Saturday, February 6, 2010

Barker's Newsbites (Weekend Edition): Feb. 6 & 7, 2010


Here we go...
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6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8933161

A record 38.2 million Americans were enrolled in the food stamp program at latest count, up 246,000 from the previous month and the latest in record-high monthly tallies that began in December 2008.

USDA estimates up to $58 billion will be spent on food stamps this fiscal year, which ends Sept 30, with average enrollment of 40.5 million people.

* Again... in line with my previous post concerning the supposed drop in unemployment from 10% to 9.7%.

* Just say'n...

BILL

February 6, 2010 at 10:36 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.8d6e5773c60565dfc6e882b0a8dcbf18.4e1&show_article=1

The Netherlands has asked the UN climate change panel to explain an inaccurate claim in a landmark 2007 report that more than half the country was below sea level, the Dutch government said Friday.

According to the Dutch authorities, only 26 percent of the country is below sea level, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be asked to account for its figures, environment ministry spokesman Trimo Vallaart told AFP.

* Oops!

(*SMIRK*)

* Seriously, folks...

(*SNORT*)

BILL

February 6, 2010 at 10:40 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020404752_pf.html

The U.S. military has reprimanded an unusually large number of commanders for battlefield failures in Afghanistan in recent weeks, reflecting a new push by the top brass to hold commanders responsible for major incidents in which troops are killed or wounded, said senior military officials.

The military does not release figures on disciplinary actions taken against field commanders. But officials familiar with recent investigations said letters of reprimand or other disciplinary action have been recommended for officers involved in three ambushes in which U.S. troops battled Taliban forces in remote villages in 2008 and 2009. Such administrative actions can scuttle chances for promotion and end a career if they are made part of an officer's permanent personnel file.

The investigations are a departure for the U.S. military, which until recently has been reluctant to second-guess commanders whose decisions might have played a role in the deaths of soldiers in enemy action. Disciplinary action has been more common in cases in which U.S. troops have injured or killed civilians.

In response to the recent reprimands, some military officials have argued that casualties are inevitable in war and that a culture of excessive investigations could make officers risk-averse.

As many as five battlefield commanders have received letters of reprimand in the past month or have been the subject of an investigation by a general who recommended disciplinary action. A sixth commander received a less-severe formal letter of admonishment. None of the investigations or letters of reprimand has been released publicly.

February 6, 2010 at 10:44 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/RFK-79834057.html

[Op-ed by David Freddoso]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.

QUOTING --

In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today's anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don't own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers.

In those days, I recall my uncle, President Kennedy, standing erect as he rode a toboggan in his top coat, never faltering until he slid into the boxwood at the bottom of the hill. Once, my father, Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy, brought a delegation of visiting Eskimos home from the Justice Department for lunch at our house. They spent the afternoon building a great igloo in the deep snow in our backyard. My brothers and sisters played in the structure for several weeks before it began to melt. On weekend afternoons, we commonly joined hundreds of Georgetown residents for ice skating on Washington's C&O Canal, which these days rarely freezes enough to safely skate.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy.

END QUOTE

Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend's extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.

February 7, 2010 at 12:46 PM
Rodak said...

I spent over three hours shoveling snow yesterday afternoon, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity. There is nothing like physical labor to raise the spirits and promote an overall feeling of well-being.

February 7, 2010 at 2:49 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703427704575051443279877452.html

[Regarding] the not so small matter of Mr. Cuomo's own role in promoting policies that fed the housing mania and set the stage for the meltdown:

Before he pursued statewide office in New York, Andrew Cuomo was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Bill Clinton's second term.

[I]n 1999 "Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families. The historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent—a 19 percent increase—in the year 2001."

It's a sign of Washington's continuing failure to examine its own failures that HUD still views such a policy as an "accomplishment." It's as if the Pentagon described Pearl Harbor as a victory.

We know that in the wake of Mr. Cuomo's agitation, Fannie and Freddie's purchases of subprime loans skyrocketed. Subprime and "liar" loans became loss leaders that eventually caused the two mortgage giants to fail—with taxpayers so far on the hook for $111 billion in losses and perhaps hundreds of billions more to come.

The problem wasn't merely that HUD under Mr. Cuomo was raising the volume of risky loans for which taxpayers were guaranteeing. HUD was also encouraging a dangerous decline in underwriting standards at these government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).

Mr. Cuomo was doing this Fan and Fred cheerleading even as his colleagues in the Clinton Treasury were publicly raising red flags about their too-rapid expansion. Had Larry Summers, who was then Treasury Secretary, and Republican Paul Ryan, prevailed in their reform attempts, Fan and Fred wouldn't have been able to pile up so much rotten debt and turbocharge the housing boom.

In 2008, Wayne Barrett wrote in detail in the Village Voice about the changes Mr. Cuomo also wrought at the Federal Housing Administration, encouraging bigger loans with smaller down payments.

Mr. Barrett wrote that Mr. Cuomo "made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down . . . ."

February 7, 2010 at 10:21 PM

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