Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2010


Each week my goddaughter and I bond over the Vampire Diaries...

...we're both pulling for Damon!

Gotta Luv Teenaged Angst...!!!

(*GRIN*)
Posted by at

6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/253304/canadian-vs-american-immigration-heather-mac-donald

In a front-page New York Times article on Canada’s Manitoba province, Jason DeParle appears puzzled as to why Canada seems more welcoming of “immigrants” than is the U.S.

To be sure, the article acknowledges the crucial difference between Canadian immigration and the bulk of American immigration: Canadian immigrants obey Canadian law in entering the country; millions of American immigrants flout American law.

DeParle also observes that Canada seeks out skilled and educated immigrants, whose children “typically do well.”

Though DeParle does not spell out the American obverse, it is the following: Many children of Hispanic illegal aliens are doing poorly, with rock-bottom high-school graduation rates, sky-high teen-pregnancy rates, persistent academic difficulties, and rising levels of gang involvement across generations.

These differences makes any implied comparison between the two countries’ immigration politics wholly unjustified.

Recently released data from California underline why illegal immigration has produced a backlash in the U.S. Over 50% of children in California public schools are now Latino, a demographic shift that American voters have never formally endorsed. Unless educators quickly figure out how to close the achievement gap between Latinos, on the one hand, and whites and Asians, on the other, the consequences of this demographic development for California’s economic future are bleak.

California spends billions trying to bring its Hispanic students up to speed, but finds that millions of students born here continue to be classified as “long-term English learners” throughout their school careers because their cognitive skills are so low.

* REPEAT: MILLIONS OF STUDENTS - LATINO STUDENTS - BORN (AND RAISED) HERE (IN AMERICA) CONTINUE TO BE CLASSIFIED AS "LONG-TERM ENGLISH LEARNERS" THROUGHOUT THEIR SCHOOL CAREERS BECAUSE THEIR COGNITIVE SKILLS ARE SO LOW.

Each year brings new tutoring ventures and pedagogical methods, but the apparent cultural blocks to high academic achievement have so far been intractable.

November 16, 2010 at 11:37 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schenker-china-mideast-20101116,0,3988489.story

It's unrealistic to expect that Washington could have excluded Beijing from the Middle East. But the rate of Chinese progress occurs amid a perception that the U.S. is withdrawing from the region.

China...

* NOT THE U.S.

...is the leading oil and gas investor in Iraq, and it is paying millions to protect its investment there.

That's not surprising since Iraq has the world's largest known oil reserves.

China has also purchased extensive goodwill with Baghdad by forgiving $6 billion to $8 billion in Iraqi debt accrued during the Saddam Hussein era. And Beijing has gotten in on the sale of weapons - worth in excess of $100 million - to the new government in Baghdad.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in China this month touting the "new cooperation paradigm" between Ankara and Beijing.

Just a week earlier, a top political advisor to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao spent five days in Syria signing deals and planting olive trees in the Golan Heights.

Starting in the 1990s, China filled a void in Syria left by a decaying Soviet Union, providing the terrorist state with a variety of missiles. Today, Syrian President Bashar Assad is fulfilling his 2004 pledge to "look East" toward Asia to escape the Western hold on the Middle East. In addition to serving as an ongoing and reliable source of weapons, China has invested heavily in modernizing Syria's antiquated energy sector.

The Middle Kingdom, it seems, is planting deep roots in the Middle East these days. China gets more than a quarter of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf and has billions invested in Iran's oil sector.

More striking, however, has been Beijing's rapid inroads with the Islamist government in Ankara headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More striking, however, has been Beijing's rapid inroads with the Islamist government in Ankara headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ... The most recent manifestation of these ties was the unprecedented inclusion in October of Chinese warplanes in the Turkish military exercise Anatolian Eagle, maneuvers that previously had included the U.S. and Israel. ... The joint announcement in October that China and Turkey had formally upgraded their bilateral relationship to that of a "strategic partnership" only makes matters worse.

Beijing did not choose Iran, Syria and Turkey as the focal point of its regional "outreach" by accident. These northern-tier Middle Eastern states all have complicated if not problematic relations with the United States and increasingly close ties with one another. To complement this triumvirate, China appears to be looking to Iraq as the next target of its charm offensive.

* OH, YEAH... THAT OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY - RUN BY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON - IS REALLY WORKING OUT WELL FOR SOMEONE...

* PROBLEM IS... THAT SOMEONE APPEARS TO BE CHINESE PREMIER WEN JIABAO.

November 16, 2010 at 1:40 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/show_us_the_victims_IKAoxjhIzWCtrvXRBVsVIN

Nearly 90% of home owners have stayed current on their mortgages throughout the housing meltdown. Yet, in what should be his final act as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, [democrat] Chris Dodd is holding a hearing today about how the 10% of homeowners who are either seriously delinquent or in default on their loans are being screwed by the banking system.

(*SMIRK*) (*PLAYING A TINSEY-WEENSY VIOLIN*)

The hearing, of course, won't dwell on the "mistakes" of the vast majority of alleged victims of this scandal - namely, how they rolled the dice on the housing bubble, taking out loans they knew they couldn't afford.

* DIRTBAGS... (*SHRUG*)

Its title - "Problems in Mortgage Servicing From Modification to Foreclosure" - tells you all you need to know about the goal: to stoke anger at the big banks by portraying all those who've been forced from their homes in the last two years as "innocent" victims, "seduced" into taking out unaffordable loans and now "victimized" by the same banks and their teams of "robo-signers," who denied them "due process" by rubber-stamping foreclosure documents without proper review.

(*SNORT*) CRY ME A RIVER...

According to Bank of America, the average person "victimized" by a robo-signer hadn't made a mortgage payment in nearly two years. Many (about a third) had abandoned their homes long ago. In fact, people at BofA tell me they've yet to find a "real" victim - that is, a family that was evicted from its home even as it met all its obligations. On the other hand, people at banks such as Bank of America and JP Morgan tell me they've found dozens of examples of people not paying their mortgages but still making money renting out their home to others.

November 16, 2010 at 1:40 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x290098837/Massachusetts-governors-second-term-will-push-tuition-for-illegal-immigrants

Gov. Deval Patrick says he'll use his second term to try to implement the rest of an advisory panel's recent recommendations on immigration reform, including in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students and more English classes.

* SO... ANYONE HAVE A KID ATTENDING A PUBLIC COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY IN MASSACHUSETTS WHO IS PAYING OUT-OF-STATE TUITION RATES? (*SMIRK*)

* HEY... IT'S NOT LIKE MASSACHUSETTS ISN'T JUST ROLLING IN EXCESS REVENUES... (*SNICKER*)

* HEY... IT'S NOT LIKE WE HAVE ANY FINANCIAL PROBLEMS IN AMERICA, RIGHT...??? SPEND MONEY ON ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING! (*SNORT*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

Patrick told immigrant advocates Tuesday that the moves will help better integrate the state's immigrant population...

* NOT "IMMIGRANT" POPULATION; "ILLEGAL ALIEN" POPULATION!

The crowd gave the governor a standing ovation...

* OF COURSE THEY DID...!

(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)

November 16, 2010 at 7:15 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704312504575618494240593162.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

One of the most exciting features of the new Congress is the prospect that the chairmanship of a House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve will go to Ron Paul. ... Dr. Paul, an obstetrician, has been the ranking Republican of the Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology subcommittee, and tradition suggests he will be the next chairman.

(*SHOUTING OUT WITH GLEE*)

This couldn't come at a more timely moment, though Dr. Paul has been working his way up to the assignment for more than a generation.

(*NOD*)

Heretofore, the subcommittee has "basically been a committee that's dealt with commemorative coins," as Dr. Paul has put it. [T]he congressman says that he intends to get into the question of monetary policy itself. He would start by bringing in to testify to the committee not only the Fed chairman, but some of the leading officers and economists of some of the regional banks in the Federal Reserve system.

* MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

More far-reaching still is the prospect that Dr. Paul might use the committee to open up the deepest monetary issues, pressing for audits of America's gold holdings and of the Fed itself.

(*WILD APPLAUSE*)

Most exciting is the prospect that Dr. Paul will be able to bring into the national conversation such figures as, say, Edwin Vieira Jr., the visionary lawyer who has become the sage of the idea of constitutional money. That's a reference to the unit of account to which the Founders were referring when they twice used the word "dollars" in the Constitution, and which they codified in the Coinage Act of 1792 as 371¼ grains of pure silver, the same as in a then-ubiquitous coin known as the Spanish Milled Dollar, or its free-market equivalent in gold.

(*NODDING*)

The great debate is finally starting up again. Who better to host it in Congress than the diminutive doctor who, more faithfully than anyone else on the Hill, has for more than a generation stood for the idea of sound money?

* EXACTLY RIGHT! GOD BLESS RON PAUL...!!!

November 16, 2010 at 10:15 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/15/open-letter-to-ben-bernanke/

The following is the text of an open letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke signed by several economists, along with investors and political strategists, most of them close to Republicans:

We believe the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called “quantitative easing”) should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment.

We subscribe to your statement in the Washington Post on November 4 that “the Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy’s problems on its own.” In this case, we think improvements in tax, spending and regulatory policies must take precedence in a national growth program, not further monetary stimulus.

We disagree with the view that inflation needs to be pushed higher, and worry that another round of asset purchases, with interest rates still near zero over a year into the recovery, will distort financial markets and greatly complicate future Fed efforts to normalize monetary policy.

The Fed’s purchase program has also met broad opposition from other central banks and we share their concerns that quantitative easing by the Fed is neither warranted nor helpful in addressing either U.S. or global economic problems.

November 16, 2010 at 11:08 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)