At just after midnight tonight AP named the Republican, Bob Turner, the winner of the special Congressional election in Brooklyn/Queens. At that time Turner was winning 53% to 47%, with 73% of the precinct reporting.
In looking at the results as well as the district map itself, I find myself more than astonished. The Republican Bob Turner got seventy percent of the Brooklyn vote (as of 12:05 am).
» Read more
How the Palestinian Authority trains children to hate:
Classroom incitement has been thoroughly documented as has hate-teach and hate-preach on PA TV and radio, where Jews and Israelis are represented as demonic figures; and the need to wipe Israel off the map is a frequent theme in the eulogies of suicide bombers, martyrs whose deaths in terror attacks intending mass murder endear them to Allah. The goal seems to be to create a seething, raging population of young people far more interested in wiping Israel off the earth’s face than in achieving peaceful coexistence.
And they do not wait until the children start school. Palestinian Authority and Hamas preschool television and radio programming could be called Terrorism for Tots; and such programming continues well into high school. A Hamas weekly program starred a Palestinian version of Mickey Mouse, Farfur, who tells children to pray until there is “world leadership under Islamic leadership” and in the meantime to oppose the “oppressive invading Zionist occupation.” Farfar is ultimately beaten to death by an enraged Israeli “settler,” and is replaced by an intrepid young bee who buzzes the same message to the preschool viewers. Similar messages are encouraged in the classroom with supplementary material and teacher-guided self-expression that encourage martyrdom and glorify terrorism and terrorists.
Read the whole thing. As the author notes, “Can a government so filled with hate and bigotry that they crucify their own children on the cross of jihad and Jew-hatred realistically be expected to develop a nation that will work toward peace?”
The Senate has approved a flat budget for the Department of Energy.
On Wednesday the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $4.843 billion for DOE’s Office of Science in 2012. That’s the same level as this year, and a slight bump over the $4.8 billion approved in July on a largely partisan vote by the House of Representatives covering the entire department. Although the funding is a far cry from the $5.416 billion that the Obama Administration had requested in February for the next fiscal year, which begins on 1 October, officials at the Office of Science’s 10 national labs say they’re not complaining. “Even staying flat when a lot of other programs are getting cut is relatively good news,” says Thom Mason, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In budgets, “flat is the new good,” quips Eric Isaacs, director of Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. [emphasis mine]
That a government official is now happy that the budget is flat is a good sign that we might finally be making some cultural progress in terms of bringing the federal budget under some control. In the past the very thought of no increase would have sent these people into spasms of outrage. Now they realize how pointless such a tantrum would be, and might actually do their budget negotiations harm.
Doesn’t this make you feel safer? TSA is now digging into personal medical records to deny Canadians entrance to the United States.
Madness: The EPA is using taxpayer money to encourage environmentalist groups to sue the EPA.
The Obama administration has discovered that the cost to build the program-formerly-called-Constellation, required by Congress, is going to be far more than they can stomach.
White House budget officials increasingly are concerned that some of NASA’s manned-exploration plans may be unaffordable, especially as the space agency weighs options that would raise the cost by billions of dollars by speeding up the development of rockets and spacecraft, according to people familiar with the issue.
The cost concerns are coming to a head, these people said, as the White House Office of Management and Budget ratchets up questions about NASA’s proposed program in light of the current emphasis on deficit reduction.
None of this surprises me.
» Read more
Awakening the only British launched science satellite, dead for decades.
A just released National Research Council report on space junk, Limiting Future Collision Risk to Spacecraft: an assessment of NASA’s meteoroid and orbital debris programs, describes in great and worthwhile detail the increasing problem of orbital debris as well as the technical and budgetary problems that exist for removing it. It is especially worth reading for the stories, such as when a Colorado hiker heard a high-pitched sound and then found a still warm thirty-inch diameter sphere in a foot deep crater. The object turned out to be a titanium tank from a Russian upper stage rocket, launched two months earlier.
What I want to focus on here, however, is one issue the report discusses that, as far as I can tell, has generally been missed. Worse, this issue — somewhat ridiculous when you think about a little — will make removing most of the space junk in Earth orbit far more complicated than ever imagined by engineers.
Simply put, under already agreed-to international treaties, no nation can salvage or collect any debris placed in orbit by another nation. To do so will violate international law, and almost certainly cause an international incident. To quote the report:
» Read more
Why no one should want to live in California: A new proposed law there would require workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for babysitters.
Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.
This is a victory for freedom: A new Florida state law will fine local governments and their officials should they try to enforce any local gun restrictions.
All those ordinances have been illegal for years because state law prevents cities and counties from regulating guns. But a new law, set to take effect Oct. 1, takes it a step further. It allows judgments of up to $100,000 against local governments that enforce such laws. And, in an unusual move, the law also says local officials could be fired and fined $5,000, with no representation from the city or county attorney.
Uh-oh! The Russians are considering reducing their participation in ISS. Their government might also take over entirely the private portion of their space industry.
We’re here to help you! The federal government, under the Endangered Species Act, is prosecuting a man for shooting a bear to protect his family.
The day of reckoning looms: Twenty-five signs that the financial world is about to hit the big red panic button.
Fire them! Police confiscate a woman’s legal guns, then refuse to return them despite admitting they are legally owned.
Her cache [of weapons] somehow caught the attention of Lakewood Police, who paid a visit last September. When they found Rice wasn’t home, they asked an obliging employee of the complex to open up the apartment without her consent. Once inside, they raided the gun rack, making off with 13 firearms worth around $15,000. The only problem: They had no apparent reason to. [emphasis mine]
Not only did the police essentially steal her property, they entered her apartment illegally.
Obama’s National Labor Relations Board has now told a Catholic university it is not religious enough to be exempt from union organizing, even though the Supreme Court has ruled the board has no right to do any such thing.
Yesterday I posted a link to a story about Al Gore claiming that any expression of skepticism about global warming is to him no different than racism. Here again is what Gore said,
“There came a time when friends or people you work with or people you were in clubs with — you’re much younger than me so you didn’t have to go through this personally — but there came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won. We have to win the conversation on climate.”
More than at any other time, Gore here has very successfully illustrated the differences between how climate skeptics debate the scientific questions of climate change versus how global warming advocates do it.
» Read more
We’re here to help you! New EPA regulations threaten to shut down 8 percent of all U.S. power generation capability.
Nor should this be a surprise. During the campaign Obama admitted, but few reported, how he wanted to bankrupt any power plants that used coal to generate power.
It appears that payback by the Obama administration against its political opponents is the main reason the Justice Department raided the Gibson guitar company. Its CEO donates to Republicans, while Gibson’s main competitor – never raided – donates to Democrats.
A citizen rebellion overturns a township’s plan to build a $1.5 million headquarters for itself.
The government’s war on freedom and children: Police in Massachusetts shutdown a twelve-year-old’s green tea stand.
The government’s war on guitars and musicians.
A pro-life activist was beaten and arrested by Franklin, Massachusetts police for handing out pro-life flyers at a church event.
The CEO of Starbucks, a big time contributor to past Democratic candidates, is organizing an end to all campaign contributions until a long term solution to the federal debt is solved.
The immediate consequences of the Progress freighter failure:
The longer term consequences? Congress will anguish over the lack of a shuttle. Some will demand more money for the program-formerly-called-Constellation, while others will demand more money for the new commercial companies. In either case, they will ignore the reality of a bankrupt federal government that simply can’t afford either at the moment.
Depending on the survey, from 9 to 30 percent of all businesses are considering dropping their employer-sponsored healthcare plans when Obamacare goes into effect in 2014.
In other words, Obama was lying when he said you could keep your plan under Obamacare.
Note too that poll numbers continue to show a solid majority of the public wants Obamacare repealed.
Freedom of speech alert: Cops confiscate cameras at Ohio Republican congressman’s town hall. With video.
According to the cop on the video, he was following instructions from the Congressman. Either way, the cop should be fired for violating these citizen’s rights.
And it doesn’t matter if a Democrat or Republican does this. It is wrong, it is disgusting, and it is inexcusable. Such politicians should be kicked out of office immediately.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this year’s deficit will be about $1.28 trillion, the third highest deficit in history, exceeded only by the previous two budgets of the Obama administration.
Note also that any cuts mentioned in the above article are not cuts, merely reductions in the overall growth of government. (Another example of a journalist lying for the government.) All told, the federal government will still continue to grow in the next few years at a pace that far exceeds inflation, the economy, or anything you can imagine in the real world.
Buses vs high speed trains: the buses win.
Crime rate drops in Virginia bars and restaurants serving alcohol after concealed carry guns are allowed.
Just remember, it is never his fault: The federal debt increased $4 trillion under Obama, the most by any president.
