November 8, 2007
November 6, 2007
Yahoo Helps Chinese Imprison Journalist, Boycott Yahoo Now!
Boycott anything Yahoo. Yahoo will sell you down the river. You cannot trust that you are protected using their products. The large internet company is complicit in the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao, a freelance journalist for Internet publications and an editor for the Chinese business newspaper Dangdai Shang Bao and other Chinese democracy dissidents that had used the internet to spread the idea of democracy.
In hearings before the House Foreign Affairs committee, two top Yahoo executives, Michael Callahan and CEO Jerry Yang admitted that Yahoo turned over internet information to the Chinese Government. The Chinese then used that information to arrest and prosecute journalist Tao and other Chinese cyber dissidents. Tao was sentenced to ten years in prison for posting a Chinese government order forbidding media organizations from marking the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising on the Internet. This was considered by the communist government to be the releasing of state secrets. The Chinese learned it was Tao’s posting because Yahoo turned over email and other computer files which connected the postings to Tao.
So in Yahoo’s world making money in China is more important than the life and liberty of internet users, more specifically Yahoo users. Not only did they directly help in sending Tao and others to prison, Yahoo did not notify the US Government of the requests made by the Chinese government in previous testimony before the Foreign Affairs committee. Yahoo’s Callahan blamed it on a bad translation. Funny that the translation came from the Yahoo office in China. If Yahoo is willing to give information to the Chinese imagine what they would be willing to give to the Bush administration’s efforts to watch everything we do. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif) said it best when addressing Callahan and Yang, “while technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies.”
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November 5, 2007
Oral Roberts University Opens Smear Campaign Against Professor Suing Them
Ziva Branstetter, The Tulsa World November 4, 2007
A former Oral Roberts University professor who is suing the university has been plaintiff and defendant in at least half a dozen lawsuits and has been investigated in a stock scheme in Arkansas, records show.
Since 2000, Tim Brooker has filed at least four state and federal lawsuits against various officials in Arkansas and other states. Brooker also has been a defendant in at least two civil lawsuits during that time, records show.
All of the lawsuits were thrown out and none resulted in judgments, records show.
Brooker is one of three former professors suing Oral Roberts University, Richard Roberts and other defendants. The suit claims Brooker was forced to resign and his wife, Paulita, and Professor John Swails were wrongfully fired.
The suit claims the actions came after Tim Brooker and Swails gave the university’s regents a document containing various allegations involving Roberts and his wife. The suit also claims Roberts ordered Brooker and students in Brooker’s government class to work for Randi Miller’s campaign for mayor of Tulsa.
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The Tattlesnake — Fred Thompson Eases His Way Out Edition
“I don’t have to prove myself to anybody. I’ve done pretty well being me. And me is all they’re going to get.”
– Fred Thompson, as quoted by Slate.com.
http://www.slate.com/id/2176518
Sunday on Meet the Press, Fred Thompson, wearing every one of his 65 years on his sagging face, amiably talked himself out of the Republican nomination for president in 2008. On social issues, he nearly sounded sane, coming out against any amendments to the Constitution or federal statutes making abortion and gay marriage illegal, preferring to leave those decisions to the states. And he also considered the fervid pandering of the GOP leadership attempting to intercede in the Terri Schiavo tragedy excessive, believing that such life-and-death decisions should be left to the family and the doctors in charge. At one point, remarkable for a Republican of the Bush era, he even granted his fellow citizens the right to disagree with him without reprisal. If you’re keeping score, Fred essentially told the Christopublican ‘values voters’ to sit on it and twist. Why, he’s almost as liberal as Giuliani on the social issues that have propelled the born-again base to the polls like lemmings since Ronald Reagan did his star turn in the Oval Office.
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November 4, 2007
Pakistan’s Military Dictator Stifles the Free Press
Gretchen Peters, ABC, November 4, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As Pakistanis awoke Sunday to a strict new political reality, the most visible sign of emergency rule was the harsh clampdown on the private media.
Pakistan’s Electronic Media Regulating Authority (PEMRA) issued an order that bans the media from making any reports “that defame or bring into ridicule” President Pervez Musharraf, his administration or the military.
Any editor who violates the order can face up to a year in jail or a 5 million rupee fine ($83,000).
In a speech to the nation on Saturday night, Musharraf said he invoked emergency powers in a bid to control a pro-Taliban insurgency that’s spinning out of control here. But immediate actions by his government instead appeared to target the media, opposition politicians and the judiciary.
About half a dozen judges were arrested after they refused to take oath under his new regime. Meanwhile scores of human rights activists, lawyers and pro-democracy agitators were put under house arrest, according to local news reports.
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Huges Suddenly Remembers Family; Resigns Again
Doghouse Riley says it best…
…..Oh, bright cherry blossoms of 2001! Hughes was the most powerful woman ever to set foot in the West Wing. Rice and Colin Powell were the twin avatars of The Mostest Color-blind Administration, Like, Ever. Winking, smirking, and used-car-dealer bonhomie were the softening artillery barrage of a Charm Offensive set to conquer the land with Conservative Compassion. And Dick Cheney was the selfless éminence grise with one ambition-less hand discretely on the rudder as the Boy King learned the read the winds….
Excesior!! Read the rest…..
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November 3, 2007
Why Is The Cost Of Oil Going Up? – Grimgold
While the cost of oil in this country has been going through the roof, it has remained stable in other countries.
Why?
Greedy oil companies?
Nope.
Increasing demand by the Communist Chinese and India?
Nope.
I’ve been screaming about this for years now. How many different ways can one say fiat money is a shitty way to run an economy?
How many times can one repeat that we need govt reform including the FairTax?
So why has oil been going through the roof in just this country?
Read the below!
November 1, 2007
Oral Roberts University Discusses Selling Its TV Station
April Marciszewski, The Tulsa World, November 1, 2007
Oral Roberts University employees were told this week the school has moved to improve its financial situation, and officials have considered selling the university’s television station, according to an ORU professor.
Accounting professor Terry Unruh said he attended the first of two meetings that gave employees a chance to hear directly from ORU’s top leaders.
David Ellsworth, executive vice president for finance and operations, said during the meeting that ORU has extended the terms of loans that were coming due soon and has secured lower interest rates, Unruh said.
Ellsworth did not give dollar amounts or other specifics, but he did say the university did not have to beg for the longer, lower loan terms, Unruh said.
When asked, Unruh said ORU leaders at the forum said they have considered selling KGEB, channel 53, the campus-based TV station that broadcasts
shows such as “The Hour of Healing” featuring Richard Roberts and “Make Your Day Count,” hosted by his wife, Lindsay Roberts.
The university is $52.5 million in debt, spokesman Jeremy Burton said last week.
October 31, 2007
Westboro Baptist Church Ordered to Pay Dead Marine’s Family $10.9 Million in Damages
Jon Hurdle, Reuters, October 31, 2007
BALTIMORE (Reuters) – A jury on Wednesday ordered an anti-gay Kansas church to pay $10.9 million in damages to relatives of a U.S. Marine who died in Iraq after church members cheered his death at his funeral.
Church members said Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder’s death was God’s punishment of America for tolerating homosexuality, and they attended his 2006 funeral in Maryland with signs saying “You’re going to hell” and “God hates you.”
The federal jury determined the Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, and three of its principals invaded the privacy of the dead man’s family and inflicted emotional distress.
Albert Snyder, the Marine’s father, testified that his son was not gay, but the church targeted the military as a symbol of America’s tolerance of gays. Matthew Snyder died in combat in Iraq in March 2006.
The jury awarded Snyder’s family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages in the first civil suit against the church, which has demonstrated at some 300 military funerals the past two years.
The lawsuit said church Web sites vilified U.S. soldiers, accusing them of being indoctrinated by “fag propaganda.”
Pelosi’s Approval Ratings Approach Bush Level Lows
John Hill, The Sacramento Bee, October 27, 2007
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s own party is turning on her, apparently because of a perception among California Democrats that she has not done enough to shake up the status quo in Washington, D.C., according to a Field Poll released Friday.
Congress overall is doing even worse with California voters, with an approval rating sagging to 30 percent or below for only the seventh time in the past 15 years, the poll of 1,201 registered voters found. Both Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who became speaker this year, and Congress as a whole have fallen short of voter expectations since taking over both houses, poll director Mark DiCamillo said.
“I think the reason for her decline and the low ratings Congress is getting is that voters here are not seeing any change,” DiCamillo said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s approval rating of 51 percent is down 10 percentage points since March, but consistent with her average over the years. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s rating also has slumped, from 54 percent in March to 44 percent. Both Boxer and Feinstein, however, still enjoy the approval of more voters than disapproval of them.
For Pelosi, it was the first time the poll showed more people disapproving than approving of her performance – 40 percent to 35 percent, with 25 percent having no opinion.
Other polls since 2003 have shown larger numbers of voters with no opinion, but Pelosi always won more approval than disapproval. As recently as March, California Democrats approved of Pelosi by a 5-to-1 ratio, DiCamillo said. Now it’s less than 2-to-1. Nonpartisan voters also have soured on her.
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October 30, 2007
Arkansas’ Illegal Immigration Crisis
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2007/10/25/News/343744.html
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/205841/
As anyone who lives in Arkansas can tell you, illegal immigrants have inundated our state to an extent seen by very few other members of the Union. In a recent speech at the University of Central Arkansas, Governor Mike Beebe said that offering scholarships to potential students in the country illegally “would open the state up to paying moneys that we could never afford” (Link 1). While many would see that the governor made a valid point, an officer of UCA’s Latinos United instead shut down the potential for discussion by opining that the governor “doesn’t (care) about Latinos in this state” (Link 1).
The number of residents in the country illegally is an issue that is conveniently ignored by many in the state. While most of the police in surrounding states send requests to check immigration status to the Law Enforcement Support Center at a rate of greater than 1 per 200 Hispanic residents, Arkansas averages a request on 1 of every 634 Hispanic residents (Link 2).
While many Arkansas residents are aware that many of the immigrants who live in their state are here illegally, this will never be an issue that can be discussed in a public forum as long as representatives of Hispanics point their fingers and shout, “Racists!” It astounds me that the people who are here legally do not take offense to the fact that the people whom they are stridently defending have thumbed their noses at the very process that made their supporters citizens. Perhaps if legal immigrants used the energy that goes towards calling fellow citizens bigots to discourage illegal immigration, Arkansas would see a change in this trend. Until then, citizens of every race and ethnic background watch as our hard-earned tax dollars are given to those who have exhibited blatant disregard for our laws and borders.
Kids Have No Rights – part one of a series
I’m a 46-year-old father of two. And yet I often find myself shocked at how the kids of our nation have no real rights. Once in a while I find a news story which underlines this epiphany.
This is the first of a series which will probably not have an ending.
Captain Underpants ruins Halloween on LI
Sun Oct 28, 4:57 AM ET
Call it the Misadventure of Captain Underpants and the Peeved Principal.
A suburban Long Island high school has banned all Halloween costumes after three senior girls showed up last year dressed as the underwear-baring subject of a series of best-selling children’s books.
(Go ahead and click on the link now. There are no pictures, but you know you wanna check for yourself)
Laura Bush Accuses Democrats of Demagoguery on Children’s Health Care
Aaron Hill, The Hill, October 28, 2007
First Lady Laura Bush said Sunday that she is much more involved in policy than many people think and then went to bat for her husband on children’s health care and foreign policy.
Calling the state children’s health insurance program (SCHIP) :a perfect issue” for Democrats to demagogue on, Bush waded into largely uncharted public territory for her by taking exception to the party that opposes the president.
The first lady appeared genuinely upset about the Democrats’ tactics on the issue.
“Its really easy to blame people for so-called voting against children,” Bush said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. The first lady went on to say that the bill would cover children who are not poor and added that the program is often used to cover adults.
“The president is very anxious to work with Congress and to come up with something that both he and they can be proud of,” she said.
October 28, 2007
Here Comes $100 Oil, and $3 Gasoline
Steve Hargreaves, CNN, October 26, 2007
NEW YORK — With oil prices setting records over $90 a barrel – and $100 looking ever more likely – experts say there’s a good chance drivers will see $3 gasoline before the end of the year.
“Three dollar gasoline in this market is unavoidable,” said Stephen Schork, publisher of the industry newsletter the Schork Report. “At this rate, we’re going to see $4 a gallon.”
Crude oil prices have soared nearly 30 percent over the last month, mainly over fears that supply won’t meet demand, a falling U.S. dollar, and what some say is a high degree of speculative investment money.
But so far drivers have been lucky. The national average price for gasoline has risen barely one cent, going from $2.81 last month to $2.82 this month, according to the motorist organization AAA, although in many areas of the country gasoline is already over $3.
Analysts have said the relatively stable gasoline price is due to slack demand following the high-demand summer driving season.
$90 oil won’t kill the bull
But the relatively cheap gas prices are causing profit margins to slip for refiners, who have to pay top dollar for crude but aren’t passing along the extra costs for consumers, yet.
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US Economic Collapse Underway
from breadwithcircus.com
Things look really bad for the US. Oil is now worth nearly $100.
Gold just rose to $850. The Dollar is at record lows against
most other currencies. Even the Canadian dollar has seemed
to rise, it is now worth 10% more than the greenback.
The story here is not the rise in the price of commodities or
other currencies. The value of oil and gold has not really gone
up all that much, rather, the US Dollar is being rapidly devalued.
It is time to sound the alarm. I recommend that those of you in
the market get out now. Put your money into something real,
like metals. The Dow lost 360 points today, at a time when
everything else that is priced in US Dollars is skyrocketing.
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