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The Cape Cod one has been opposed by the Kennedy Family, lest we imagine that only conservatives come in against this. http://sweetness-light.com/arc...

I say we put wind turbines right on Ted Kennedy's fucking grave.
 
Captcha : sobriety
 
Oh, the fucking irony of it all.

I too don't have time to dig into the actual budget docs to find the warnings.

But here's a biased source that DOES quote a center-center-left source, the NYT, in contemporary reports.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/bush-mccain-tried-to-reform-housing-finance
From http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/business/new-agency-proposed-to-oversee-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae.html

New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON

September 11, 2003

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac â" which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt â" is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

âThere is a general recognition that the supervisory system for housing-related government-sponsored enterprises neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity and importance of these enterprises,â Treasury Secretary John W. Snow told the House Financial Services Committee in an appearance with Housing Secretary Mel Martinez, who also backed the plan.

Mr. Snow said that Congress should eliminate the power of the president to appoint directors to the companies, a sign that the administration is less concerned about the perks of patronage than it is about the potential political problems associated with any new difficulties arising at the companies.

The administrationâ(TM)s proposal, which was endorsed in large part today by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would not repeal the significant government subsidies granted to the two companies. And it does not alter the implicit guarantee that Washington will bail the companies out if they run into financial difficulty; that perception enables them to issue debt at significantly lower rates than their competitors. Nor would it remove the companiesâ(TM) exemptions from taxes and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws.

The proposal is the opening act in one of the biggest and most significant lobbying battles of the Congressional session.

After the hearing, Representative Michael G. Oxley, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced their intention to draft legislation based on the administrationâ(TM)s proposal. Industry executives said Congress could complete action on legislation before leaving for recess in the fall.

âThe current regulator does not have the tools, or the mandate, to adequately regulate these enterprises,â Mr. Oxley said at the hearing. âWe have seen in recent months that mismanagement and questionable accounting practices went largely unnoticed by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight,â the independent agency that now regulates the companies.

âThese irregular

Climate change is far more important than space exploration.

ASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62% This is probably for the best, climate change is a far larger problem than space exploration.

Climate change is far more important that space travel, I'm glad we have our priorities in order. http://sweetness-light.com/archive/nasa-boosts-climate-change-budget-62

Second, I have also worked in both the public and private sector. My government job had more holidays, [...] while my private sector job has been cutting benefits each year and removing raises/bonuses. In my private job I'm expected to work OT when needed without extra pay. That NEVER happened in my government job. Any extra time put in was automatically comp time even for salaried employees.

So you're saying that, because private companies find screwing over their employees profitable, the government should be following suit? I would argue that the government should be regulating these kinds of abuses on society's standard of living.

I left the public sector because I was so bored. They kept hiring people and spreading out the work to the point where I would have a hard time filling half my day with real work. Waste at its finest.

I've seen this happen at private companies too. It tends to happen in large organisations. However, I do see this as a problem which should be addressed by transparency of government spending and productivity.

better benefits, and paid more per hour (more on this later)

Still waiting.

First, government jobs have grown during the recession:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/government-jobs-have-grown-during-recession

Just one question: did you read the article?

PS: I live in a country where vacation time is the same in the private sector as in the government, mostly due to legal requirements. Overtime must be paid or compensated regardless of the type of employee you are, too. Your hours are outlined in the contract.

First, government jobs have grown during the recession:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/government-jobs-have-grown-during-recession

Second, I have also worked in both the public and private sector. My government job had more holidays, better benefits, and paid more per hour (more on this later) while my private sector job has been cutting benefits each year and removing raises/bonuses. In my private job I'm expected to work OT when needed without extra pay. That NEVER happened in my government job. Any extra time put in was automatically comp time even for salaried employees.

I left the public sector because I was so bored. They kept hiring people and spreading out the work to the point where I would have a hard time filling half my day with real work. Waste at its finest.

Unless free from prejudice and narrow-mindedness, i.e. liberal,

Like when conservatives get shouted down whenever they are to speak at college campuses? Like how brown^H^H^H purple shirted SEIU thugs lock out anyone with an opposing view, sometimes using violence? that kind of "free from prejudice and narrow-mindedness"?

Sorry, but liberals are no longer the ones with open minds, willing to listen to all opinions and give them a fair shot and even consider foreign ideas in their own minds. Those true liberals got shouted down and mashed under the thumb of "progressive" liberals long ago. Even other progressives who stray too far from the group think gets silenced.

You should have seen the way Democrats treated each other at the local Democratic caucuses required by Democrats in Texas to elect a candidate. It was held in my local town at City Hall. I was there. It was a sight to see:
Manuella: "Excuse me, every one of you up there is an Obama supporter. Wouldn't it be fair if we had some Clinton supporters up there?'
Person in charge: "Denied"
Manuella: "Well, shouldn't there at least be one Clinton supporter there to oversee everything?"
Person in charge: "Who would you recommend?"
Manuella: "Well, I could do it."
Person in charge: "OK. What's your name? OK, Manuella. Anyone else? John? OK. All in favor of Manuella?"
Group: "Aye"
Person in charge: "OK, all in favor of John?"
Group: "Aye"
Person in charge: "John is the Clinton monitor"
Manuella: "But John has an Obama button on..."

washington times = a list of individuals often labeled "right wing" (white supremacist), when chances are, they aren't "right wing" by any other definition than lumping bigots into that group. Except when bigotry is on the left (Black Panther, Nation of Islam etc) it is excused or marginalized where no such thing is afforded to the "right".

Gawker is just a repeat of the big "three" individual offenders listed in the WT article. If that is all the left has... that is pretty sad.

Daily Kos is nothing more than "faux news" for the left.

MN Publius article is interesting in that it simply ignores that violence against (R) offices. Again, for every alleged infraction of the "right" I can easily point to one from the left.

http://www.channel3000.com/politics/3776992/detail.html

not to mention all the "Fake" hate crimes that never happened ..

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/516936/posts

http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/39720/godmother-fake-hate-crimes

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/partial-list-of-fake-hate-crimes-2006-2007

Or the nice young man who was just guarding the polls

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/06/video-the-nice-young-man-eric-holder-left-off-the-hook/

Yeah, you can repeat the three "massive hate crimes" by large groups (meaning idividuals) of angry Right Wing Extremists (Lone Fringe kooks), but that is all you got.

No, it's because the local Arabs have spent all their money on buying weapons.
Then starved themselves out Or they've dug up their sewage pipes to make rockets. "Oh no, blame the Israelis for the raw sewage everywhere. If they'd just stand still and let the rockets hit them we could stop ripping up our pipes to make more!"
Maybe they should spend some time on useful R&D like real people.

With Obama, there is at least a reasonable doubt.

not really

Of course, all intelligent people knew this before he was elected. And yes, for this (and quite a few other) problems McCain was the better candidate.

any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided for in Article 57

I would note that the US has never ratified protocol 1 though, which is likely why I hadn't stumbled on article 51 section 8 of it before. I think Regan's reasons for not ratifying Protocol 1 are valid, although there are sections of that I would approve of. The ones we have ratified do not require us to observe the protocols if our enemies do not, which is why I was under the impression that human shields were no longer protected as civilians. A number of provisions in other treaties are explicitly conditional on rules being followed. The "Legal Status of Human Shields" paper you linked to is dependent on protocol 1. If it's not binding then from a legal standpoint human shields do not have to be protected. Arguably, not protecting human shield would make the use of human shields less effective, and might be safer for civilians in the long run.

Article 57 is actually somewhat vague. Define feasible, and reasonable in that context. Is it reasonable to assume that a small group, moving as a unit through a warzone with active hostiles nearby, carrying what appear to be weapons (yes, further revue of the video indicates that they weren't weapons) is not civilian in nature? Even if it was binding on us, I'm not sure how it would apply in this situation.

When the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador (both in Canada) goes to the United States for Heart Surgery and is completely unapologetic about it saying quote "I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics" that should really tell you that the Single Payer system isn't all that it's cracked up to be considering Canada is the place that everyone enjoys propping up as the "best" example of a Single-Payer system.

So in other words, they accuse the climate change scientists of of acting in their own financial interests by being alarmists

Being alarmist gets you book sales. Being alarmist gets you photo ops. And yes, being alarmist gets you a re-up on your grants.

They claim that scientists toe the climate change line to get grants, and yet can you imagine how much definitive proof against man-made climate change would be worth to businesses?

Any business offering such a grant would be massively targeted with protests, ads, etc by the left-wing lunatic fringe. Actively sponsoring such research would instantly, since most of the "scientists" are on government dole, mean that honest scientists who came up with the opposite conclusion would be kept out of publishing due to collusion (actually has happened if you read the CRU emails yourself).

The problem with this debate is that one side has to prove their claims, while the other side just needs to create doubt by using unsubstantiated and even sometimes completely discredited claims

No, the problem with this debate is that one side constantly insists the debate is already over and engages in propaganda tactics, while the other side that wants to see competent research that actually follows the scientific method, are derided and mocked and attacked.

In this case, claiming that the other side is on the "gravy train" isn't supported by any evidence at all, and yet there is no way to disprove it either. In all the leaked emails regarding this, where was the shred of evidence that anybody was trying to rort taxpayers money?

Admittedly this is cherry-picked, but in their own words. Pretty fucking damning.
"Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is ! " - Direct words of Phil Jones!

As for the money? Phil Jones wasted £13 Million of Brit taxpayers' money. The phrase "gravy train" actually comes from Prof. Ross McKitrick, University of Buckingham, who said the following:

"Climate sceptics are always accused of taking money from industry but it is now clear the money is on the other side.

"There is a huge amount of money on the global warming side. Institutions like the CRU have a very large budget but that would disappear if global warming ceased to exist.

"Scientists are enjoying a funding gravy train; there is so much money in climate research. Lots of areas of science are short of money but not climate change."

well.. Dems already call people who disagree with the healthcare reform plan terrorists http://sweetness-light.com/archive/dem-protesters-political-terrorists and who can blame the president from cutting the terrorists off?

Uh, al-jazeera threw an on-air birthday party for a guy who bashed in the skull of a 4 year-old Israeli girl.

Also please be aware that the english version of Al-Jazeera is vastly different than the arabic version (as is the way with anything coming out of the middle east.) They're not stupid, they know how that stuff plays outside their little hatefest countries.

>>>notice that you conveniently forget that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [wikipedia.org] was sponsored by republicans (Phil Gramm strikes again),

And I notice that you conveniently forget about the "Anti-Bankruptcy Bill" that was sponsored by Vice-President nominee JOE BIDEN. This bill prevented homeowners from appealing to the courts for help (Chapter 11 debt restructuring), and forced millions to default on their loans, thereby creating the first step towards collapse.

Read more here. Or just google. There are dozens of similar articles: http://sweetness-light.com/archive/biden-bill-to-blame-for-foreclosure-crisis

I find it odd that the IPCC fails to mention that increased underwater volcanic activity under the arctic has been occurring since at least 1999, including a pyroclastic eruption and one that supposedly was as large as Pompei. Would this perhaps lead to increased water temps that could melt some ice, or would it be better to go ahead and destroy (or at least tax to ruin) western civilization as a precautionary measure? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625140649.htm http://sweetness-light.com/archive/could-volcanoes-be-melting-the-arctic-ice

Nice try, but there is no indication there is any recent increase. More importantly: if the 1999 eruption had a major (positive) impact on warming, why was 1998 the warmest year?

I find it odd that the IPCC fails to mention that increased underwater volcanic activity under the arctic has been occurring since at least 1999, including a pyroclastic eruption and one that supposedly was as large as Pompei. Would this perhaps lead to increased water temps that could melt some ice, or would it be better to go ahead and destroy (or at least tax to ruin) western civilization as a precautionary measure? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080625140649.htm http://sweetness-light.com/archive/could-volcanoes-be-melting-the-arctic-ice

>>Journalists don't create stories, they document existing events.
I'm sorry, but that's just naive.

Just a few examples to hopefully open your eyes:

Dan Rather's famous forged Air National Guard documents (for which he was fired, but stands behind with his infamous "fake but accurate" quote):
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526&only
This wasn't just some staff reported in Podunk Arkansas, it was a lead anchor who was willing to end his career in order to further propaganda piece that was obviously fake. Makes me wonder what other pieces he pushed in his many years as news anchor and senior editor.

The New York Times accepts (read: publishes without edit) Barack Obama's Op-Ed but "rejects" a piece by John McCain. No bias there. Nosir. Nope.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/21/mccain.nyt/

Reuters accepts the most amateurish photoshop jobs:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut ...and only after an internet firestorm has to admit it:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/reuters-caught-blowing-smoke-faking-photos

Tennessee newspaper published blatantly altered photograph to promote political agenda: http://terryfrank.net/?p=2964

Iran gets in on the photoshop act: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/in-an-iranian-image-a-missile-too-many/index.html?hp

And then you have the FREQUENT odd Reuters captions: It seems that every time Israel takes out a terrorist with a missile, the area is flooded with "youth" that "inspect" the wreckage. (in reality, they are looking for bits of body parts, for they believe that by touching bits of the dead "martyr", they help secure a spot in heaven. Grisly and repulsive.)
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25627_Palestinian_Car_Swarm_Watch

And I'll finish with the most vile, disgusting example I've ever seen. The Associated (with terrorists) Press publishes staged photographs of dead children arranged by a (so called) palestinian "press agent". Pure propaganda.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22123_Green_Helmet_Admits_Staging_Photos&only

which is promptly carried to the United Nations and presented there:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/22669_Fauxtography_at_the_United_Nations

That's what I was able to put together with 5 minutes of work. I could continue for hours (days?) but hopefully this will open your eyes to the fact that there are people in the "news" that have clear agendas and aren't above creating stories where none exist in order to influence you. Not to mention those who write with bias.

Oh jeez, come on! That's like asking when the last time water was wet. Just the other day on Fox they were talking about how when Barack Obama bumped fists with his wife and they called him a terrorist (link). Or how about that picture of him when he was dressed up in traditional Somali garb (=90% Christian), claiming he was dressing up as an muslim (link, etc. etc. etc. Face it, the modern conservative political view is synonymous with character assassination. You can thank Rove, and the other Republican attack dogs for that.

after all, http://sweetness-light.com/archive/wal-mart-looting-cops-get-cleared

the whole idea of on camera stops crime. Yep. sure do.

Can you point to some actual examples of atheists being prosecuted for suggesting that Christians or Muslims be tortured?

No, I can't, because atheists generally don't suggest that other get tortured for all eternity. They don't because (1) they don't believe that anybody lives for all eternity, (2) most atheists are either religious or humanists and hence object to torture in any form, whether by divine beings or men, and (3) they know that if they speak out publicly, they risk death threats and arrest.

I suspect that your post is just irrelevant speculation.

Well, then you're living under a rock. Geert Wilders film, for example, has been condemned, literally, as "hate speech" by the UN secretary general (here), and all he did was compile a collection of quotes from the Quran and Muslim leaders.

Here are other examples:

http://www.lutononsunday.com/lutononsunday-news/displayarticle.asp?id=306589

http://www.axcessnews.com/user.php/articles/show/id/12315

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/ap-far-righters-arrested-for-anti-islam-protest

You can find many more if you look around, with free speech by students, bloggers, protesters, and others being suppressed for criticizing religions or saying things that "offend" people of one or the other religion.

Or where certain peoples didn't teach their kids that murder and death are good things to aspire to:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/palestinian-kids-mama-killed-five-jews-shes-in-paradise

The fact is, small children are REGULARLY used by AQ, Taliban, Hamas and Hezbollah to carry out terror attacks. Why? Because people don't naturally connect children with danger. Thus, the scumbags in terrorist organizations brainwash kids into doing their dirty work.

Wanna see a suicide bomber in-training? Here: http://knighthospitilar.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/suicide_bomber_1_.jpg

Those bombs are obviously fake, but who's to say that this kid won't be strapping on REAL ones next?

This is the culture of the terrorists. Death, Destruction, and Murder. And it has been like this for WAY longer than the US has been involved in the middle east, so please, no intellectually dishonest attempts to blame this on the US or the west. These people have done this to themselves.

Don't believe me? Then watch the videos for yourself: http://www.pmw.org.il/tv%20part1.html

It's a sad, sick world when a child grows up with a hateful dream of blowing themselves to bits while murdering innocents. These people need to answer for what they are doing to their children, and their so-called religious and political leaders need to pay the deadly price for bringing such evil into the world.

All you Liberals out there need to stop excusing their evil and open your eyes.

From a slashdot potato head: Hancock is a C variant developed to mine gigabytes of the company's telephone and internet records for surveillance purposes.

From AT&T Labs: At AT&T Labs we have a suite of Hancock programs that run daily to calculate sig-
natures or proles of AT&T's long-distance customers. These signatures are used for
fraud detection and marketing.

http://www.research.att.com/~kfisher/hancock/manual.ps

The program for parsing millions of records as they flow into permanent data farms sounds oddly close to the data mining the NSA performed after 9/11 to find targets for its warrantless spying on American citizens calls and emails

The NSA is tapping inbound communications from countries on the watch list. They are spying on foreign nationals calling into the US. Unlike Hillary Clinton: http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hillary-files-eavesdropping-on-the-bimbos

The link you provided starts with "Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri said a US congressional bill calling for a troop withdrawal from Iraq was proof of Washington's defeat, according to a web video posted on Saturday." that is hardly support for bush's policies. I doubt al-qeda would oppose their own victory. I also do not think al-qeda is an iraqi nationalist group since they consist mostly of foreign whabbist fighters and that has been a source of tension with actual nationalists. al-zawarhi that is in the article you linked to is Egyptian. Al-qeda is a sunni arab group. iraq is a majority shia arab and sunni kurd country.

I oppose islamic radicals and i see there is a disturbing link between democrats and them.

First islamic congressman was elected a democrat in 06. This guy is a former nation of islam member (they think non-blacks and non-muslims are "potential humans" that is a malcom X quote google it )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6127234.stm

Islamic theocratic rulers celebrated in iran "this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation." ..."
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/khameni-calls-d emocrat-victory-a-victory-for-iran

Al-qeda welcomes democratic victory
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061121-083639-1 601r.htm

everyone else
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1738183/p osts

Shite radicals chant death to america while supporting the democratic bill
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/10/africa/web- 0410iraq.php

If this were WWII and the nazis and japanese were praising one parties policies over anothers like this, people would have reacted differently. These days it seems people cant see the obvious.

Can you show me anything where terrorists groups oppose democratic policy on the war? in the link you provided they are basically saying you have admitted defeat and now we want to kill more of you. Im sure if they cant kill more infidels in iraq they will move to another country and resume there.