problem with the current healthcare system that uninsured patients are being forced to be given treatment. These uninsured patients are thus absorbed by the system forcing costs up for everyone.

Well let me ask this. How can someone too poor to be able to afford health insurance now, be forced by law to buy health insurance once the bill passes? What will be done with these people? This is like trying to solve the homeless problem by requiring all people without a home to buy one or face breaking the law. Huh?

President Obama said in a speech that for those that cannot afford health insurance the government will provide it via tax relief. Well let's see. Someone earning $10 or less an hour does not have a tax burden at the end of the year and all the withholding they paid for the year will still not pay the cost of health insurance for that person. How will you give someone that has no tax burden a tax credit?

The fact is that a portion of the American public cannot afford health insurance and the US Government is too broke to buy it for them. So what is the solution?

Mafia Wars - The Cellphone Problem

2009-10-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well anyone that has gotten very far into Mafia Wars has seen that it takes an amazing amount of untraceable cell phones to knock out the New York stages. Literally hundreds will be required. Two jobs on the Capo level, one on the Consgiliere level and another on the Underboss level will definitely try the Mafia War patience.

The problem many Mafia War players face though is how to best obtain the cellphones they need over the course of the game. The key is to be efficient. There is no requirement that you knock out all of New York before heading on to Cuba and Moscow. Be efficient in Mafia Wars.

The mistake many players make is that they waste tons and tons of energy back on the Enforcer level job of Robbing an Electronics Store to try and get enough cellphones. Once you have mastered level 3 of the Enforcer level you are just throwing away energy to get the untraceable cellphones. It is wasted energy in Mafia Wars.

Just go on knocking out jobs at other levels in New York, Cuba and Moscow. Get cellphones from gifting friends as well as fighting. It is slow going, but at least you are using your energy in a positive manner by doing jobs you need to get done.

They also threw us a bone in Moscow as in Episode 1 the Arrange a Drug Shipment job yields cellphones. If you are dying to grab cellphones and finish the New York tier make sure to do the Moscow job over the New York job to get your cellphones. The Moscow job yields them in much much greater frequency.

Best of luck with Mafia Wars on Facebook!

Chicago eliminated from 2016 Olympic consideration

2009-10-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

In a shocker of monumental proportions, Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting for the rights to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Nobody expected the vote at all. In fact, the result was so surprising that there was no reaction frolm the crowd at all upon announcement. Just stunned silence.

What does this mean to Barack Obama who made the trip to Stockholm to present for the bid? It is definitely a blow to the United States as well as Chicago. It means a major loss of economic impact. Chicago was counting on over 4.5 billion in economic impact from the Olympic Games. Estimates are the Olympics are worth 14 Super Bowls to put it in perspective.

Tokyo was eliminated as well leaving only Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Madrid, Spain as the final two for the 2016 Olympics. The final decision will be announced later today with Brazil being the heavy heavy favorites.

Mafia Wars - Making Money in Moscow

2009-10-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

Rubles can get a little short in Mafia Wars Moscow it seems. I think that is a good thing though as it makes it more challenging. I liked that fact about Cuba as well. Took a little more planning and thinking to make your $$ stretch farther. The same seems to be true in Moscow. I chugged along fine at the beginning, but now I am into Episode 2 and the rubles are running thin.

One thing you can do to help make up the ruble deficits is to do all your fighting in Moscow and search for people that havent banked their rubles. Seems I can make a tidy amount just from finding the right people to fight.

Grab the Cigarette Smuggling Ring business in Mafia Wars. It yields R$30,000 every three hours making the break even approximately 4 days. After that it is pure profit.

Best of luck in Mafia Wars and happy fighting! Please feel free to leave any other tips in comments.

Choosing Vory or Mafiya in Mafia Wars Moscow

2009-09-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

Ok so there are two paths in Mafia Wars Moscow. Which to choose? Vory or Mafiya? Luckily one does not have to maked a choice right away. You are not locked in until the third mastery of the chapter. Up until then you can choose either.

There is alot of misinformation going around as Moscow is so new. Early word on the street is that Vory rewards and paths are more job based while the Mafiya is more fighting based with better weapons and defenses.

Here is what I recommend. First mastery of the side choose Vory. Take notes and pay attention to what you get along the way. Second mastery of the side take Mafiya. Once again take notes and pay attention. Talk to your friends and get their input. Upon the third mastery you will have a much better idea fo which sides suits you best for the long term.

Best of luck in Mafia Wars and feel free to leave any tips or comments.

More on Mafia Wars Moscow Expansion

2009-09-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Well it looks to me like the dreaded untraceable cell phones and concealable cameras are going to be necessary at some point in Mafia Wars Moscow. The loot items on the first two Moscow jobs are cell phones and cameras. Hopefully the loot items are just to help people finish up New York rather than being needed for later in Moscow. We shall see.

I still need probably 50 to wrap up New York and the Cuba. I try not to do the cell phone job as it is a waste of energy doing a job I have already mastered. I would rather use the energy towards productive jobs that I have not mastered. Thus I get my cell phones from looting and rewards. Might have to change that strategy, but would rather not waste the energy. I'll just use the Moscow cell phones I get back in New York and pray we dont need more cell phones down the line in Moscow.

Looks like I will not have to choose sides in Mafia Wars Moscow until the third level. At that point you will have to choose a side to support and this will affect the final stage, boss battle and special loot item dropped at the end.

Again, any Mafia Wars tips are appreciated. Feel free to post in the comments.

Mafia Wars Moscow is Live Today!

2009-09-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

Mafia Wars Moscow is live and running as of this morning! Lots of new fun and challenges ready for us. I am going to wait a couple of days before doing anything other than fighting and collecting money from the taxi business. I am very close to completing the entire Cuba level and want to go ahead and finish that up. It will also give me a couple of days to study Moscow so that I do not rush over there and make a mistake.

Money could be a problem in Mafia Wars Moscow, but we'll wait and see. The inventory items look to be quite expensive with the cheapest weapon a dubina for 500,000 rubles. The cheapest armor is 900,000 rubles. Cuba had money issues early on as it was tough to get going there as well. It looks like the businesses in Moscow are not to be bought but rather earned once you reach certain levels there. A new twist there.

It also looks like in Chapter 1 that there are mystery items required to do the jobs as there is a question mark next to the job requirements. Hope they aren't cell phones or something like that. Ouch. We'll find out soon enough.

Either way around it, Mafia Wars Moscow is an exciting new chapter in Mafia Wars and I am looking forward to embarking on it in a couple days once I wrap up Cuba. Any Moscow tips please post them in the comments below!

Mafia Wars - Here Comes Moscow!

2009-09-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

For all you Mafia Wars players out there, and there are an easy 5 million of us, get ready for Moscow. Yes, the Moscow expansion is coming soon....very soon. It couldn't come soon enough either as many of us are finishing or are alrady done with Cuba and ready for a new challenge. Moscow will require you to be at least level 70 to visit and word on the street is that Mafia Wars Moscow will be much much tougher then New York or Cuba.

New York was pretty much a breeze, with money easy to get and jobs definitely doable. The only real challenge of New York was getting enough of those damned cell phones to actually finish up.

Cuba was tougher for sure. Money was much more difficult to obtain and getting started took time. More challenging and more fun. I'm hoping Mafia Wars Moscow takes the same step forward.

The biggest difference in this expansion? Mafia Wars Senior Product Manager David Kahn says it will have, "a new look and feel," and, "will be much harder than other expansions we released before, more geared to higher level players, level 70-plus."

Also unlike the other Mafia Wars scenarios, missions will be broken down into chapters, and you will not be able to see the next set of missions until you complete a chapter and defeat the boss at the end. Players will also have to rely on friends more than before to defeat these high-powered crime lords.

Once Moscow is taken care of Mafia Wars players can look forward to Asia and Western US expansions as well.

How Can We Function with a $9 Trillion Budget Deficit?

2009-08-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

The Obama Government came out today and predicted a budget deficit of $9 trillion over the next decade. How can we function like that? How can the rest of the world take the US seriously when it will be so far underwater? At the end of the decade the debt will equal 75% of the entire American economy as we will owe almost $20 trillion dollars!

Politicians have to stop the ridiculous spending! Now! We have to tighten the belt and do without some things. When I don't have enough income then I stop buying things. I do not go out and charge and charge and wrack up more debt.

We the voters need to take a stand and let Congress and the President know that this type of rampant spending is not productive for the long term future of the United States. Period. There are two options.

Raise taxes or cut spending. Raising taxes in this economic environment is not productive. The answer: quit throwing money around.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee to be released by North Korea

2009-08-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Former US President Bill Clinton visited North Korea in an attempt to release Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee who have been held for months after being arrested last year when they crossed into North Korea illegally. The two were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor earlier this year. Word out of North Korea is that Kim Jong Il has decided to pardon the two.

The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea's "humanitarian and peaceloving policy," the Korean Central News Agency reported.

The North has been playing up the Bill Clinton visit as a major event and state run media is reporting the visit was used to discuss political issues between the US and North Korea. They are also reporting that Bill Clinton delivered a personal letter from President Barack Obama. The US government is denying the visit was for anything more than to negotiate the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee and that no message was delivered from Obama.

You Wonder Why the Airline Industry is in Bad Shape?

2009-07-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

So you wonder why the airline industry is in such a bad state? Let's say poor business model and poor customer relations. So I have a Sunday evening flight from Orlando to DFW on American Airlines booked. I was hoping to move up from the 6:30pm flight to the 11:30am flight to get back in town in time to get to the Chelsea-Club America soccer game at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium Sunday night.

So I do my online research and see there are seats open on the 11:30am flight. Should be an easy change right? Nothing to it. Just move me off the later flight and put me on the earlier flight. Maybe $25 processing fee that's fine.

I talk to the reservationist at American. No problem. Seats available easy change. Then she says "That will be a $436 processing charge." Heck I only paid $220 for the round trip tickets! Amazing. I'll pass. $436 to make a 2 minute change. ridiculous.

BCS is just not right at all

2009-07-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Despite some eloquent grandstanding on its behalf before a US Senate subcommittee Tuesday, the Mountain West Conference caved in the next day and re-upped with the Bowl Championship Series. This action was as predictable as it was understandable. Five more years of crumbs, after all, beats death by starvation. Still, it's a shame.

The BCS is designed by elites, for elites, who also accord themselves the privilege of defining what constitutes an elite. It exists to generate and horde wealth for a select few, locking out others who aspire to join their club. And that's all.

The elites would have you believe theirs are the only college football teams you want to watch, or to see play in a national championship game. So that's how the BCS is set up, to orchestrate the proof that perpetuates the fraud. This would be like the government clearing the shelves in all grocery stores of everything but dog food, then saying, "All the people want to eat is dog food."

It's crazy. You know this. You know the BCS is wrong. You know this unholy concoction constitutes an unreasonable restraint of commerce within the intercollegiate sports industry; that the BCS willfully acquired its power and exercises that power in monopolistic fashion. In other words, you know what Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and anyone else with a working brain knows: The BCS violates pretty much everything the Sherman Antitrust Act was designed to prohibit.

Now, teams of lawyers might get drunk and rich debating the fine points of anti-trust law. For example, Vanderbilt Law School graduate and Deadspin.com associate editor Clay Travis last week posted a brilliant essay in which he noted the BCS is not actually a legal entity and, therefore, could not violate Sherman. The probability that the BCS was structured to avoid such a challenge should be enough to make fans regurgitate, if not revolt.

Fine points be damned. We all should want what is right. It would be nice if the eloquence articulated by BCS opponents Tuesday were sincere, for their arguments were spot on. At the top, the Bowl Championship Series consists of five major bowl games: Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar and the BCS Championship. The winners of the six BCS conferences that govern the system — the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10 and SEC — are guaranteed berths in one of those games, regardless of how they rank in terms of overall quality. The top two teams in the final BCS standings, determined by a compilation of two polls and six computerized ranking systems, play for the national championship.

While nothing in the BCS setup directly prohibits a member of one of the five non-BCS conferences from grabbing one of the four remaining spots in the big bowl games, or from qualifying to play for the national title, the deck is stacked against those things happening. Of 94 berths in major bowl games the past 11 seasons, only four have gone to non-BCS teams. No non-BCS team has played for the championship; not even last season, when Mountain West champ Utah was undefeated while Florida and Oklahoma matched one-loss records in the title game.

"In this country," Utah president Michael Young testified to the subcommittee, "we should decide championships by competition, not by conspiracy."

Alas, there was little sincerity here. The only outrage was self-serving.

"I would not be here today if all universities had a realistic opportunity to compete for the national championship and if BCS revenues were equitably distributed among institutions," Young said.

I find that hard to believe. Young was there testifying and Hatch was there from gavel to gavel, pontificating about BCS arrogance and later goading the Justice Department to investigate, only because Utah was the latest program gored by the Bull Championship Spit.

If Utah joins the Pac-10 in the next major realignment of big-time conferences, thus becoming an official elite, their outrage will sink to the bottom of the Great Salt Lake, and Hatch and Young will begin reciting the bunk sounded by Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, whose university belongs to the Big XII.

"I don't think it's arrogant if you've thought about something for five or six years and concluded that it's really hard to do something different," Perlman testified.

No, it's the height of arrogance to think the rest of us are stupid enough to believe him. The solution actually is very simple, if you are dedicated to what is right instead of what lines your pockets.

The Justice Department should set him straight and put the BCS in its place.

KIRK WESSLER is Journal Star executive sports editor/columnist. He can be reached at kwessler@pjstar.com, or 686-3216.

Interesting article about the Plastic Vortex

2009-06-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Found a very interesting article at Ecoistabode.com about the existing area of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean. It is called the "plastic vortex" and is a real problem to marine life. You may never have heard of it, but it estimated to be at least the size of the state of Texas!

Plastic Vortex
...
..
.

USA beats Spain 2-0 at Confederations Cup

2009-06-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

Wow how about that USA soccer team today?!?!?!! Wonderful win over the #1 ranked team in the world Spain 2-0 at the Confederations Cup in South Africa. Goals from Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey.

Story at Soccermogul
.
.
.

What a novel idea California has....Cut Welfare!

2009-05-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

What a novel idea California has to help solve their budget deficit. Cut welfare for 500,000 families.....wow maybe now they'll have to actually go work for a living like the rest of us rather than sit at home doing nothing. Maybe every other state will figure this out and cut out the socialist freebies.

It's ashame that there are some other cuts Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing like cutting the state park funding and cutting school funding. Hey how about doing away with welfare altogether? Welfare was not what this great country was built on. Going out and making a life through effort and hard work is what made us a great country. Too many people look for the government for handouts nowadays rather than being resolute and going and earning a living.

More new taxes coming. This time its Beer and Wine

2009-05-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

The democrats are floating new tax ideas. Last week it was soft drinks like Coke and Dr Pepper. This week it is beer and wine. The plan is up to $2 per case of beer to help fund health care. It will not be a big deal to my pocketbook given the fact that personally I drink about six beers a year nowadays (seems I have outgrown it in my 20s).

BUT bottom line it is just more government taxation in a time when the economy does not need more taxes. Furthermore, the brunt of this tax will be shouldered by the middle and lower class, who studies show are the major consumers of alcohol in the United States. So the people Obama campaigned for on a stance of lowering tax burdens will be the ones to feel this the most.

Stop the extra taxation and be fiscally responsible. In my life if I can't pay for it then I don't get it. Period.

Alcoholo Taxation ....bad idea.

California voters reject budget measures

2009-05-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

California voters spoke loudly as they rejected lawmakers ideas on closing the $21 billion dollar state budget shortfall. Over 60% of voters said no way. Voters however were more than happy to approve a measure that bars any pay increases for state officials. Sounds like a resounding rejection of California elected officials to me.

I think this quote sums it up best:
"We have a dope for a governor and the legislature is completely incompetent," said John Brockage outside a polling place in Oakland, California, on Tuesday. "I voted 'no' on all of them."

Voters said they disliked the specifics in the measures, including a spending cap, extending tax increases, borrowing against lottery revenues and tapping dedicated funds, and used the election to rebuke the governor and lawmakers.

Earthquake shakes Euless here in North Texas

2009-05-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

Well there I was sitting on the couch Saturday morning disappointed that our soccer tournament had been cancelled due to the rains that moved in overnight. I was watching 10,000 BC opn the tele when all of a sudden the whole building started shaking. At first I thought a neighbor knocked over a dressor or something (as I live in an apartment building), but the shaking continued. I felt the whole building sway back and forth probably four times and then it stopped. The whole thing lasted maybe five seconds total.

I thought "What the heck was that?" I wondered had a car struck the building....but no there had been no crash. I live only a mile from DFW Airport and the only thing I could really think was possibly there had been a plane crash or something. Surely it was not an earthquake here in Euless. I decided to take out the trash and go outside to see if anyone else was around.

Sure enough two of my neighbors were about. My upstairs neighbor definitely felt it and was wondering what it was as well. My downstairs neighbor did not feel the shaking but heard his lights rattling and stuff.

About thirty minutes later I was back watching the movie and it did it again. My neighbor came across and knocked on my door "Did you feel that?" she asked...Yepp I sure did. In total I felt four different jolts, each one weaker and shorter.

Turns out we had an earthquake. A real live earthquake here in Euless, Texas. Reports were of a 3.3 magnitude earthquake that was centered four miles south of Euless, in North Texas. How kewl was that?!?! A north Texas earthquake.

Wow a tax on Dr Pepper and Coke is next from the Democrats?

2009-05-12T20:17:00.001-07:00

Seriously Obama. Now a tax on soft drinks? Tax hikes left and right. Typical democrat policy. Tax and spend. This was the first April in the history of our country that the government ran at a deficit. In 250 years! Now they want to add a tax on Dr Pepper and Coke? Come on.

How about we just stop giving a year of unemployment benefits to allow these people to sit on their couch and do nothing, we cut it in half and have them go get jobs. No we would rather have a government that allows them to do nothing and get paid for it. I drove down our main street this morning and counted six help wanted or hiring signs in different businesses. No lets just keep the ridiculously long free money for doing nothing policy and instead tax soft drinks.

Whats the difference between a Pandemic and an Epidemic?

2009-04-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

So I am sure you have thought this over the last week or so with the rise of the Swine Flu Pandemic. What is the difference between a Pandemic and an Epidemic? I know I certainly wondered such. Well, here is your answer.

An Epidemic affects a region or a large part of a populated area while a Pandemic is worldwide. The last Pandemic flu was the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic of 1968 in which 39,000 died in the United States and nearly 1 million died worldwide.

So far the Swine Flu has killed about 150 in Mexico and is spreading with cases turning up all across the globe. It would be quite scary if the Swine Flu Pandemic reaches anywhere near the proportions of the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic. If so we are at the very beginning of the Pandemic currently.

Avoiding the Swine Flu

2009-04-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

With all the concern with the swine flu let's take a minute to visit three simple things that can help one avoid swine flu.

1. Sanitize and wash, wash, wash. Stay clean and wash those hands. Bottom line is that 80% of all infections are spread by hands. A simple 20 second soap and water wash will do the trick.

2. Avoid social situations where possible. Social distancing is the word for it. Avoid large crowds when possible. Simply put, avoiding large groups will decrease the contact you have with potential infected.

3. Get help if you recognize symptoms. Fever, body aches, sore throat, cough, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, and lethargy. Recognize the swine flu symptoms. Get help. Tamiflu and Relenza appear to help with swine flu.

Hostages Freed from Pirates but Pirates let go

2009-04-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

OK now get this one.....NATO forces tracked a group of Somali Pirates that had tried to capture a Marshall Islands flagged tanker. The NATO force tracked the Pirates back to their "mother-ship", a Yemeni flagged fishing ship that the Pirates had seized on Thursday. The NATO forces borded the Pirate "mother-ship" and rescued 20 fisherman who were being held hostage.

No problems there at all....good job NATO forces...caught the Pirates....rescued the hostages. Here's where it gets ridiculous. The Pirates were let go because the NATO forces had no authority to arrest the Pirates. It seems the NATO forces were Dutch and to be able to make an arrest the Pirates would have had to be Dutch as well. Now how silly is that? The Somali Pirates are never going to stop if everytime they get caught there are no consequences. They'll be right back out there next week.

Watch out! The Pirates vow Revenge

2009-04-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Oh goodness....now we have the Pirates after us. You knoew what was going to happen last week when they made the mistake of taking a ship under the US flag. I was surprised we didnt take the pirates out earlier and waited several days. That's just the way it was going to be. Glad to see the French actually standing up and showing some toughness lately as they seem to be the only other nation that cares to get tough with the pirates. We weren't going to pay millions of dollars to some punks in a little boat with some guns and we won't in the future. So bring it on you silly pirates. Your end will be the same as the group that kidnapped Captain Phillips.

Michelle Obama an instant hit in England

2009-04-02T23:37:00.001-07:00

It didn't take long for First Lady Michelle Obama to win the hearts in England as she met with the Queen and made a very popular appearance at an all girls school in London. Michelle Obama clearly made an impression with the 82 yr old Queen, so much that she strayed slightly from protocol and briefly wrapped her arm around the first lady in a rare public show of affection.

The Daily Mail said the "two women clearly took to each other."

Later in the day Michelle Obama visited an all girls school in London to rave reviews and awestruck girls. Obama urged the students to take advantage of the schooling opportunity and reminded them that they could be anything they desired with a lot of hard work.

Her visit seems so impressive that she has been dubbed "Mighty Michelle" by the British media.

Barack Obama lands in London for G20

2009-03-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama landed in London this morning on his way to the G-20 meeting of the world's major economic powers. Obama will also be attending a NATO summit to commemorate 60 years of existence. He will be visiting five countries over the eight day European trip.

The main event in London is Thursday's summit on the global financial crisis among the Group of 20 wealthy and developing nations. Together, they represent 85% of the world's economy. Obama will meet with leaders from countries such as India, Russia, China and South Korea while in London.

Fed Surprises the Market with Plans to buy more Debt

2009-03-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

It's time to refinance those loans! If you have anything other than a 5% mortgage right now you have to go refinance. The move by the Federal Reserve and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke surprised the markets on Wednesday in saying that they will buy up to $300 billion worth of long term US government debt over the next six months and expand purchases of mortgage related debt to help ease credit market conditions.

The news sent the stockmarket higher as well as bolstered bank stocks as profit margins will widen greatly for them. The move was also recognized by gold as the inflationary consequences will be seen down the road from basically printing more and more money to put into the financial system. The US dollar was also moving strongly downwards.

So I am sure you are following the AIG bonus hearings....

2009-03-18T10:15:00.001-07:00

Well I am sure everyone has heard of the ridiculous $165 million in bonuses AIG paid out last weekend to the very traders that caused the downfall of the company as well as alot of the financial market trouble. I am also sure most of you have been following today's Congressional hearing where AIG CEO Edward Liddy sat in front of Congress to answer for the bonuses. The US Government and the US taxpayers have given Liddy and AIG $170 billion in bailout money to keep the company afloat.

Many Congressmen and President Barack Obama have gone on record recently denouncing the bonuses and different ways to get the bonus money back are being floated around Congress as we speak.

A statement from the hearing that caused me alot of grief was when Liddy had the audacity to say "We at AIG want to believe that we are all in this together." Well sir, personally I choose to not be with you anymore as long as you decide to reward incompetence with mega-bonuses. I do respect the fact that Liddy is only drawing $1 a year in salary, but I also recognize the fact that this man has made millions over the last few years.

Thank goodness for Barney Frank. I like this guy. I don't like all of his policy, but I like the guy. It is "time for us to assert our ownership rights," said Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the full Financial Services committee. Frank said Congress will be asking for the names of the bonus recipients, and if AIG declines to provide it, he will convene the committee to subpoena for the names. "We do intend to use our power to get the names," he said.

The White House for the first time on Tuesday night said Geithner learned of the impending bonus payments a week ago Tuesday; he told the White House about them last Thursday, and senior aides informed President Barack Obama later that day. Geithner said on Tuesday he was working with the Justice Department to find ways to recover some of the payments. He cited a provision in the recent economic stimulus law that gave him authority to review compensation to the most highly paid employees of companies that already have received federal assistance.

Hopefully, we can recover these ridiculous bonuses. Otherwise, I am going to go give the absolute worst performance I can at my job and then demand a monster raise!

Madoff Ledoff

2009-03-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty today and was ledoff to jail. Madoff was denied bail after pleading guilty and stating he was "deeply sorry and ashamed" of his actions.

Prosecutors say the disgraced financier, who has spent three months under house arrest in his Manhattan penthouse, could face a maximum term of 150 years in prison at sentencing June 16. Madoff is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The fraud, which prosecutors say may have totaled nearly $65 billion, turned a revered money man into an overnight global disgrace whose name became synonymous with the current economic meltdown.

The plea does not end the Bernie Madoff saga: Investigators are still undertaking the daunting task of unraveling how he pulled off the fraud for decades without being caught. They suspect that his family and top lieutenants who helped run his operation from its midtown Manhattan headquarters may have been involved.

That Dancing With The Stars can be dangerous!

2009-03-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

Wow! That Dancing With The Stars is dangerous stuff for sure! Seems the season hasn't even started yet and already it has claimed two victims. Nancy O'Dell and Jewel have both been forced out due to injury. Nancy O'Dell needs knee surgery for a torn meniscus while Jewel is out due to fractures in both legs due to the dancing stress.

Althought neither made it past rehearsals both enjoyed and were proud of their time with Dancing With The Stars. According to ABC, both O’Dell and Jewel will appear on Monday’s season premiere to talk about their departure from the show and “additional changes to the cast” will also be announced during the premiere.

Barack Obama Lovefest Losing Steam in Europe?

2009-03-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

Europe anticipated his arrival as US President with open arms and enthusiasm after years of dealing with difficult Bush American political policy. Is the Barack Obama love affair losing steam so quickly in the new US President's tenure? The troubling world economy is definitely stifling the Obama momentum. Many Europeans are feeling a bit overlooked and ignored by Barack Obama. He has yet to visit Europe and sent his Secretary of State to Asia and the Middle East before Europe.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is heading to Europe for a basic meet-and-greet trip. Hillary Clinton will also set the stage for Obama's visit to Europe next month. The Obama trip will include a summit with the 27 EU leaders in Prague, as well as a London summit of the G20, and NATO's 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg.

Hopefully a little attention from the new US President will reassure the Europeans of Barack Obama's plans and intentions moving forward as President.

So US Taxpayers get to rebuild Gaza?

2009-02-25T14:56:00.000-08:00

Don't we have enough problems here in the US already? Now the news is that we will give $900 million to Palestine to help rebuild what Israel blew up. The government can't agree to help GM or Ford out of their miserable state yet we can agree to give a group of terrorists and extremists who don't even like us $900 million. Maybe the CEO of GM should go to Congress next time and be a jerk and say GM hates America....then they'll get a huge bailout package?

Hillary Clinton heads to China

2009-02-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

Newly appointed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Asia looking to make new inroads in bilateral relations with China . Clinton will visit four nations during the trip, but make no doubts, the real focus of the trip is China.

She has made it clear she wants to move the relationship with China dramatically forward, finding new ways to build and sustain economic growth, but also to forge new agreements on climate change and the environment .

It will be interesting to see the welcome Clinton gets in China. In 1995, as first lady, Clinton delivered a fiery speech on human rights at a Beijing conference winning a worldwide following while dismaying her Chinese hosts, who banned coverage in the country's official media.

What to do with Guantanamo Inmates?

2009-02-10T14:27:00.000-08:00

President Obama has stated plans to close Guantanamo Bay in a year. Most Americans are ok with this decision. The big issue that has barely been addressed is what to do with the prisoners?

It has been established that most of the prisoner's home countries will not take them back under any circumstances. Now several Senators are beginning to speak out saying "do not send them here!" The objections will become louder and more widespread I am sure as the closure date approaches.

The Guantanamo prison opened in 2002 at the US naval base on Cuba and has been widely condemned by rights groups and foreign governments as failing to meet basic legal standards. President Obama is bowing to international pressure to close the facility. Unfortunately, nobody has come forward with a plan for the prisoners. Hopefully, we don't set them free, but I get the feeling many will be flat out released. Sixty prisoners that have been released over the last year are unable to leave because no country will allow them entry.

North Korea threatens war with South Korea

2009-02-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

North Korea threatened war with South Korea due to their confrontational political policies. The message was clear only two days after the North vowed to abandon all peace agreements with its southern neighbor.

Relations between the pair have been strained since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office nearly a year ago. He pledged to take a harder line on the North. Tension heightened Friday when the North said it was ditching a nonaggression pact and all other peace accords with South Korea.

The tension may lead to "an unavoidable military conflict and a war," North Korea's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

"The policy of confrontation" by the South Korean government is "the very source of military conflicts and war" between the Koreas, it said.

The North has accused Lee's government of preparing to stage a war, which South Korea denies. Earlier this month, the North's military declared it adopted an "all-out confrontational posture" to defeat any southern aggression. In its Friday statement, the North said it would no longer respect a disputed sea border with the South on the west of the peninsula, raising the prospect for a new armed clash in the area, already the scene of bloody naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

President Lee Myung-bak sought to downplay the statement and called it "not unusual." He indicated his government will wait until the North is ready for talks in good faith.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said Sunday that the country's navy remains on alert along the western sea border. The official also said the ministry has not detected any unusual movements of the North Korean military. The peninsula remains divided by a heavily fortified border, with tens of thousands of troops stationed on both sides.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Removed from Office

2009-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted of impeachment charges by the Illinois state Senate and removed from office. The Illinois Senate voted a unanimous 59-0 to oust the Democrat Governor immediately. They also voted by the same margin to bar him from ever holding public office again in Illinois.

Earlier in the day Rod Blagojevich had asked, "How can you throw a governor out of office who is clamoring and begging and pleading with you to give him a chance to bring witnesses in to prove his innocence? A crime has not been proven here." He skipped the chance to make a formal defense during the proceedings because, he said, the rules restricted him from calling the witnesses he needed or playing in full the federal government wiretapped conversations that led to charges involving Obama's Senate seat.

In return, the Illinois Senate used words such as devious, cynical, crass, corrupt, liar, and hypocrite when discussing the case prior to the vote to oust the Illinois Governor.