Phil Griffin is Keith Olbermann's bitch boy?

Read this statement and ask who the hell is running MSNBC.

The memo was in response to an incident earlier this week, in which Joe Scarborough criticized Keith Olbermann on twitter for his comments about Senator-elect Scott Brown.

> More: Griffin responds to TVNewser, "An important rule was broken. I spoke to Keith and he said in the spirit of teamwork and the free flow of ideas, he didn't think it warranted punishment or suspension. I also talked to Joe and he apologized to me," said the MSNBC president, adding, "That's why I made the decision that this didn't rise to the level of punishment, but I felt it was necessary to reiterate my long-standing policy."

Why would you go to Olbermann over this matter which should be dealt with by you the boss? You let the inmates run the place and you are going to be blamed for something far worse than the stupidity by Olbermann in the future.

UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters.

The London Times is on it as it exposes that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a habit of lying. It is becoming clear the UN is gaming the science to push ahead with its own agenda.

THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report's own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month's Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, has suggested British and overseas floods — such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 — could be linked to global warming. Barack Obama, the US president, said last autumn: "More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent."

AP: How the FBI screwed up the underwear bomber interrogation

The FBI really screwed this up by my reading of this article, they have a terrorist, treat him like a common criminal and now he is all lawyered up with his mouth shut.

Captured after a bomb hidden in his underwear ignited but failed to explode, Abdulmutallab spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence, officials said. Federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. But when they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent.

Since the attempted bombing, several prominent lawmakers have argued he should have been placed immediately in military custody, and the nation's top intelligence official said he should have been questioned by a special group of terror investigators, rather than the FBI agents who responded to the scene.

The officials who spoke to The AP said on-scene investigators never discussed turning the suspect over to military authorities. And their accounts show that as the hours passed, the FBI turned to its own expert counterterror interrogators and made no effort to involve the special unit, which was not yet up and running.

The media starting to turn on the Independent voters.

You dare to make Obama look ridiculous and a man in his position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous.

Welcome to the mob: an angry, wounded electorate, riled by recession, careening across the political spectrum, still craving change, nursing a bloodlust.

There is a scene in the movie “Gladiator” where two Roman senators are discussing the games that the emperor has revived. One laments: I think the emperor “knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they’ll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate. It’s the sand of the coliseum. He’ll bring them death. And they will love him for it.”

That was America during the dawn of W. — too many too easily manipulated. But people grew wiser and restless. And they revolted. As they did, a young crowd-pleaser in Chicago, cloaked in hope, sprang up, won them over and shaped the mob into a movement.

That was then.

Unfortunately, many now see Barack Obama as a left-leaning version of George W. Bush: just another out-of-touch emperor. It seems as if Obama and the Democrats made the mistake of believing that a heart once won was forever won, that people would be patient, and that the mob would accept their reasoning for lack of results.

They were wrong. The mob is fickle. And it’s back with a vengeance.

Tony Harris of CNN mocks independent voters

Holder's Justice Department to appeal Blackwater federal court dismissal

From Fox News Major Garrett.

Biden said he was "disappointed" with the ruling, which cleared Bkackwater guards in the deaths of 17 in Baghdad in 2007.
about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck

While in Baghdad, Biden announces Justice Dept will, next week, appeal federal court dismissal of all charges in Blackwater case.
about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck

UN climate expert admits more errors in IPCC report.

The report that won the nobel prize(shows how worthless that has become) is not suddenly choke full of potential errors. I would be cynical to believe that people connected to the report knew but thought by now all the changes they demand would be settled. Now its not, it is faster to get in front of the bad news coming out that would harm any future agreements.

The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel's assessment of Himalayan glaciers.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri dismissed calls for him to resign over the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s retraction of a prediction that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

But he admitted that there may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.

“I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them,” he told The Times in an interview. “It was a collective failure by a number of people,” he said. “I need to consider what action to take, but that will take several weeks. It’s best to think with a cool head, rather than shoot from the hip.”

The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high”.

But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated” in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.

Obama brings back David Plouffe as outside adviser

The permanent campaign continues with an actual manager.

David Plouffe, the man who managed President Barack Obama's campaign, will be taking on an expanded role as an outside adviser to the White House, according to sources familiar with the plan, a move that comes just days after a stunning defeat for Democrats in a Massachusetts Senate special election.

Allies of the White House cast the Plouffe move as less about the Massachusetts election and more about the fact that the election year is heating up and Plouffe has more free time following the publication of his campaign memoir late last year. Still, the timing is sure to stoke speculation that the White House is seeking to shore up its political operation.

More on Plouffe role and how the White House is going to be more in charge of all the major races.

President Obama is reconstituting the team that helped him win the White House to counter Republican challenges in the midterm elections and recalibrate after political setbacks that have narrowed his legislative ambitions.

Mr. Obama has asked his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee House, Senate and governor’s races to stave off a hemorrhage of seats in the fall. The president ordered a review of the Democratic political operation — from the White House to party committees — after last week’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, aides said.

In addition to Mr. Plouffe, who will primarily work from the Democratic National Committee in consultation with the White House, several top operatives from the Obama campaign will be dispatched across the country to advise major races as part of the president’s attempt to take greater control over the midterm elections, aides said.


....The White House intends to send Mr. Obama out into the country considerably more in 2010 than during his first year in office, advisers said, to try to rekindle the relationship he developed with voters during his presidential campaign.

His first chance to reconnect in a big way will come when he delivers his State of the Union address.

Rather than unveiling a laundry list of new initiatives, advisers said, the speech will attempt to reframe Mr. Obama’s agenda and how he connects it with public concerns. In particular, he will focus on how his ideas for health care, energy and financial regulation all fit into the broader economic mission of creating what he calls a “new foundation” for the country, the key words being “rescue, restore and rebuild.”

Obamacare still alive and going more liberal to pass it.

Dems are determined to say screw you to the public.

Struggling to salvage health reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have begun considering a list of changes to the Senate bill in hopes of making it acceptable to liberal House members, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The changes could be included in separate legislation that, if passed, would pave the way for House approval of the Senate bill - a move that would preserve President Barack Obama's vision of a sweeping health reform plan.

The changes being considered track closely with the agreements House and Senate leaders made in White House meetings last week, according to a source. They include the deal with labor unions to ease the tax on high-end insurance plans, additional Medicare cuts and taxes, the elimination of a special Medicaid funding deal for Nebraska and a move to help cover the gap in seniors' prescription drug coverage. Pelosi is also working to change the Senate provision that sets up state insurance exchanges. The House prefers a single, national exchange.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley declined to comment on whether a list of changes was being drawn up.

Europe welcomes Obama bank plan, won't imitate it

Translation: You go right ahead and screw up your country and we will welcome those companies when they set up in Ireland and other EU countries to our benefit.

Major European economies offered support on Friday for U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to limit banks' size and trading activities but indicated they had no plans to follow suit.

Obama's dramatic proposals could rewrite the world financial order but experts said they were light on detail and could cloud the global approach fostered by the Group of 20 nations.

The European Union will not imitate Obama's plan, because it aims to reduce risk in the sector through other means, an EU source said on Friday.

"Look, we understand the U.S. position and we understand his reasons. But I can't see the EU going down this route," the source, who is close to EU financial policymaking, told Reuters.

"The U.S. finds itself a little behind us on this. The Obama plan is not fit for the purpose in the EU.

The EU source, who declined to be named, said the 27-nation bloc would focus on raising banks' capital requirements and tightening financial regulation, pursuing initiatives already under way in the European Parliament.

"The Obama plan is really back to the future. These sort of plans were implemented after the Great Depression and then taken away in the '60s. He is sort of reinstating the same plans to deal with this crisis," the source said.

"What is key to remember is that the U.S. is one market, the EU is 27 markets and we are trying to encourage cross-border financial services and more importantly consolidation in both national and trans-national markets. The Obama plan would be anti-competitive in EU terms.

Sansa Fuze volume problem due to EU Standards

Thanks to the nanny state that is the EU, mp3 players have to have their volume settings set at a certain limit. If you have the Sansa Fuze and you got the update, just follow these directions to get back control of the volume.

Obama whining about high expectations in the Middle East.

Another example of Obama's rank arrogance and naivety on a serious problem.

ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says his administration overestimated its ability to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to resume meaningful peace talks.

Obama says both parties have been unwilling to make the bold gestures needed to move the process forward. If the U.S. had anticipated that earlier, Obama says he might not have raised his expectations so high.

How much of an ego do you have to have to think you can just waltz in on hope and change mantra to settle a problem that has gone for decades past how many number of world leaders? If you didn't anticipate how hard it would be it means you are either stupid or you have surrounded yourself with people who refuse to bluntly tell you reality.

Obama whining over Supreme Court free speech decision.

This is more of Obama the new populist President trying to hit some hits as everything else has collapsed around him. The decision was correct as McCain/Feingold was an attack on free speech in American politics. The big difference now than before who is behind the money will be a lot more clear than the mysterious 527 groups.

"It’s worth pointing out that Barack Obama had an opportunity to limit that influence in the 2008 election simply by remaining in the public matching fund program that every major Presidential candidate had used since Watergate. In fact, Obama himself pledged to do just that in 2007 and again in early 2008, but changed his mind in June when he discovered that he could raise a lot more money than his opponent — by currying favor with Wall Street and the unions, as well as ethanol companies and a host of corporate-sponsored, lobbyist-run PACs. Obama raised over $600 million in 2008 for his eventual victory.

Now he wants to limit the power of politicians to raise that kind of money, which is mighty convenient for incumbents such as himself — and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

Oh, and those lobbyists in Washington were doing quite well before the decision on Citizens United v FEC, certainly better than the country as a whole. The power of lobbyists come from the expansion of government. Campaign contributions from lobbyists exist only because expanded government gives lobbyists more cash to donate.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums owes $250,000+ in back taxes.

The gutless coward who wants to kick a man off a public board for his beliefs is a tax cheat

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife are facing more tax problems.
Alameda County records show the IRS has filed a second lien for $13,639 against the couple for unpaid taxes in 2008. The lien was filed Dec. 23.

The couple was hit with a $239,000 tax lien in October for unpaid taxes in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Paul Rose, a spokesman for the mayor, said Thursday Dellums is aware of the latest lien and is "in the process of dealing with the matter."

Dellums has previously refused to answer questions about why he got into tax trouble, saying the matter would soon be resolved.

He earns about $184,000 a year as mayor. He worked as a lobbyist before taking office as mayor in 2007 and had previously served in Congress.

Barney Frank wants to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Don't get happy that Frank finally had a coherent thought, it would be replaced by something else that would have limits on risk or something. Basic populist wannebe shell game politics.

US Representative Barney Frank hopes to “abolish’’ government-run mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they cannot survive in their current form, the Massachusetts representative said at a hearing yesterday.

“The remedy here is, as I think the committee will be recommending, abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance,’’ said Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. “That’s the approach, rather than the piecemeal one.’’

While Frank plans to create a new structure to the lending giants, he does not know what shape that will take yet and has no immediate legislation to introduce, a committee spokesman said. The Financial Services Committee is just starting its work on the issue and plans to move slowly. The committee’s first step to talk to groups like the Center for American Progress and the National Association of Realtors, which have drafted reports on reforming the lending market.

Foxes guarding the hen house.

A-Team director says white conservatives worse than jihadist

Via Big Hollywood: and I was kinda looking forward to the A-Team movie, shame the director is a first class f-wit.

Cinematical: In the commentary on Smokin' Aces 2, you close with a quote directed at aspiring filmmakers: "Give the audience exactly what they want, in the way that they least expect it." That's sort of a great way to describe why fans loved Smokin' Aces to begin with.

Joe Carnahan: I think it's Arthur Miller. I love that notion; as in all things, try to envelope an experience that [the audience] can appreciate and are familiar with, and yet do it in a way that's unfamiliar. I think as artists and filmmakers, it's a good mantra to march to.

Cinematical: How did you first conceive of the story?

Joe Carnahan: [SPOILER ALERT] Tom Berenger's character is very much a right-wing conservative white male, and that's where it started for P.J. and I. I told my own father, who's politically-minded in that same way, "Dad, you're the most dangerous thing on the political landscape because you're a sixty-year-old white conservative," and that's more terrifying than any jihadist. But if you took one of these guys, and you gave them the strength of their convictions to become a jihadist... that, to me, was fun. That was Smokin' Aces territory. P.J. and I gelled behind that very quickly. [END SPOILERS]

Gutless Oakland mayor to kick Prop 8 supporter off board.

At least stop being a gutless coward and say because of pressure from the gay community, this board member will not be seated due to him supporting Prop 8.

A $26,000 contribution to the initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California appears to have cost a 96-year-old former Mormon temple president his seat on the board that oversees Oakland's historic Paramount Theatre.

Amid rising criticism from the gay community, Mayor Ron Dellums said Tuesday that he was putting on hold the reappointment of Lorenzo Hoopes, most likely signaling an end to Hoopes' 30-plus years on the Paramount board.

"The community is asking us to reconsider, and that is what we are going to do," mayoral spokesman Paul Rose said.
Hoopes, a past president of the Mormon temple in Oakland as well as a former Safeway executive, has been on the Paramount board since before the downtown theater was restored in the early 1970s.

Even if Dellums had gone forward with Hoopes' renomination, there was little chance the City Council would have approved it, council President Jane Brunner said.

"A lot of us don't think that he represents our thinking in Oakland," Brunner said.

South Florida Haitians line up to seek protected status

Not exactly a quote that would foster peace and harmony down here.

Undocumented Haitian immigrants in South Florida waited with passports and money orders in hand Thursday to be among the first from their country to apply for Temporary Protected Status.

Paralegals at the Oakland Park Office of Catholic Legal Services helped fill out the paperwork Thursday, the first day Haitians could apply for TPS.

To Georgeline Pierre, of Hollywood, it was the first day of freedom, she said.

The 22-year-old student at Broward College said she looks forward to driving a car and getting in-state tuition.

"I won't have to hide anymore," she said after filling out her application.

Pierre, who has lived in the United States for more than nine years, said she plans to stay as long as she can.

The Department of Homeland Security granted TPS to Haitians Friday, two days after halting all deportation to the earthquake-stricken island.

The federal program will allow undocumented Haitians living in the United States before the earthquake hit to work in the country legally for 18 months.

You can safely disregard the 18 months.

Islamic morality police in Norway?

Translated from the Islam in Europe blog comes this unsurprising bit of news.

Following an expose by Aftenposten on the 'morality police' in the Grønland district of Oslo, journalists swooped down to interview the residents and find out what's going on. ---------

They ensure that people, especially women, act modestly. and they address strangers on the street aggressively. The morality police, who run internal controls in Grønland, has been talked about a lot lately. But who are they really? Nobody Aftenposten has spoken to acknowledges they belong to this "professional group". On the other hand, many gladly point to other nationalities and groups.In the Dar Entreprises shop in Tøyengata, owner Inam Dar and customer Arfan Mahmood are in agreement."

I don't think Pakistani men are doing things like that. We live in Norway and must follow the culture here," says Mahmood."But men from Somalia might overdo things. They are very engaged with the hijab on girls.

"The many people Aftenposten has spoken with who themselves had experiences with the morality police draw a picture of a multiple-headed troll. Identifying everybody from old, frustrated men to newly arrived asylum seekers.Professor of sociology Grete Brochmann is glad the problem is being discussed and thinks it's essential now to know who we're really talking about.

In the Somali restaurant Karma, the customers don't need research to comment on the morality police. Mohamed Sheik, who knows the Somali community well, is afraid of what he says is an increasing number of religious fanatics.

He suggests that the following three groups make up the core of controllers: young drop-outs who go to 'basement mosques', older people who resist progress and want to maintain control and some highly educated conservative leaders with great power."Many people don't see that these extremists who terrorize others, not the majority society, is our greatest threat," he says.

Copenhagen Climate Deal is at Risk.

It wasn't much of a plan to begin with and was on life support coming out of the summit.

Just a month after world leaders fashioned a tentative and nonbinding agreement at the climate change summit meeting in Copenhagen, the deal already appears at risk of coming undone, the top United Nations climate official warned on Wednesday.

Facing a Jan. 31 deadline, major countries have yet to submit their plans for reducing emissions of climate-altering gases, one of the major provisions of the agreement, according to Yvo de Boer, the Dutch official who is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which organized the climate meeting.

Fewer than two dozen countries have even submitted letters saying they agree to the terms of the three-page accord. And there has been virtually no progress on spelling out the terms of nearly $30 billion in short-term financial assistance promised to those countries expected to be hardest hit by climate change. Still unresolved are such basic questions as who will donate how much, where the money will go and who will oversee the spending.

After a contentious two-week conference in the Danish capital last month, representatives of more than 190 nations issued a skeletal document, known as the Copenhagen Accord, that sets climate-related goals for developed and developing countries, but without enforceable targets or timetables. The participants failed to agree to even the minimum expectation of the meeting: setting a firm deadline for negotiating a binding international climate change treaty.

Obama causes stocks to plunge over big bank plans.

Yes there needs to be some regulation and separation of the big banks who are too big to fail, but once again Obama overreaches causing panic and anger.

President Barack Obama's plan to change the way big banks make their money plunged the stock market back into the fear and uncertainty that marked the financial crisis.

Obama said Thursday he would ask Congress for limits on how big banks can become and to end some of the risky trades financial companies use to supercharge their earnings. Investors sent stocks tumbling as they worried the plan would destabilize Wall Street's 10-month rally.

Big bank stocks skidded, yanking the Dow Jones industrial average down 213 points and erasing its gains for 2010. Over the past two days, the Dow dropped 336 points, or 3.1 percent, its worst slump since June. Wednesday's drop came on more global concerns, that China's economy would slow and hurt other countries as well.

Todd Leone, managing director of equity trading at Cowen & Co. in New York said some rules need to be changed after the financial crisis of the past two years but that the government was reaching too far.

"They kind of stabbed themselves and there should be some limitations on them," Leone said of large financial companies. "But you have to let these guys run their businesses. I think they're too involved and I think that's why people are upset."

NASA Announces stupid looking flying suit. The Puffin.

Really NASA... Really?

Forget the Segway. Leave that jet pack behind. NASA is working on a personal flying suit.

Conceptual designs for the experimental vehicle, called Puffin, were introduced by Mark D. Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, at a meeting of the American Helicopter Society on Jan. 20 in San Francisco. The Puffin is designed to be 12 feet in length, with a total wingspan of 14 and a half feet; it would weigh in at 300 pounds (without a pilot).

Two major elements distinguish the Puffin suit from the jet packs of ’50s-era sci-fi flicks. First, it is completely self-contained: the pilot would actually step into the suit, which has a cockpit-like area and helicopter-style blades, allowing for high-altitude flying (unlike those sci-fi jet packs).

It better stay a concept, no style or practicality shown in this design.

Angry boss radio ad ruled "offensive to Germans"

Fawlty Towers would never make it on the air in today's UK.

Britain's advertising watchdog has banned a radio ad featuring a man speaking loudly in German and which asked: "Is your boss a bit of a tyrant?"

Oddly Enough

Thirteen listeners complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), saying it used an outdated stereotype.

The advert for the Reed Online recruitment agency featured a man speaking to his boss who responded angrily and loudly in German. The voice-over said: "Boss a bit of a tyrant? Find your perfect boss on the UK's biggest job site ..."

The ASA said: "We concluded that, given the extreme reaction and aggressive tone of the German speaking boss, the ad reinforced a negative and outdated cultural stereotype of German people as overpowering and tyrannical and therefore the ad had the potential to cause serious offence to some listeners."

It banned the advert for breaching rules on good taste and decency.

(WSJ) Obama Retreats on Obamacare.

If he really was principled about his health care reforms, he would not say scrap enough to pass something. He would just junk the whole thing. But this has always been about getting something passed with his name on it for a legacy.

President Barack Obama suggested he's open to Congress passing a scaled-back health-care bill, potentially sacrificing much of his signature policy initiative as chaos engulfed Capitol Hill Wednesday.


Top Democrats said they would press ahead despite growing doubts among rank-and-file members that they can pass a bill they've been laboring over for nearly a year. A host of ideas offered in recent days have lost favor.

One day after losing their filibuster-proof Senate majority in a Massachusetts special election, exhausted Senate Democrats looked downtrodden as they filed into their weekly lunch in a second-floor room at the Capitol. "People are hysterical right now," said one Senate aide.

Chavez lapdog Morales deplores US 'occupation' of Haiti

Hey you midget, America only occupies places with oil and stuff according to leftists like you. Haiti is not on that list of rich resources.

-- President Evo Morales said Wednesday that Bolivia would seek U.N. condemnation of what he called the U.S. military occupation of earthquake-stricken Haiti.

"The United States cannot use a natural disaster to militarily occupy Haiti," he told reporters at the presidential palace.

"Haiti doesn't need more blood," Morales added, implying that the militarized U.S. humanitarian mission could lead to bloodshed.

His criticism echoed that of fellow leftist, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who said Sunday that "it appears the gringos are militarily occupying Haiti."

Washington has dispatched some 11,500 troops to the poor Caribbean nation since the Jan. 12 quake and says the number could reach 16,000 by the weekend.

(NYTIMES) How the tea party, NRSC, others helped Scott Brown win.

I dislike the NRSC and the GOP leadership but they got smart in helping Brown with resources while making it look like they were not paying attention. It also helps that the various tea party groups are realizing that you are not going to get the conservative that is 100% but its better than the Dem.

While conservatives quietly mobilized behind a state senator, Scott Brown, to fill the seat occupied by Mr. Kennedy for nearly 47 years, Democrats paid but slight attention to a contest that by every indication and by history should have been nothing to worry about.

Martha Coakley, the attorney general and Democratic Party candidate, barely campaigned in the weeks after winning her primary on Dec. 8.

The vastly different responses of the two parties contributed to a confluence of events that fundamentally altered the course of what should have been a routine special election.

By the time Ms. Coakley’s campaign and Democratic officials noticed that things were not right in Massachusetts — after reading an outside group’s poll on Jan. 9 that showed Mr. Brown holding a 1 percentage point lead — the fire, as one White House official put it, was out of control. The Tea Party reinforcements had arrived, and a conservative group from Iowa started running commercials here portraying Ms. Coakley as a big spender who would raise taxes, a powerful issue with independents.

“It was a classic case of everybody getting caught napping,” David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said in an interview. “This guy knew exactly what he was doing. He’s an appealing candidate. Pleasant guy. He’s smart. He tapped into an antipolitician sentiment.”

Geert Wilders kangaroo court trial begins.

When you have a judge saying its going to be a fair trial, it means you are going to get screwed.

The lead judge of the court started off by addressing Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV party, directly. The judge said that while the media might have portrayed his case as foregone, his court “would not cast judgment before the last word has been spoken”.



It is quite uncommon for judges to reassure their suspects that they will receive a fair trial. But it seems little in the case against Wilders will be business as usual. On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Wilders’ sympathizers were gathered outside the Amsterdam courtroom where Wilders was on trial for group slander and inciting discrimination and violence. A large number of Wilder’s statements to the media and his anti-Islam film Fitna will be presented as evidence. A comparison Wilders drew between the Koran and Hitler’s Mein Kampf is one of his remarks now under legal scrutiny.

Brock Lesnar slams Canadian healthcare as third world.

What the heck did you Canadians do to him?

The six-foot-four Lesnar, who has to cut weight to make the UFC heavyweight limit of 265 pounds, said he had been ailing for some time last year, before falling seriously ill during a trip to Canada. What had started as flu-like symptoms was upgraded to mononucleosis and then diverticulosis.

Asked about the low point during the last few months of his illness, Lesnar said: "Probably the lowest moment was getting care from Canada."

"They couldn't do nothing for me," he noted in a later media conference call Wednesday. "It was like I was in a Third World country."

"I'm just stating the facts here and that's the facts," he continued. "I love Canada. I own property in Canada but if I had to choose between getting care in Canada or the United States, I definitely want to be in the United States. Canadians, don't get me wrong here. Listen I love Canada, some of the best people and best hunting in the world. I have family up there. But I wasn't at the right facility. And it makes sense for me to say that."

Lesnar, who makes his home in Minnesota, refused to say where he was treated in Canada although he talked of his wife driving him "in excruciating pain" to the border.

"I knew that I had to get out of there. And my wife saved my life. She got me out of there and drove 100 miles an hour to get me down to Bismarck, North Dakota, to Medcenter One (hospital) and got me with Dr. (Brent) Buderer and his staff, and that doctor there saved my career and saved my life."

Obama: American public too stupid to follow my policies.

Obama really is tone deaf.

The president said he made a mistake in assuming that if he focused on policy decisions, the American people would understand the reasoning behind them.

"That I do think is a mistake of mine," Obama said. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

Instead, the president said the American people ended up with a "feeling of remoteness and detachment" from the policymakers in Washington who are making big decisions.

"I think, you know, what they ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment where there's these technocrats up here making decisions. Maybe some of them are good, maybe some of them aren't, but do they really get us and what we're going through?" he said.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to tell the public who are against you policies you just don't understand. The public understands and rejected it. The people of Massy rejected it so much they sent a Republican in the "Kennedy Seat." But keep thinking its some sort of message disconnect. It will help conservatives in the November.

Fox developing American version of Torchwood and Doctor Who??

Torchwood may be great if they don't make the mistake of why I dislike the UK version with unlikable characters and John Barrowman hamming it up worse than Adam West/Shanter combined. An American version of Doctor Who? It could work but I see the American version turning into generic action series with monsters of the week and non of the British touches that make it unique.

Huge news for sci-fi fans: Fox is developing a stateside version of the U.K. hit series “Torchwood.”

Unlike U.S. adaptations that have gone awry, “Torchwood” fans can take comfort that the original producing team is on board. In addition to Davies, exec producers include Davies’ producing partner Julie Gardner (former head of drama at BBC Wales for the show’s first season) and Jane Tranter (another BBC vet, now exec VP programming and production at BBC Worldwide Prods. in the U.S.).

Also, some of the current cast — most likely John Barrowman, who plays the immortal Capt. Jack Harkness — might star if Fox orders “Torchwood” to pilot.

As for the new show’s plot, the U.S. version will contain a global story line compared to the more localized sensibility of the first two BBC seasons.

Tranter might try to reboot “Doctor Who” for U.S. audiences while departing “Doctor Who” star David Tennant stars in NBC’s pilot “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.”

David Gergen helped to elect Scott Brown.

If it wasn't for his question about Ted Kennedy seat, Brown wouldn't have been able to get off the line of the campaign.

(Horrible) U.A.W. Local Now Focuses on G.M.’s Success

If you want a reason why American car companies are in the crapper and why unions get the blame, this article points it out.

For the better part of three decades, the car plant here was a seemingly endless source of trouble for General Motors.

In the 1970s, the factory’s 7,000 workers were so bitter toward management that thousands of Chevrolet Vegas rolled off the assembly line with slit upholstery and other damage. The hostility eventually led to a 22-day strike in 1972 that cost G.M. $150 million, and the term “Lordstown syndrome” became shorthand to describe rebellious American factory workers.

Even when no intentional sabotage occurred, many Lordstown-built vehicles were of poor quality. G.M. had planned to abandon Lordstown, the site of many wildcat strikes, by 2002.

But the plant survived, though dozens of other auto factories did not, and today it is preparing to build a new compact car, the Chevrolet Cruze, that is integral to G.M.’s hopes of becoming a successful company again.

.....“We were the bad dog on the street at one time,” said Ben Strickland, shop chairman for the U.A.W. chapter in Lordstown, Local 1112. “We’ve got 3,000 lives to worry about. The cockiness and the arrogance that we once portrayed — we definitely got a lot more humble.

The number of grievances filed against G.M. by Local 1112 members has declined 90 percent from the plant’s most hostile days in the 1970s, when as many as 15,000 were filed in a year, he said.

Problems with absenteeism and many workers’ compensation claims have long been resolved..

....G.M. also needs the plant workers to help make the Cruze a success by ensuring high quality. “There’s a lot of pressure on the workers there because the Cruze is being portrayed as the savior of General Motors,” said John Russo, director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at nearby Youngstown State University. “There’s a lot riding on it, and the workers and the community feel it.”

Someone explain why the hell would you give the car that is supposed to be the savior of the company to this plant which obviously until the bottom collaped acted like a typical union? If you go back all those years, the consumer was helping to pay the salaries of a car plant filled with workers and a local union who didn't give a damn as long as they got paid.

This plant should have been shut down years ago in any normal business instead thanks to the government owning the plant, the taxpayers are now footing the bill.

Then they wonder why people hate the unions.

I still think Coakley will win, but Brown the bigger winner.

I can't wrap around the thought that Scott Brown can win Ted Kennedy's seat in that state. Up till now all you had to do is put anything on the ballot with a D in front of it and it gets elected. Now the fact he is this close is an amazing win and shows how unpopular Obama's policies have become even in a state any Dem should have a cakewalk election.

Brown has shown you don't need the national party machine, that you can run against Obama's signature policies and get support, you can be a fiscal conservative and run to the right of the moderate Republicans. This is just one successful template that conservatives can run all over the country with parts being tailored made to their region and be successful.

I just can't think Brown will win though, I hope I am wrong.

But on the notion of the black vote, when you see white liberals such as Michael Tomasky post stuff like this as if black people need a dog whistle to vote for Obama.

Should Obama visit? I'd say no, if I were advising him. If he goes in there and she loses, then the loss will be absolutely tied right around his neck. Too big a risk. Yes, it would be anyway, but not to same extent as if he went in there and she lost.

At the same time, something extraordinary has to be done in the state to awaken black voter turnout - to let people know that this race isn't about Coakley, but it's about Obama, and if she loses, there will be thundering declarations that his presidency is essentially over. I have no idea whether that's happening.

Guardian: it's about the national right's attempt to make Obama a one-term president, and saturate black radio. That would get the vote out. She'd win. She'd even win easily, I think, if that were done properly. But she and her people have hardly shown themselves to be the sharpest tacks in the box.

Coakley is in trouble which means Obama is in trouble. BLACK PEOPLE TO THE POLLS! 'cause Obama is a liberal black and that is how black people should think all the time.

Obama goes to church, makes a political speech.

He just can't help himself.

"Folks are wondering, where do we go from here?'' Obama said to a larger question about economic hardships today.

"Yes, we're passing through a hard winter - it's the hardest in some time,'' Obama said. "But let's always remember that, as a people, the American people, we've weathered some hard winters before.''

Obama cited the slaves who escaped via the Underground Railroad - "they weathered a hard winter.''

"What we need to do is to just ask what lessons we can learn from those earlier generations,'' Obama said. "Let us, in this Joshua Generation learn how that Moses Generation overcame.... They did so by remaining firm in their resolve...

"The economy is growing again,'' Obama said. "We are making progress.''

The president also made a pitch for his health-care initiative, to applause from the congregation. "This will be a victory not for Democrats,'' he said. "This will be a victory for decency and dignity.''

It is "tempting,'' Obama said, "to give up on the political process... Progress is possible. Don't give up on voting. Don't give up on advocacy. Don't give up on activism.''

(EW) James Cameron believes in terrorist acts

James Cameron proves himself a rich moron.

The man behind “Aliens,” “Titanic” and now the blue-skinned creatures inhabiting his latest hit, tells Entertainment Weekly that he digs ecoterrorism. (WWTW note: cannont find link to this at ew.com … will keep looking. The issue in question hit my mailbox today. Interview appears on page 35)

And no, that’s not taken out of context.

EW asked Cameron
to respond to some of the criticisms aimed at “Avatar.” Check out how he responded to this one:

EW: “Avatar” is the perfect eco-terrorism recruiting tool.”

JC: Good, good. I like that one. I consider that a positive review. I believe in ecoterrorism.”

Senegal offers land to Haitians

It would be nice to see the Caribbean step to help in taking in some Haitians but so far it is falling on America to open their doors(not a good idea) and Senegal making this offer which I doubt many will take.

Senegal is offering free land to Haitians wishing to ’return to their origins’ following this week’s devastating earthquake, which has destroyed the capital and buried thousands of people beneath rubble.

Senegal’s octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade told a meeting of his advisers that Haitians are the sons and daughters of Africa, because the country was founded by slaves, including some believed to have come from Senegal.

’The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return to their origin,’ said Wade’s spokesman Mamadou Bemba Ndiaye late yesterday following the president’s announcement.