Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, September 21, 2010


Good... but I still miss Sonny.
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7 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100921/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

A NATO helicopter crashed Tuesday in southern Afghanistan... A "large number" of Americans were among those who died, according to a senior military official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because not all relatives had been notified.

(*SIGH*)

* FEEL ANY SAFER, FOLKS?

In addition, NATO reported that another coalition service member died following an explosion in southern Afghanistan. No other details of the incident were disclosed.

(*TICK-TICK-TICK*)

So far this year, 526 U.S. and NATO forces have been killed in Afghanistan, surpassing the 504 killed last year. This year has been the deadliest for international forces since the war began in 2001.

* THE YEAR OF OBAMA - IS IT NOT?

(*SHRUG*)

September 21, 2010 at 2:05 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-21/u-s-loses-no-1-to-brazil-china-india-market-in-global-poll-on-investing.html

The U.S. has fallen behind emerging markets in Brazil, China and India as the preferred place to invest, a Bloomberg survey shows...

(*SIGH*)

* AIN'T THE AGE OF OBAMA GRAND?! WELL... HE PROMISED US "CHANGE."

In the September poll of 1,408 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers, respondents rate the U.S. fourth for potential returns over the next year, behind Brazil and China, tied for first, and India, in third place.

The U.S. economic situation “is obviously unsustainable, and the concerted attempt to suspend disbelief is playing increasingly poorly abroad,” says poll respondent Eric Kraus, chief strategist for Otkritie Brokerage House in Moscow. “One can delay, but no one can forestall the unwind of a multi-decade credit bubble.”

September 21, 2010 at 2:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68G3NT20100917

U.S. household wealth fell by $1.5 trillion in the second quarter, according to Federal Reserve data...

(*SIGH*)

Household net worth fell to $53.5 trillion, well below the $64.2 trillion it had reached at the end of 2007 when the recession officially began, according to the central bank's quarterly flow of funds report.

[T]he unemployment rate in August edged up to 9.6% and housing markets are still in distress.

* NO $HIT, SHERLOCK!

Federal government debt expanded during the second quarter at a hefty 24.4% annual rate after a 20.5% increase in the first quarter.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

The Census Bureau's annual look at U.S. living standards - once the envy of the world because of the upward mobility Americans could tap into - found the poverty rate at a 15-year high of 14.3% in 2009, up from 13.2% in 2008.

* OH, YEAH... HELL OF A JOB, OBAMA!

September 21, 2010 at 2:06 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/09/21/why_corvettes_cost_less_than_college_107241.html

That was a pleasant stroll across the Ivy League campus of Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island.

I saw the gardening crews, the maintenance trucks, the pricey restoration work on Faunce Arch.

I passed the skating rink, the president's mansion and the new Department of Facilities Management building.

As I surveyed the handsome spread (tax-exempt, sadly), I wondered, "Is all this really necessary - I mean - for the education of these students?"

Such subversive thoughts are hardly original. "A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard," Herman Melville, the author of "Moby Dick," famously said over 150 years ago.

American colleges continue to float in the bubble of economic exceptionalism once occupied by Detroit carmakers. American median income has grown 6.5 times over the past 40 years, but the cost of attending one's own state college has ballooned 15 times. This kind of income-price mismatch haunted the housing market right before it melted down.

Tuition at the private University of Southern California has risen 360% since 1980, to $41,434 a year. At the University of Illinois, a state school, the annual tuition of $13,658 is six times that of 1980. (These numbers are all adjusted for inflation and don't include room and board.)

American universities now rake in $40 billion a year more than they did 30 years ago. And most of that money isn't going for academics, according to Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus in their book, "Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids and What We Can Do About It."

For starters, the money is going to more numerous and more pampered sports teams. Duke University in Durham, N.C., spends over $20,000 a year per varsity golf player. And these squads rarely pay for themselves. There are 629 college football teams, and only 14 make money.

The number of administrators per student at colleges has about doubled over 30 years, according to Hacker and Dreifus. Their titles point to such questionable duties as "director for learning communities" and "assistant dean of students for substance education." Compensation for college presidents, meanwhile, has soared to corporate CEO levels. Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., pays its president $1.2 million a year! Full-time faculty members are being paid more for teaching less. Some elite colleges now offer sabbaticals every third year instead of the traditional seventh. Harvard has 48 history professors, and 20 of them are somewhere else this year.

Universities are also competing to make their on-campus experiences more like a resort than a bookish monastery. Some dorms feature granite counters, kitchens and walk-in closets. Fancy health clubs have replaced musty gyms.

September 21, 2010 at 5:56 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2732904,jackson-responds-to-sun-times-story-092210.article

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)...vowed to stay in office in the wake of a Chicago Sun-Times report that a major political fund-raiser has told federal authorities that Jackson directed him to offer former Gov. Rod Blagojevich millions of dollars in campaign cash in return for an appointment for Jackson to the U.S. Senate, to succeed President Obama.

* HEY... SPEAKING OF BLAGO... I SAY THAT THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS SHOULD MAKE HIM AN HONORARY MEMBER FOR THE SAKE BOTH OF SOLIDARITY AND DIVERSITY! (DO I HEAR A SECOND?!)

The allegation by Oak Brook businessman Raghuveer Nayak regarding fund-raising runs counter to public statements Jackson has made as recently as last week that he never authorized any deal to attempt to trade campaign cash for the Senate appointment, which ultimately went not to Jackson but to Sen. Roland Burris.

* AHH... ROLAND BURRIS... ANOTHER WINNER... (*CHUCKLE*)

The Sun-Times reported on Tuesday that sources said Nayak told authorities that on Oct. 8, 2008, Jackson directed him to offer Blagojevich $6 million in exchange for the Senate appointment. Sources said Nayak also told authorities that Jackson asked him to pay to fly a Washington, D.C., restaurant hostess named Giovana Huidobro - described as a “social acquaintance” of the Democratic congressman - to Chicago to visit him. Nayak did so twice, according to the sources. Jackson didn’t address Nayak’s allegation involving payment for those flights, which could raise ethical questions under the U.S. House of Representatives’ gift ban act.

But Jackson acknowledged knowing Huidobro and that the relationship was something he an his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson, have had to deal with.

(*SMIRK*)

* THESE FRIGG'N GUYS... IT'S THE NICKEL AND DIME SCAMMING THAT GETS 'EM EVERY TIME. (TOO CHEAP TO PERSONALLY PAY FOR A COUPLE LOUSY WASHINGTON D.C.-CHICAGO SHUTTLE FLIGHTS. PATHETIC!)

September 21, 2010 at 5:57 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/21/morning-bell-a-leftist-wish-list-vs-national-security/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

One of the foremost responsibilities of the federal government is to ensure the security of our nation.

This week the U.S. Senate is scheduled to take up the FY 2011 National Defense Authorization Act. This legislation is necessary to fund the defense of the United States and its interests abroad. The House already passed their bill in May. But Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would rather talk about amnesty.

Why is Reid doing this?

One only need look at the RealClearPolitics aggregate polling data: he is in a dead-heat reelection battle with State Rep. Sharon Angle (R). That is why Reid bypassed usual Senate procedure and included “the DREAM Act” in the defense bill.

The DREAM Act creates a “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. before the age of 16, have lived here for 5 years, and either serve in the military or attend college.

[T]he bill also prohibits the government from deporting anyone who has even filed an application for the program.

This essentially gives amnesty to anyone who applies regardless of whether they actually qualify for the act’s protections.

Worse, the program would also allow applicants to sponsor their immediate family members for a green card. While current law prohibits sponsorship of illegal immigrants living in the United States, this leaves open the possibility that they could fraudulently, through falsified documents or other means, sponsor their parents who are in the U.S. illegally creating an even larger amnesty.

[I]n an additional slap in the face to law-abiding Americans, it offers in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, while legal students in the rest of the country would have to pay out-of-state tuition rates.

By itself the DREAM Act is terrible public policy. It would reward illegal aliens for violating federal immigration laws. It would encourage more illegal immigration by sending the message that the United States does not take its immigration laws seriously. ... But forcing this measure into the defense authorization bill is just shameful.

* FOLKS. THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO "BREAK" AMERICA. HOW ELSE DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS?

September 21, 2010 at 5:58 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/09/21/obama_mexicans_were_here_long_before_america_was_even_an_idea.html

"Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples. The British and French, the Dutch and Spanish, to Mexicans, to countless Indian tribes. We all shared the same land," President Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Mexico declared its independence on September 16, 1810. It was recognized on September 27, 1821.

The United States of America declared its independence in 1776.

* THE MAN IS AN IDIOT. HE CAN READ FROM A TELEPROMPTER... THAT'S APPARENTLY IT.

September 21, 2010 at 7:49 PM

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