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2010
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August
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- The Last Hurrah...???
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
- The Man is an A--hole... (And that's all there is ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 30, 2010
- Restoring Honor - August 28, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 27, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 26, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
- Is Hamas a Terrorist Organization?
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 24, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 23, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 19, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 17, 2010
- So... when's the last time you got new tires?
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 16, 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 14 & 15, 2010
- Harold Curtis VanDemark
- Barker's Newsbites: August 13, 2010
- Vernon Baker
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 12, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 11, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, August 10. 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, August 9. 2010
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., August 7 & 8, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, August 6, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, August 5, 2010
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, August 4, 2010
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August
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About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
11 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/07/AR2010080700075.html?hpid=newswell
At least four people were injured and three arrested late Friday night after a brawl in the Metro system involving as many as 70 people, a Metro spokeswoman said.
* MAKES YA PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, DOESN'T IT... (*SIGH*)
The brawl apparently began about 11 p.m. at the Gallery Place station and then continued in the L'Enfant Plaze station, according to Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato.
* "BRAWL," HUH...??? WHEN I THINK "BRAWL" I THINK A COUPLE GUYS, PERHAPS EVEN A FEW GUYS, FIGHTING IN A BAR. WHEN 70 PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED I BELIEVE THE TERM IS "RIOT," OR PERHAPS "WILDING."
Transit police were called to Gallery Place in Northwest Washington where a disorderly group was reported, she said. Then police were sent to the L'Enfant Plaza station two stops away in Southwest, where a fight was reported on the platform for Green and Yellow Line trains.
* "DISORDERLY GROUP...???" (*SNORT*) (YEP... SOUNDS LIKE WILDING TO ME!)
* HMM... I WONDER IF THERE'S VIDEO OF THIS...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1301002/BP-oil-spill-Why-claims-Gulf-Mexico-historys-worst-oil-spill-cynical-spin-campaign-ever.html
The warm, white sand stretches for miles as clean and flat as a freshly laundered bed sheet.
The turquoise sea is so clear that I can see silvery fish playing around my toes as I take a cooling paddle.
If there is any more pristine resort in which to spend a summer holiday than Pensacola Beach, on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I would like to find it. And yet, at a time of year when usually there is barely room to unfold a deckchair, the shore is eerily deserted.
Ask Pensacola’s fretfully quiet seafront traders why the tourists have all stayed away and they angrily recall one chaotic day back in late June. Then, hungry for dramatic TV footage to support Barack Obama’s announcement, that the BP - or, as he preferred, ‘British Petroleum’ - oil spill was ‘the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced’, news networks descended on their town. They quickly found what they were looking for: shocking images of Pensacola’s famously white beaches thickly-coated with sticky, black crude oil and apparently beyond salvation. The apocalyptic message was reinforced in doom-laden interviews with locals. ‘It’s damn near biblical. This place is done for!’ lamented 36-year-old Kevin Reed, whose family have swum and sunbathed in the area for generations.
Yet, as I saw this week, nothing could be further from the truth. Strolling along the beach for an hour, I found just one, pea-sized tar-ball which crumbled to nothing between my fingers. [Furthermore,] if the U.S. TV news crews had returned just three days after their original visit, they [too] would have seen that the black morass had already been removed by some of the 20,000 clean-up workers hired by BP.
(The workers are still there - only now they are using toothbrushes to sift out even the tiniest particles of oil. But, of course, after a ‘catastrophic’ oil spill, a spotless beach doesn’t make dramatic viewing and who wants to know? Certainly not the politicians, nor the green-lobby tub-thumpers, nor the compensation claimants and their mega-bucks lawyers.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100806/ap_on_re_us/us_milwaukee_teachers_viagra
With the district in a financial crisis and hundreds of its members facing layoffs, the Milwaukee teachers union is taking a peculiar stand: fighting to get its taxpayer-funded Viagra back.
The union has asked a judge to order the school board to again include Pfizer Inc.'s erectile dysfunction drug and similar pills in its health insurance plans.
* YEP! THERE'S A POSTER CHILD FOR UNION RESPONSIBILITY, HUH?!
The filing last month comes as the union, the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, is also protesting hundreds of layoff notices issued to teachers for the coming school year.
* HMM... I WONDER WHICH IS THE PRIORITY - THE VIAGRA OR THE JOBS...??? (*CHUCKLE*)
At least one lawmaker questioned why the union is fighting for Viagra while teachers are losing their jobs. A consultant for the school board has estimated that reinstating the drug benefit would cost $786,000 per year — the cost to keep perhaps a dozen first-year teachers employed.
State Rep. Jason Fields argues that the money could be better spent any number of ways — including saving jobs.
"You've got to be kidding me," said Fields, a Milwaukee Democrat. "The fact that is the point of contention is kind of frightening. What are our priorities? I'm all for love and peace. But almost 1 million dollars? And you go to court over this issue?"
Union spokeswoman Kris Collett declined comment.
(*SNORT*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/new_jersey/camden-closing-library-system-20100806-apx
CAMDEN, N.J. - New Jersey's most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year's end unless a rescue can be pulled off.
Camden's library board says the libraries won't be able to afford to stay open past Dec. 31 because of budget cuts from the city government. The city had its subsidy from the state cut.
The library board president says the library system, which opened in 1904, is preparing to donate, sell or destroy its collections, including 187,000 books.
* DON'T WORRY, FOLKS... ALL IS WELL... THE AGE OF OBAMA MARCHES ON... (*SNORT*)
Camden's library system is not the only one having financial problems. Fourteen libraries in Queens cut weekend services earlier this year.
(*SIGH*)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703309704575413491311091442.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
* PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THIS ONE. AGAIN... IT POINTS TO ONE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSION: THE OBAMA CREW IS WILLING TO LIE, CHEAT, MANIPULATE, AND DECEIVE IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY THEIR POLICIES.
One of the benefits of ObamaCare was supposed to be a set of reforms that would help contain the exploding growth of Medicare.
This week, four months after it was originally scheduled to be released...
(*SMIRK*)
...the Medicare trustees issued their annual report on the program's fiscal health. Sure enough, ObamaCare supporters were largely pleased with its findings. They applauded the claim that the long-run shortfall in Medicare's finances had moderated to $30.8 trillion from just over $38 trillion in last year's trustees' report.
* WAIT FOR IT...
* WAIT FOR IT...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
But the trustees' conclusions were completely undermined by an unprecedented appendix from Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster, who called the projections by the trustees "unreasonable" and "implausible."
"The projections shown in the report do not represent the 'best estimate' of actual future Medicare expenditures," he wrote. (That's because, contrary to all experience, the trustees had counted on Medicare physician fees being reduced by 30% over the next three years.)
Even if Congress were actually to impose such cuts, Mr. Foster says there is no way such reductions could be absorbed without many hospitals being badly harmed and possibly dropping out of Medicare completely. His best estimate is that the number of medical facilities that would become unprofitable due to ObamaCare will reach 25% by 2030 and 40% by 2050. That could severely limit access by patients to medical facilities.
Bottom line: Medicare remains a ticking time bomb ready to explode inside America's economy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703426004575339290774710032.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[T]he Gulf of Mexico is being brought under control, it's time to start thinking into the future. [Yet the] Obama Administration is sticking by its ruinous deepwater drilling moratorium.
Norway, run by the very model of modern environmentalists, announced a deep-water drilling halt until the spill is done. Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Riis-Johansen made clear he views the stoppage as temporary. However, [Norway's partial, limited] ban applies only to new drilling, unlike the Obama Administration's total ban.
Norway also announced it's moving ahead with a deep water push into the Barents and Norwegian Seas, putting up 94 new blocks for drilling leases.
Brazil is accelerating its drilling pace, announcing it would spend some $200 billion the next five years to tap newly discovered offshore reserves at depths to 23,000 feet. State-controlled Petrobras, the world's biggest deep water producer, recently struck oil three miles under Brazil's sea - a reserve that could yield 380 million barrels of oil and natural gas.
Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has offered 31 new leases off his country's coast that allow for wells at twice the depth of the BP Macondo. "There is no intention by the government to scale back the development of the oil and gas industry in Australia," Ferguson said. "It is important in terms of the nation's energy security, jobs and the overall economy."
New Zealand has authorized its first permit to drill off the east coast of its North Island, with Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee saying it is vital that the country "attract investment" from the same oil companies that U.S. politicians are bashing.
Canada continues to allow drilling in deep water off Newfoundland and Labrador and is moving ahead with exploration licenses in the Arctic.
The U.K. is still drilling in deep water in the North Sea.
Many of these countries...hope to benefit from [Obama's] politically motivated moratorium by bidding for deep water rigs now working in the Gulf. (Brazil's Petrobras is looking far and wide for deep water drilling rigs, with a goal of 60 by 2017, and it's looking to sign long-term contracts with owners of rigs now idled in the Gulf.)
These are hardly rogue nations. What they share is an understanding that environmental concerns must be balanced with the reality that oil and gas remain crucial to economic growth, and that their reserves are increasingly in deep water.
America's oil and gas reserves are no less essential to the U.S. economy, notwithstanding President Obama's romance with "green jobs." Every day the administration spends trying to justify its moratorium is one more day when the U.S. is losing jobs that may not return.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703309704575413553060512246.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
The economy shed 131,000 jobs in July and the number of jobs created in May and June were revised downward to 221,000 lost jobs.
* 131,000 + 221,000 = 352,000 JOBS LOST DURING THE PRECEDING THREE MONTHS (ALONE!) OF THE OBAMA (er...) "RECOVERY."
The unemployment rate held steady at 9.5% but that does not reflect the fact that the number of discouraged workers is also up 389,000 from a year ago.
(*DEEP SIGH*)
Private employment did inch up in July by 71,000 positions, with a nice 36,000 pick-up in manufacturing jobs, but even that number is deceptive. The vast majority of those jobs were in the auto industry. Alas, not every struggling manufacturing plant in America can have a lifeline to the federal Treasury.
* IN OTHER WORDS, THESE "PRIVATE SECTOR" JOBS ARE IN LARGE PART GOVERNMENT FUNDED - TAXPAYER FUNDED VIA EVER-INCREASING NATIONAL DEBT GROWTH UNDER PELOSI, REID, AND OBAMA.
The average work week lengthened by 0.1 hours and wages bumped up by 4 cents an hour in July to $22.59. This means things are getting better if you already have a job.
* BUT ONLY SO LONG AS INFLATION IS KEPT IN CHECK...
[S]mall businesses in particular aren't creating new jobs the way they have in other recoveries. The shrinking size of the labor force is helping to keep the official jobless rate below 10%, but that's mostly because some one million workers have dropped out of the labor force since April.
(*SIGH*)
So far the Obama team has thrown the entire Keyensian playbook at the economy. We have paid people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes and put solar paneling on their roofs. And of course there was the original stimulus package of $862 billion, though some of that remains unspent. None of it has put America back to work.
The economy is now 2.5 million jobs short of where it would need to be to get back under the 8% unemployment rate we were promised. With the federal government running a $1.4 trillion deficit, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back into session to pass a $26 billion "stimulus" bill to give cash to states, cities and teachers unions.
As the evidence mounts that government spending doesn't create net new jobs, the White House insists we need to double down on spending and monetary stimulus.
* WE ARE SO FRIGG'N SCREWED...
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/080810dnmetbabies.2be9a7e.html
[I]n Texas...1.5 million illegal immigrants are estimated to reside [and] at least 60,000 babies are added to their households annually.
* THAT'S 60,000 "ANCHOR BABIES" - IN ONE STATE ALONE! AND THE REASON THEY'RE CALLED ANCHOR BABIES... BECAUSE THROUGH THEM THEIR ILLEGALLY "RESIDENT" PARENTS CAN CLAIM PUBLIC WELFARE BENEFITS "FOR" THE BABIES AS WELL AS OFTEN USING THE CITIZENSHIP STATUS OF THE BABIES TO "ANCHOR" THEMSELVES TO U.S. TERRITORY.
Parkland Memorial Hospital delivers more of those babies than any other hospital in the state. Last year at Parkland, 11,071 babies were born to women who were noncitizens, about 74% of total deliveries. Most of these women are believed to be in the country illegally.
* AND WHO PAYS THE BILLS...??? (CITING http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/08-10/0808births.pdf, ABOUT HALF OF ALL BIRTHS IN TEXAS ARE FUNDED BY MEDICAID.)
Between 2001 and 2009, births to illegal immigrant women totaled 542,152 in Texas alone.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/543025/201008061900/The-Propaganda-Of-Incompetents.aspx
As the "recovery summer" turns into a nightmare, one thing has become painfully clear: This is the most economically incompetent administration since the Great Depression.
* WELL... BETWEEN LBJ AND NIXON THEY SET THE STAGE FOR FORD AND CARTER...
* BOTTOM LINE, WHEREVER THEY ORIGINATE, SOCIALISTIC BIG GOVERNMENT, EXPANDING WELFARE STATE ECONOMIC POLICIES NEVER END WELL.
Two years into the Obama era...all we see is economic wreckage from the unbelievably foolish policies pursued by the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress. Whether it's the $862 billion "stimulus" that turned into a welfare program for bankrupt states and public unions, or the $700 billion TARP program that became a giant dish of pork for Democrats and their supporters, or the job-killing duo of health care and financial reform, Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al. seem oblivious to the deep and lasting damage they're doing to America's economy.
(*SIGH*) (*NOD*) (UNLESS OF COURSE IT'S NOT SIMPLE "INCOMPETENCE," BUT RATHER A CONCERTED EFFORT TO "BREAK" AMERICAN CAPITALISM ONCE AND FOR ALL IN ORDER TO USHER IN... er... "CHANGE.")
Friday's frightening jobs report was only the latest in a series of releases indicating the "recovery" is faltering. Unemployment in July was unchanged at 9.5%, but a net 131,000 jobs were lost on top of 97,000 more than first accounted for in May and June.
The White House response? On Friday, after release of the jobs report, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis touted the economy's "turnaround" and credited "strong and immediate action" President Obama took after entering office. Solis also repeated - with the stock market selling off 100 points as she spoke - the bogus claim made by the White House and uncritically parroted by its media pals that timely action "saved or created more than 2.5 million American jobs."
As we've said, this is utter nonsense. Completely made up. And, by the way, the official who made it up - Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer - quit on Friday to return to academia, her reputation for accuracy in tatters.
Here's the real record: America has lost 4.1 million jobs since Obama took office and 7.7 million since the recession began in December 2007.
* HMM... DECEMBER OF 2007... WASN'T THAT 12 MONTHS AFTER NANCY PELOSI AND HARRY REID TOOK CONTROL OF THE GAVELS IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE...???
[M]ost of the jobs lost have been under this administration.
* ALL OF THEM HAVE BEEN LOST UNDER THIS CONGRESS!
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/real-u-3-unemployment-rate-when-adjusted-labor-force-participation-around-14
[T]he Labor Force Participation (LFP) rate...has now plunged to the lowest level in over 25 years - 64.6%
[The fine folks at ZeroHedge] decided to "normalize" the LFP by keeping it at the peak achieved at the turn of millennium, or December 1999, when it hit a peak of 67.1%.
Now as everyone knows the US population has been soaring since then, and with the cost of living increasing ever more with each day, and as more and more family members are forced to join the work pool, it makes sense that in a normal economy, the LFP should continue rising instead of declining. We thus kept it constant at the 67.1% level (instead of doing the conservative thing and pushing it higher along the trendline), and ran the unemployment numbers through, assuming this part of the jobless equation was constant.
[W]e found that the U-3 rate (not the U-6), which today was supposed to be 9.5%, in fact turns out to be 13.0% as of July: an all time record save for the 13.6% recorded in December 2009.
(And if instead we use the trendline number of a 68.5% LFP rate, the unemployment rate today would be 14.7%.)
* NOW, FOLKS, I'M NEITHER A CPA NOR AN MBA. I SIMPLY DON'T HAVE THE SKILLS TO PERSONALLY VOUCH FOR THE ABOVE CLAIMS. THAT SAID, ZEROHEDGE IS AN AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE. READ THE FULL ARTICLE FOR YOURSELVES AND MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL.
This is so cool
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