Crossposted from Flopping Aces

And war critics say that only the poor and underprivileged choose to serve in the Armed Forces?
Scott covered the story from his perspective. Here’s another:

Prince Harry gives an interview after embargo on news reports of his service in Afghanistan is lifted. Note the U.S. flag on his cap.

The Daily Mail has full coverage. Like most U.S. troops Prince Harry is loyal to his fellow soldiers and demanded to be permitted to go to combat along with them.

Your mother would be so proud: what Prince William told Harry when he went to fight the Taliban
The Daily Mail (U.K.)
28th February 2008

• ‘This gives me my best chance to be normal … All my wishes have come true,’ says Harry
• Harry: ‘William wrote to tell me our mother would be proud’
• Harry: ‘I would never want to put someone else’s life in danger by being a bullet magnet’
• Prince was told by the Queen he would go to war
• MoD praises British press for keeping Harry’s deployment secret until foreign media leaked it

Not exactly a palace: Harry’s living quarters.

Prince Harry sits with Lance Cpl of Horse Chris ‘Dougie’ Douglass atop a Spartan armoured vehicle in the Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan.

More photos at the Daily Mail.

Crossposted from Red Maryland

The Baltimore Business Journal is reporting today that PSC Chief Steve Larsen charged Constellation Energy with misleading “ratepayers” in the costs to decommission the nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs.

Two points I want to address.

First, the “ratepayers” were misled. You don’t say? Where in the hell have you been?

Second, define “ratepayers”.

The Ratepayers Were Misled

The ratepayers have been misled since DAY ONE of this entire “electricity deregulation” movement. The members of the General Politburo in Soddom on the Severn lied to us. Governor Glendenning lied to us. BGE lied to us. FERC lied to us. Louis Goldstein lied to us when his family sold the land to BGE to build Calvert Cliffs.

Ratepayers have been lied to for eighty years, frankly. Especially residential ratepayers. No one to date in government has addressed the very simple fact that residential rates under the regulated regime were subsidized by the commercial rates, and that “deregulation” was really about making residential ratepayers pay more of the share of the cost of electricity AND creating a speculation market for energy for the benefit NOT of ratepayers, but generators.

Electricity deregulation was designed to create an artificial arbitrage mechansim where companies like Constellation, Enron, and so on could make money on the skim of the sale of electricity. That is why electricity deregulation was important to the energy industry. They wanted to create a commodities market for energy that went beyond the bulk markets for oil and coal, and instead took advantage of the uncertainty that would come from wild price swings in electricty costs created by ever-increasing demand in a resource-constricted environment.

That is why Constellation is not fighting tooth and nail O’Guvnah’s massively totalitarian and economy-killing enery bills. Because Constellation Energy Group would benefit ten-times over from the skim– more than they would from the generation of electricity. This is organized crime on a nationalistic scale.

The entire notion that the ratepayers should pay for the decomissioning of nuclear power plants — the so-called “stranded costs” debate — is one big lie. Mayo A. Shattuck is lying when he argues that his customers should pay for decomissioning plants that were long ago amoritized and paid for.

So to Steve Larsen, I say this: where you have been for the last nine years, pal?

Please Define Ratepayers

I really wish “ratepayers” would be defined. Why? Because the article in the Baltimore Business Journal makes it seem like I — a “ratepayer” for over 15 years to BGE — actually had a say in this mess:

State utility regulators told executives of Constellation Energy Group and its subsidiary, Baltimore Gas & Electric, on Tuesday that ratepayers may have gotten a raw deal in 1999 in regards to how much they would pay to close old nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs.

“There was no knowledge of what ratepayers were signing onto,” said Steve Larsen, chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission during a hearing in Baltimore.

Or:

“They [ratepayers] didn’t want to take the risks of market changes driving up the costs,” said Mike Naeve, an attorney with Washington, D.C.-based Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, who was representing Constellation at the hearing. “It could be a cost to the ratepayer or a benefit.”

(more…)

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

This paper entitled “The Government Grant System: Inhibitor of Truth and Innovation?” explains quite a bit about the Man-Made Global Warming Cult:

Pollack (2005) addresses the first ethic, noting that the paramount motivational factor for scientists today is the competition to survive. A scientist’s most pressing need, which supersedes the scientific pursuit of truth, is to get her grant funded – to pay her salary and that of her staff, to pay department bills, and to obtain academic promotion. The safest way to generate grants is to avoid any dissent from orthodoxy. Grant-review Study Sections whose members’ expertise and status are tied to the prevailing view do not welcome any challenge to it. A scientist who writes a grant proposal that dissents from the ruling paradigm will be left without a grant. Speaking for his fellow scientists Pollack writes, “We have evolved into a culture of obedient sycophants, bowing politely to the high priests of orthodoxy.”

The grant system fosters an Apollonian approach to research. The investigator does not question the foundation concepts of biomedical and physical scientific knowledge. He sticks to the widely held belief that the trunks and limbs of the trees of knowledge, in, for example, cell physiology and on AIDS, are solid. The Apollonian researcher focuses on the peripheral branches and twigs and develops established lines of knowledge to perfection. He sees clearly what course his research should take and writes grants that his peers are willing to fund. Forced by the existing grant system to follow such an approach, Pollack (2005) argues that scientists have defaulted into becoming a culture of believers without rethinking the fundamentals.

The only way to get those grants is to never rock the boat. (more…)

Crossposted from Conservative Thoughts.

I read this over at Any Soldier and emailed Marty Horn inquiring about posting it myself. I wasn’t going to post without permission, especially given the age of the author. He let me know it wasn’t his place to grant the permission, but that he had forwarded my request to the owner. I am pleased to say permission was granted.

Your Story Is Important To Me

When I think of an American soldier, four words come to mind, Honor, Respect, Freedom and Valor.

Your story is filled with Honor and Respect. Honor for our country and all we hold dear. These brave men and women risk their lives to honor this great nation. All of the service men and women show great respect for our flag and everything it stands for. With everything these wonderful people do, I don’t think we show them the respect and honor they deserve in return. I can not think of a more honorable profession than to be a United States Soldier.
(more…)

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, when this was written) that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D. C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. (…and that was while handguns were outlawed!!)

That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U. S. Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

How long will it be before man is blamed?

World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
by Michael Asher
Daily Tech
February 26, 2008

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let’s hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans — and most of the crops and animals we depend on — prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

How long will it be before a worldwide climate emergency is declared and along with it a demand for radical changes in our lifestyle as well as a worldwide tax on prosperous nations to fund an army of UN bureaucrats to lecture us all on how bad things are?

And will the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations who have made millions in fundraising on the Global Warming emergency how scratch warming from their propaganda and insert “cooling”? Instead of images of flooding in New York we’ll see icebergs off Miami Beach?

And for the global warming zealots that say “it’s only the observations from one year, it doesn’t mean anything” we’ll remind them how they insisted that the terrible hurricane season of 2005 brought their predictions of worse to come with global warming to blame followed by the two calmest hurricane seasons in a decade.

For all of you trapped in frozen climes this time of year, here’s my advice on how to keep warm: The next time you encounter some know nothing global warming zealot, point at him and laugh until you are warm!

Crossposted from Red Maryland

After raising billions in taxes and approving billions in new spending, the General Assembly finally realized “Hey, we have to cut some things in the budget”:

Worried that a faltering economy could cause a worse-than-expected slowdown in the state’s finances, Maryland lawmakers are exploring deep cuts in Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposals to bolster spending on the environment, health care and other programs.

Lawmakers have been looking for $200 million in cuts in O’Malley’s proposed budget to compensate for the flagging economy, but now they are saying that could rise to $300 million or more when updated revenue projections come out next week.

The Sun story (which, incidentally, makes no mention of the half a billion in new entitlement programs approved during the Special Session) goes on to note this gem:

“The likelihood is, given the national economic downturn, that those difficult series of decisions will continue,” O’Malley said. “Everybody is looking at the revenue estimates, and if they are coming in lower than projected, there will have to be further cuts.”

This isn’t exactly breaking news, and the talk of a recession was going on during the Special Session where O’Malley insisted that the legislature do further harm to the economy.

Crazy thing is that, once again, Peter Franchot looks like the only prominent Democrat who understood what was going on during the time of the Special Session:

Franchot cautioned against holding a special session last year, saying there was no immediate fiscal crisis and that unintended consequences could stem from acting in haste to plug a projected budget gap.

So far in fiscal 2008, corporate income taxes are nearly 24 percent lower than at the corresponding time the year before, according to the letter. Though such tax receipts are volatile, they are lagging “well behind” expectations, Franchot wrote.

General-fund sales tax receipts were 5.5 percent lower in January than in the corresponding period a year ago, reflecting slow December sales. Franchot called that figure “surprisingly weak.”

All of this really isn’t that surprising when you consider that legislators were warned about potential revenue losses stemming form higher taxes.

The complete incompetence of O’Malleynomics is in full bloom in Annapolis ladies and gentlemen. The combination of tax increases and spending increases has served to hamstring the General Assembly. While I am glad that something is being done to curtail OMaley’s profligate and ill-advised spending, I wish only that members of the Legislative Leadership will realize their foolish ways and roll back all of the historic and unnecessary tax hikes enacted during the Special Session…

TYLER, Texas — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain mocked Barack Obama’s view of al-Qaida in Iraq, and Democratic contender responded that GOP policies brought the terrorist group there. McCain criticized Obama for saying in Tuesday night’s Democratic debate that, after U.S. troops were withdrawn, as president he would act “if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq.” “I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It’s called `al-Qaida in Iraq,’” McCain told a crowd in Tyler, Texas, drawing laughter at Obama’s expense. He said Obama’s statement was “pretty remarkable,”

Obama quickly answered back while campaigning in Ohio. “I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq and that’s why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets,” he told a rally at Ohio State University in Columbus. “But I have some news for John McCain,” Obama added. “There was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq. … They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be al-Qaida in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001.”

Obama said he intended to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq “so we actually start going after al-Qaida in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan like we should have been doing in the first place.” While he praised McCain as a war hero and saluted his service to the country, Obama said the Arizona Republican was “tied to the politics of the past. We are about policies of the future.”

Noting that McCain likes to tell audiences that he’d follow Osama bin Laden to the “gates of hell” to catch him, Obama taunted: “All he (McCain) has done is to follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq.” McCain said he had not watched Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate but was told of Obama’s response when asked if as president he would reserve the right to send U.S. troops back into Iraq to quell an insurrection or civil war.

Obama did not say whether he’d send troops but responded: “As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.”
On Wednesday, Obama expanded slightly that he “would always reserve the right to go in and strike al-Qaida if they were in Iraq” without detailing what kind of strike that might be _ air, ground or both.

Throughout the primary season, McCain has repeatedly attacked Obama and Clinton for saying they would withdraw troops from Iraq. “And my friends, if we left, they (al-Qaida) wouldn’t be establishing a base,” McCain said Wednesday. “They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, my friends. I will not surrender. I will not surrender to al-Qaida.”

He said that withdrawing troops would be “waving the white flag.”
The Link is Here.

Really, why do people like this guy? Obama sounds like a novice debater in his freshman year in high school. The degree of ignorance in his one statement is amazing, and the other is just a massive contradiction with his known position in Iraq.

” I do know that al-Qaida is in Iraq and that’s why I have said we should continue to strike al-Qaida targets..”

Yet, you would withdraw from Iraq……that makes sense. You can’t claim to want to strike al-Qaida while at the same time advocating a withdraw from battling them in Iraq. Pick one, dude. Make the left happy or attack our enemies. You can’t do both.

Have we become that simple and superficial of a people that we are really willing to put this old school leftist in the White House?

As my friends at Redstate have stated:

There is nothing more one needs to add. It speaks for itself.

He doesn’t stand a chance if this goes national.

Because nothing says “Change” like reviving the Left’s defense policy demands as of 1983: Nuclear Freeze, opposing “the weaponization of space,” fetishization of arms control talks with the Soviets Russia. Next he will be talking about Grenada and Pershing missiles. Still, it is nice to see Obama pushing ideas that aren’t from the 1970s, I guess…

Please note this passage: “…I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material…”

Its just plain idiotic to suggest we ban production of all fissile materials. At least if we want any nuclear reactors.

Now note this paragraph:

Of the 30 countries with nuclear power, the percentage of electricity supplied by nuclear ranged widely: from a high of 78 percent in France; to 54 percent in Belgium; 39 percent in Republic of Korea; 37 percent in Switzerland; 30 percent in Japan; 19 percent in the USA; 16 percent in Russia; 4 percent in South Africa; and 2 percent in China.

In other words, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) just informed at least four of our allies, one friendly neutral power, one of our rivals, and not incidentally, us, that he wants to turn off the lights: and he’s also told a future strategic rival that the round-eyes are still dedicated to holding down the Middle Kingdom. Don’t think that they won’t notice: don’t think that this won’t appall some, and confirm all the stereotypes of the rest; and don’t think that the aforementioned rivals are going to be as tolerantly amused at the simplisme naif as the French will be.

And I am not sure what is worse, his foreign policy of his economic policy.

Above The Law, a website devoted to Law Firms it seems, takes a look at what will happen to the income of associates if Obama is elected. Here is their analysis of a fictional associate making over 164 grand a year:

The effect is enormous. Betsy’s marginal tax rate goes up from an already ridiculous 42.5% to 51.4%—not including the new 6.2% marginal tax on your employer. Subject to how she structures her withholding, Betsy’s take home pay drops an average of $515 a paycheck—less in the early months of the year, but much more in the later months of the year. Add in the effects on her bonus, and Betsy loses nearly $20,000/year in take-home pay.

I added a third column: how big a pay cut would you have to take to receive the same take-home income? The answer is that Obama’s tax increases have a bigger effect on your income than a law firm cutting New York salaries by $34,000.
From Flopping Aces

Clinton seems moderate and sane compared to this guy.

Crossposted from Red Maryland

The American conservative movement lost one of its founding fathers today.

I just heard the news that William F. Buckley Jr. passed away at his home in Connecticut.

I owe a great deal to Buckely and his magazine.

When I first discovered National Review I was in the midst of political maturation process from a liberal by default to a proud conservative. I strongly believe that conservatism is, at its heart, a temperament. Its a temperament I’ve always had, but never fully understood until National Review exposed me to the serious intellectual and philosophical roots that gird it. The writers and thinkers whose eloquent words grace the pages of National Review provided me an education far better than anything I learned as an undergraduate or graduate student.

American conservatism begins with Buckley and National Review, his life’s work and legacy offer an example how to advance and articulate conservative ideas with intellectual rigor, civility, and panache.

Some of Buckley’s greatest quotes:

“A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling “Stop!””

“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth”

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

Above The Law, a website devoted to Law Firms it seems, takes a look at what will happen to the income of associates if Obama is elected. Here is their analysis of a fictional associate making over 164 grand a year:

The effect is enormous. Betsy’s marginal tax rate goes up from an already ridiculous 42.5% to 51.4%—not including the new 6.2% marginal tax on your employer. Subject to how she structures her withholding, Betsy’s take home pay drops an average of $515 a paycheck—less in the early months of the year, but much more in the later months of the year. Add in the effects on her bonus, and Betsy loses nearly $20,000/year in take-home pay.

I added a third column: how big a pay cut would you have to take to receive the same take-home income? The answer is that Obama’s tax increases have a bigger effect on your income than a law firm cutting New York salaries by $34,000.

Yeah, someone making 160 grand isn’t hurting but don’t forget a couples income is considered as one in the eyes of the IRS and many couples living in the high cost of living areas can easily make that amount. That’s going to hurt.

The thing is that someway, somehow, all these programs Obama wants to institute, including the Global Poverty program, will need to be paid for somehow. How? By taking it from the backend of our employers. Those people who sign our paychecks. But those businesses can only stay afloat if they make a profit, basic economics. So they keep those profits by taking away raises, benefits, new employees and so forth.

Which means we are back to 1978 and Jimmah….

But Democrats being Democrats, they don’t think we should keep our own money…..it should be controlled for the common good. Here’s Jay Tea at Wizbang about his own state, New Hampshire, a state with a anti-tax history:

One of the hallmarks of New Hampshire politics has been a staunch anti-tax platform. We are the only state with neither a sales nor an income tax, and most of us like that.

But that could be coming to an end.

There’s a group of people pushing to rework the state’s tax structure. The Boston Globe is lauding them, pointing out that the state has a $50 million deficit in the first year of our two-year budget. Obviously, something has to be done, and these people say that raising taxes is the solution.

I find myself wondering what the hell happened. Astonishingly, the Boston Globe answers that question. But they have to bury the info, lest too many people manage to put two and two together and come up with “Democrats.”

Way, way down in the 12th paragraph, the Globe realizes it can’t cover up the essential facts any longer:

The debate over taxes is the latest sign of political change in New England’s most conservative state, where Democrats currently control both houses of the Legislature, and Lynch, a Democrat, is in his second term. Last year, some conservatives cringed as lawmakers approved a 17 percent state budget increase. Others marveled at the state’s adoption of civil unions for same-sex couples.

That’s right. Feeling their oats, the Democrats jacked up the state budget 17% (I’ve read it as 17.5% in other places, places I trust more than the Boston Globe, but even 17% is bad enough) in a single year.

After years and years and years of getting hammered as “tax and spenders” and derided and mocked and run down, the Democrats finally got swept into office in 2006. And as soon as they did, they spent the hell out of the state’s coffers, and now need to jack up taxes to pay for it all.

This is “change,” all right.

There’s that change word again….where have I heard that term before recently hmmmmm?

also:

Typical Chicago Politics Will Come Back To Haunt Obama

While the NYT’s prints a foolish attack piece with lots of innuendo about the Republican nominee, they remain silent on a story that is quite big AND has plenty of evidence to suggest wrongdoing.

Something which you can bet your bottom dollar will see the light of day over and over and over again if Obama is the nominee.

No fawning over the Messiah by the English press here. Hell, they even put up a picture of Obama that isn’t flattering:

The story itself is well done, but can get convoluted at times with all the figures. Here is the cast. First up is Nadhmi Auchi, a European billionaire with a scandalous past:

Allow me to introduce you to Nadhmi Auchi. He was charged in the 1950s with being an accomplice of Saddam Hussein, when the future tyrant was acquiring his taste for blood. He was investigated in the 1980s for his part in alleged bribes to the fabulously corrupt leaders of post-war Italy. In the 1990s, the Belgium Ambassador to Luxembourg claimed that Auchi’s bank held money Saddam and Colonel Gadaffi had stolen from their luckless peoples. In 2002, officers from the Serious Fraud Squad raided the offices of one of Auchi’s drug companies as part of an investigation of what is alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the NHS. With allegations, albeit unproven, like these hanging over him, wouldn’t you think that British MPs would have the sense to stay away?

Perhaps you would, but I forgot to add a final fact about Mr Auchi: he is the thirteenth-richest man in Britain, and he has been able to collect British politicians the way other people collect stamps.

A bit more on the man here in todays article:

Auchi’s brother was among the many Baathists killed by Saddam, but the execution did not inhibit Auchi’s business dealings with Iraq which, he says, didn’t stop until the Gulf war of 1991. His first coup in the West was to broker a deal to sell Italian frigates to the Iraqi Defence Ministry, for which he received $17m in commission. Italian investigators claimed that a Panamanian company owned by Auchi was used to funnel allegedly illegal payments. Auchi denied he had done anything wrong.

In the mid-1980s he got to know Pierfrancesco Pacini Battaglia, a man whose role in directing money to politicians led Italians to call him ‘the one below God’. Saddam Hussein had ordered the construction of a pipeline from Iraq to Saudi Arabia. Battaglia and Auchi secured the contract for a Franco-Italian consortium. In a statement to New York lawyers Battaglia alleged he knew how. ‘To acquire the contract it was necessary, as is usual, especially in Middle Eastern countries, to pay commission to characters close to the Iraqi government… In this case, the international intermediary who dealt with this matter was the Iraqi, Nadhmi Auchi.’ Auchi has denied any wrong-doing.

A real sleazeball.

Next up in the cast is Tony Rezko:

Antoin “ Tony” Rezko, 51, a millionaire businessman in Chicago area was indicted on allegations that he used his influence with governor Rod Blagojevich to extort money from companies that seek business with the state.

Rezko is a key Blagojevich fundraiser and adviser, and has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the governor campaign as well as to other state and city public officials.

The indictment alleges that Rezko along with co-conspirator Stuart Levin attempted to force businesses to pay certain associates finders and consultant fees in the range of millions of dollars before in order to be approved to do business with the state.The scheme according to the indictment and reports in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Suntimes worked like this:

Tony Rezko because of his influence with the governor recommends certain people to be appointed by the governor on State’s boards, commissions, and agencies who in turn would compel companies that seek to do business with the state to pay finder’s fees to consultants and other intermediary as well as make donations to Blagojevich campaign.

State agencies and Commissions such as the Teachers Pensions Funds have Billions of dollars to be invested. Board members appointed by governor can decided on companies that seek contracts with those commissions.

Some of this money finds its way to Rezko and Levine.

In one such cases the Chicago Tribune reported last Wednesday that:

“In one instance, the indictment alleges that Levine used his influence on the pension board in 2004 to withhold a planned allocation of $220 million in funds unless a kickback of $2 million was paid to a consultant of Rezko’s and Levine’s choosing or arrange for $1.5 million in campaign contributions to be made to an unnamed public official”

Rezko’s rise to prominence in the past two decades is something of an American dream success story. Born in Halab (Aleppo) Syria and moved to Chicago after high school and graduating from Illinois institute of Technology in degree in Engineering.

Rezko’s businesses and interests are wide and far, from communication company, to inner city rehab company that renovates buildings in low-income areas to Pizza. He reportedly owns between 25-30 Pizza restaurants named Papa Tony’s Pizza, after Papa John Pizza franchise terminated its affiliation with him.

And then we have the Messiah himself, which needs no introduction due to the outstanding job our MSM has done on vetting him /sarc.

Anyways this story today goes into detail on the dealings between the three and the impropriety of it all:

A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses.

The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama’s bagman Antoin “Tony” Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

Three weeks later, Mr Obama bought a house on the city’s South Side while Mr Rezko’s wife bought the garden plot next door from the same seller on the same day, June 15.

Why is this land deal important? Well, because Mrs Rezko paid the full price for the garden but Obama got a 15% reduction on his to the tune of 300 grand. Kinda smells. Especially when, according to Mr. Rezko, the Rezko’s were in financial trouble at the time. They had “no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations”

How the three intertwine is by the fact that Rezko was pretty much owned by Mr. Auchi:

According to court documents, Mr Rezko’s lawyer said his client had “longstanding indebtedness” to Mr Auchi’s GMH. By June 2007 he owed it $27.9 million. Under a Loan Forgiveness Agreement described in court, Mr Auchi lent Mr Rezko $3.5 million in April 2005 and $11 million in September 2005, as well as the $3.5 million transferred in April 2007.

That agreement provided for the outstanding loans to be “forgiven” in return for a stake in the 62-acre Riverside Park development.

And the fact that Auchi was denied entry into the United States a while ago and Rezko was working hard to get him back in:

Prosecutors say that, after Mr Auchi was unable to enter the United States in 2005, Mr Rezko approached the US State Department to get him a visa and apparently asked “certain Illinois government officials to do the same.” Mr Obama denies he was approached. Mr Auchi’s lawyer has emphasised to The Times that it would be entirely false to imply that money had been lent by GMH to Mr Rezko in return for Mr Rezko seeking to assist Mr Auchi to obtain a visa. The two men’s relationship, the lawyer stressed, was a business one.

Oh, and prior to being kicked out he had a dinner held in his honor and Obama just “happened” to stop in for a bit:

Both Mr Auchi and Mr Obama say they have no memory of meeting each other. But, according to a source, the two may have had a brief encounter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago where Mr Auchi’s visit was being honoured with a dinner attended by the Governor when Mr Obama, coincidentally in the hotel, dropped in.

An aide to Mr Obama said he did attend an event at the Four Seasons at which Mr Rezko was present but does not remember meeting Mr Auchi. “He shook a lot of hands and met a lot of people,” the aide said. “We do not remember individual people.”

(more…)

Crossposted from Red Maryland

We are Stasi. If you don’t remember the good old days of the Cold War, you might not recognize the term “Stasi”. The Stasi was the East German Secret Police force. One of the strengths of the Stasi was compelling East German citizens to spy on each other and report what they learned back to the Stasi. It was estimated that at one time, the Stasi had over seventy-percent of East Germans spying on their neighbors, family and friends. The German government is still dealing with the vast archives of the Stasi and the information contained within — over 40 years of spying by neighbors on neighbors.

Erich Hoeneker would be immensely proud of the Maryland Senate and its child abuse bill.

You see, the Maryland Senate has just passed a bill 35-10 that makes it a misdemeanor for any healthcare worker, police officers, educators, and “others” to fail to report “suspected” child abuse to authorities.

Oddly enough, the legislation doesn’t include employees of the Department of Social Services. i say that, because if you go through Maryland news archives for the last couple of years, you see a distinct pattern where the most horrific cases of abuse and death occurred on the watch of DSS. That’s right: the most horrific cases of abuse happened in to children already in the DSS system.

But of course, government does no wrong in the warped and twisted world of liberals like O’Guvnah and the State Politburo. And since government does no wrong, we must make everyone part of government. By turning them into spies.

So now, if you are a parent, every time you drop your child off at daycare or school, you have to wonder: Is my kid’s teacher going to turn me in today? Every visit to the emergency room or the pediatrician can be met with suspicion. Are your kids a little rambunctious? They fall a lot? Run around and trip? Better watch who sees those bruises. (more…)

A letter by Brad Botwin

MARYLAND SENATE EDUCATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE :MARYLAND HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE

“IN SUPPORT– SB40 PROHIBITION ON ILLEGAL ALIENS RECEIVING IN-STATE TUITION”

“IN OPPOSITION– HB 1236 & SB 591 TUITION CHARGES MD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS”

My name is Brad Botwin and I’m the Director of Help Save Maryland, a multi-ethnic, grass roots citizens’ organization with hundreds of members across 12 Maryland Counties and growing. We are Democrats, Republicans and Independents; Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians and Indians. Our main goal is to eliminate the use of our tax-dollars on programs and services for illegal aliens in Maryland . I have attached a recent Washington Post newspaper article on HSM as background for the Committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to present my position in full support of SB 40, and in total opposition of both SB 591 & HB 1236. SB 40 is a very important piece of legislation which needs to become Maryland law immediately. Illegal aliens should NOT be granted in-state tuition on a par with legal Maryland citizens. Nor should illegals be granted in-state tuition when fellow American citizen students from neighboring states must pay the higher out of state rate. Senators Harris, Colburn and Greenip should to be praised for their efforts to serve the citizens of Maryland and to follow the rule of law.

(more…)

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

These retired and still active senior officer’s views are pretty much mine also. I will just post the article and let these people’s words speak for themselves.

US Military Commanders Bemoan Lack of Concern About Terror Threat

While Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are seeking to destroy the Western way of life, Americans are more concerned about the life of movie stars and going out for a hamburger than issues crucial to their freedom, several senior retired American military officers said here.

“We know far more in the United States about what Britney Spears is doing than we know about the issues,” said retired U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Norman Saunders.

Speaking to a small group of reporters on the sidelines of the fifth annual Jerusalem Conference, Saunders said that the U.S. faces a “very serious challenge from the fanatical Muslim population that would seek to do away with the way of life of the Western World as we know it.”

“We listen to our presidential candidates – [in] what is probably a very critical election for our country if not the world -talk constantly about change without any definition of what that represents. What would they change? How would they confront the threats? Are there new ideas that they would bring forward?” Saunders asked.

Saunders, a former commanding officer of the U.S. Coast Guard who is responsible for a number of Homeland Defense and Security matters, said that Americans need to understand the issues.

“I’d like them to take their minds off whatever it is that keeps them occupied today and pay attention to what really is going on in the world and understand that and evaluate it for themselves,” Saunders said.

Saunders said he did not believe that the media even understood the issues or reports on them.

“I’d like a fairly good assessment of what really the world situation is, what the intention of some of these forces that we see out there are with regard to our population, the size of the threat, some of the options that face us,” he said.

But Saunders is not the only senior military official that is concerned that Americans aren’t paying attention to things that really matter.

It’s not clear if Americans even understand “how serious this adversary is,” said retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Harley Davis. “I think our very freedom is at stake and our way of life.

“Too many times we have forgotten or seem to have forgotten about 9/11 and the fact that it did happen,” said Davis, who served in a number of command and staff assignments, including the 2nd Armored Division, 1st Cavalry Division, 101st Airborne Division and 5th and 10th Special Forces Groups.

“Because of sacrifices of a lot of people across the U.S. as well as overseas, I think we’ve staved off any further attacks, but you never know when it’s going to come,” Davis added.

“We go about being happy, driving our cars. We’re going to get hamburgers or whatever it is,” Davis said. The threat of terrorism is not in front of Americans all the time as it is in front of Israelis, he said.

The press could help the situation “by reporting the facts without opinions, of the liberal side,” Davis said.

“I’m perhaps a little biased in that, but I spent over 33 years in the service of our country, and it just pains me to no end to see our courageous folks giving their lives up to protect our way of life, and some people take for granted what we have,” Davis said. “There are some really bad folks that would like to take away our way of life in the U.S. and here [Israel.]

The presidential candidates are not offering any clue as to how they would lead the nation and are instead focusing on superficial issues, said retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Bradley M. Lott.

“Those running for president haven’t talked very much about leadership. How will they lead the nation? How will they lead the people? How will they convince people of a better way or a right way to go? Instead we talk about things that tend to be too superficial,” Lott told journalists.

Lott said he would like to see presidential candidates address issues like how would they lead the nation in a confrontation after another serious act of terrorism. He wondered if “he or she” would be willing to seek out and attack terror bases or be willing to seek out those who traffic drugs and “interrupt their lines of communication” coming into the U.S.

“Do we have the will to do that? Are we looking at a leader that has the will to do that? That’s important,” Lott said. There are issues worth going to war over, he said, and those include “any threat to our way of life.”

also:

Democrats’ Favorite Military Advisor Says They’re Wrong

ARTICLE: Two Winnable Wars

By Anthony H. Cordesman
No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.

Blaming weak governments or trying to rush them into effective action by threatening to leave will undercut them long before they are strong enough to act.Any American political leader who cannot face these realities, now or in the future, will ensure defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Any Congress that insists on instant victory or success will do the same. We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience — or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves.

(more…)

James H. Lilley

America has become much like a ship foundering in wind swept seas. Tragically, the waters the good ship America is sinking into, are those filled with political pledges, and the anger fueled by those promises. What’s happening in America? It seems as though our nation has become a land of turmoil, and our elected officials are feeding that turbulence. In truth, those elected officials are firing the torpedoes into the bow of the good ship America. Unquestionably, I can’t be the only person who believes that our governors, congressmen, senators, our president, and those now running for office, have turned their backs on the American citizens. By that, I mean citizens born and raised in the United States, or immigrants who have traveled here and become citizens through legal process. The American People have been, and are being, slapped in the face time and again by those we’ve elected to public office.

The House of Representative passed a resolution recognizing the Muslim Faith as one of the great religions of the world, and the Muslim feast of Ramadan. In doing so, they spit in the faces of the families of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

I haven’t seen, or heard of the Muslims recognizing Catholicism, Judaism, and the other faiths of the world, and I don’t expect that I will. Why? Because Muslims swear an allegiance to Allah, and no religion is accepted by their Allah except Islam (Koran 2:256). Their allegiance to Allah/Islam forbids them to become friends with Christians and Jews. And, the Muslims must submit to the Mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel, and destruction of the Great Satan, America. Yet, our elected representatives genuflect before those who would destroy us by any means possible.

Elected officials continue to heap benefits, such as medical care and welfare, upon illegal immigrants, all at the expense of the American taxpayer. Again, that taxpayer is the born and raised citizen, and those naturalized that are forced to foot the bill. Add to that, social security benefits, which our government insists it’s okay for illegal aliens to collect, even though they haven’t contributed a single dime into the system. And, now our politicians want to give them the same tax rebate promised to the American taxpayer.

Once more, another benefit given away to illegal immigrants who haven’t paid a cent in taxes. Can one elected official step forward and tell me, and the rest of the tax paying citizens of this country, why those here illegally deserve the same tax rebate without ever having paid taxes? Then there’s the cry for blanket amnesty for those who’ve crossed our borders illegally. Why should there be amnesty for those who continually break our laws? But, the amnesty would go hand in hand with the payments they are receiving for breaking the laws, right? Yes, with every free benefit our government hands to our illegal aliens, they are in fact paying them to break our laws. The more free handouts we offer, the more we encourage others to rush into the country, break the law and get paid for doing it. Hell, we don’t even offer our own criminals that benefit.

Let’s look at the price tag being paid, by the U. S. taxpayer, to support illegal aliens in this country. How does $338 to $348 billion annually sound to you, especially as one of those paying this expense? And, it might surprise you to know this yearly price tag is higher than the funding for the Iraq War.

A few other facts and figures regarding illegal aliens in our country:

30% of all Federal prison inmates are illegal aliens. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate two-and-a-half times that of white, non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to caus a much greater crime problem in the U.S.

During the year 2005 there were 4 to 10 million illegal aliens that crossed our
Southern border, and as many as 19,500 illegals from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin,
and marijuana were smuggled into the United States from the southern border.

In 2006 illegal aliens sent $45 billion back to their countries of origin.
And, there’s the dark side of illegal immigration—nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal aliens in the United States. The National Policy Institute estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 million, or an average cost between $41 and

$46 billion annually, over a five year period.
(more…)

Crossposted from Conservative Thoughts.

if people think they can make money doing it.

T.J. Rodgers isn’t invested in solar power because he’s part of the green movement or a global warming alarmist – he’s not either of those things. He’s in it because he views it as a good investment which will make lots of money.

A decade later, one of the scientists who worked with Noyce and Hoerni, Gordon Moore, by then co-founder of Intel, realized that this miniaturization/mass-production technique was advancing at a rate never seen before in human endeavor. This formulation was the famous Moore’s Law, which defines the modern world.

Most of us now understand, and appreciate, Moore’s Law, but in the semiconductor industry they live it every day. And T.J. is one of the best of them. And what he saw in SunPower was the impending arrival of Moore’s Law to the alternative power world … and more than anyone, he knew what that meant.

As he has admitted, what he saw wasn’t Green, as in environmentalism, but “green,” as in money. That’s why he made such an unlikely move — and why he is now an even richer tycoon.

This takes a singular combination of vision, guts and the kind of strategic thinking that is only found in real, business-oriented entrepreneurs – not in government bureaucrats, or, for that matter, reporters.

The husband of a woman I grew up with has worked for T.J. for many years in international sales. It’s been a good job, so when I heard a few years ago he was being transferred to SunPower, I felt sorry for him, figuring it was a demotion. These days he’s adding new wings to his house.

You may not like their politics, or their attitude, or their style. But if we really do have an energy revolution in this country and free ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels, it will be because of hard-charging, take-no-prisoners entrepreneurs like T.J. Rodgers — not UN committees, environmental groups, or government officials.

Crossposted from Red Maryland

There are days when I have to wonder what O’Guvnah is up to. Not two months after calling a totally unneeded and worthless Special Session that launched a new round of rapacious and devastating taxation on the State of Maryland, O’Guvnah is now in the process of screwing over every single Maryland regardless of class, color, race, creed, or income level.

His three energy bills are by far the worst example of legislative and governmental overreach in the history of this state. All three bills would result in a substantially hostile energy market in Maryland for residential and commercial consumers alike, leading to dramatically higher prices, substantially less generation, and woefully inadequate transmission capacity. While presented as an “heroic” approach to conquer the mythological scourge of global warming, these energy bills will kill businesses, kill jobs, kill our way of life, and could even kill quite a few Marylanders. I say mythological scourge of global warming, because so far in the 21st century, all of the predictions of the vaunted computer models that have led us down this dandelion path. In fact, the evidence is arguing in quite the opposite direction:

From the National Post in Canada:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

And from Investor’s Business Daily earlier this month:

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better “eyes” with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth’s climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they’re worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

So, I say “mythological”, because we cannot prove that global warming can be cured by drastically overreacting and cutting so-called greenhouse gas emissions by so much in such a short period. That is the major thrust of these three energy bills: they are environmental bills trying to solve a problem that we still have not determined mankind can solve.

In the meantime, O’Guvnah’s new strategy is to force massive restriction (not conservation, outright restriction) down our throats in a fascist and totalitarian move. (more…)

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

An interesting segment of the great book Shadow Warriors is about the discoveries of Company X in Iraq regarding the “missing” WMD in Iraq. I’m gonna split this up into two parts seeing as how it is quite long but well worth the time to read:

The most intriguing evidence of hidden Iraqi WMD stockpiles, however, did not come from any of these sources. It came from a source that Hoekstra had developed all on his own: a former top CIA operations officer, who had returned to Iraq after the war and stumbled onto information pointing to a vast and previously unknown site, buried deep beneath a hillside north of Baghdad, where former Iraqi officials alleged Saddam had pursued nuclear weapons wrok in the utmost secrecy.

After a business trip to Iraq in February 2004, the former operations officer was contacted by an engineer, working for a company in a former Eastern European country, who had worked on infrastructure projects under Saddam. The engineer and his company were hoping to win new contracts in Iraq, and had also traveled to Baghdad. On their way back to Turkey, on of the Eastern Europeans pointed to a hilltop east of the Baghdad-Mosul highway, on the far side of the Jebel Makhoul, along the Tigris. He had always been told that the hilltop disguised an underground weapons plant, he said.

Some of the engineers traveling with them offered that they had worked on a nearby infrastructure project. As they got to talking, they mentioned that they had always whispered among themselves that the underground site housed a secret centrifuge uranium-enrichment plant.

When he first heard this story, the former operations officer felt it had the ring of authenticity. “These guys had been there for thirteen or fourteen years,” he told me. “They would get drunk with the Iraqis and learn things about the WMD programs they were not supposed to know.”

Along with a business partner, he began tracking down the Eastern European engineers who had worked in Iraq and interviewing them. “We found five or six independent sources who all noted that they had seen eighteen-wheel trucks pass through an entrance into the hill area we were looking at,” the former operations officer said. What the trucks did once they entered the hillside, nobody knew. The entire area was a military zone, ringed with several rows of barbed wire.

In his reports to Hoekstra, the former operations officer referred to himself and his partners as “Company X of McLean, Virginia” (where the CIA is located), and encrypted the names of sources in CIA-style diagraphs. He and his associates interviewed thirty-one engineers and workers from a former Soviet-block country who had never been debriefed by any U.S. or UN agency before. One of the engineers, identified as LYHUNT/103, had been in Iraq from September 1984 until April 1994 “with a short interruption for the Gulf War.” He returned to Iraq several times a year after that until 2000.

LYHUNT/103 and his colleagues worked directly with TECO, the Technical Corps for Special Projects, project manager for “Iraq’s highest priority weapons projects.” TECO was headquarted with the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, and “reported directly to Saddam’s household,” the former operations officer said. Among TECO’s responsibilities were Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons, its long-range ballistic missile programs, and the Super Gun that was being built by the former American ballistics genius Gerald Bull. LYHUNT/103 and other colleagues agreed to talk to the former CIA operations officer on condition that they not be identified in any way. They were well aware that their activities in Iraq after 1991 were in violation of international sanctions, U.S. law, and the laws of their own country. They risked serious jail time if they were identified. But they said they were willing to share their knowledge, because they now understood the full import of the highly compartmented project where they had worked, and it scared them. They referred to it as Site 555.

Site 555, also known as the al-Fajr facility, was “intended to be an electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS) uranium-enrichment facility,” the former CIA operative told Hoekstra. Bombed and partially destroyed during the Gulf War, it was leveled in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 687 in 1991. According to Iraq’s declarations to the UN, the al-Fajr facility was a “duplicate” of an EMIS plant in Tarmiya, but uranium-enrichment equipment was never installed. Once the buildings were leveled, the site was no longer inspected.

But there was much more at the site then the UN inspectors ever saw, the Eastern European engineers said. Hidden beneath a nearby hill was an underground structure about 600 meters deep not related to any mineral quarry. Another East European source, LYHUNT/101, commented that it would have taken only minimal effort to level the entry to the shaft and cover it with sand, leaving the deep underground installations hidden, the former CIA operative told Hoekstra.

In April 2004, the Eastern European engineers drove together down from Mosul to Baghdad, and LYHUNT/103 pointed to a series of low hills beyond the road. “That’s where the shaft is,” he said. But upon further questioning, the former agency officer realized that neither LYHUNT/103 or his colleagues had ever seen the actual opening or visited the underground site itself. They had worked on a water purification plant and other engineering works on the surface.

Bit by bit, as Company X debriefed more of the Eastern Europeans who had worked in the area, they got a better idea of where to look for the underground site.

“The debriefings indicated that the underground facilities had been dug by 2,500 Vietnamese laborers during the mid-1980s, who toiled for $4 per month,” the former CIA officer said. “They dug at night to avoid infrared signatures. It was done by drill and blast, without heavy machinery.” To the trained eye, these were all telltale signs of Iraq’s intent to camouflage the work from satellite surveillance.

The former operative informed Hoekstra of information he had learned from another of the East European engineers:

Per LYHUNT/105′s knowledge and his recollection of documentation that had been available to him, the factories at Site 555 were installations for the enrichment of uranium and nuclear chemistry, with one production building having a large internal movable horizontal crane for some kind of assembly, and a single airstrip runway at the bottom of the hill near the cave. The cave represented the entry to a major underground structure, with horizontal elements (tunnels or pathways), but LYHUNT/105 did not know how many tunnels or how deep the structure was. The location of the entry to the underground structure was by the end of the airstrip towards the bottom of the hill.

The man running the site was an Iraqi general, identified in the Company X report as PEAIR/13. According to the Eastern Europeans who had worked with him, he was “not young, but looked younger then he was.” He wore a military uniform “with no indication of rank on it; he was also a senior member of the Baath party who often traveled by helicopter.” Later the Eastern European project manager identified him as “Saddam’s cousin.”

By early June 2004, they were ready to make a foray to the area. Traveling with LYHUNT/101, they drove in through Turkey to Mosul, where they were met by another Company X associate, a number of Iraqi shooters from Baghdad, and a contingent of Kurdish peshmergas. By now, security had become an issue throughout Iraq.

The first surprise when they reached the site was the chemical plant in the valley on the far side of the Jebel Makhoul. It didn’t fit with the description of the facilities they had heard from other engineers who had worked in the area in the 1980s, until they realized it had been built later. After the 2003 war, it had been looted right down to the rebar.

When they reached the hillside overlooking the Tigris, they found what appeared to be a large cistern. “It had some interesting features,” the former CIA officer said. “It was fed by a 24-inch pipe that drew water from five miles up the river.”

They thought the cistern might be camouflaging the entry to the underground site, but they had no excavation equipment to test their hypothesis. It was serviced by a double-paved macadam road – the only paved road in the area – thick enough to accommodate 20-ton trucks. Nearby they found a Soviet-designed power station large enough to provide power to a town of 30,000 people, although there was no town of that size nearby. But uranium enrichment required huge amounts of power, and large supplies of fresh water as coolant, to disguise the plant from heat-sensing satellites. The power station had also been looted.

That was when they saw the spoils from digging. “They weren’t piled, but spread over a very wide area, so satellites wouldn’t pick up signs of excavation,” the former CIA officer said. They later estimated the Vietnamese had hauled up the equivalent of 5,000 truckloads of dirt and ground rock from below the surface. Whatever they had built, it was enormous.

After that unsuccessful attempt to find the entry shaft to the underground site, the former operations officer reported his findings to U.S. military intelligence and to a top ranking officer at CIA. The CIA was “not responsive,” he said. But the military intelligence officer jumped at the information – at first. He sent representatives to debrief one of the former Eastern European engineers, but then let it drop. When asked, he said he had “no command authority” to pursue the investigation.

The former operations officer had a long-established relationship with Lieutenant General William “Jerry” Boykin, a legendary figure in the special operations community who was now deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Boykin also jumped at the information at first, and gave the order to send in a SEAL team specialized in WMD sites to hunt for the hidden access shaft. “Then we got a call from Jacoby” – that would be Admiral Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. “He said, ‘Don’t go to Baghdad, it’s too dangerous.’”

This was the same Jacoby who, other Pentagon sources told me, “was too busy working on his third star” through politicking in Washington to take an active interest in what was going on in Iraq.

Finding the entry shaft to a suspected WMD site hidden in a ten square mile area that was covered with rubble and ruined buildings was no mean feat. It was going to require significant excavation work. But before that, they had to narrow down the area to search, and the DIA made it clear they were not going to help.

Not long after this, a left-wing think tank, the Center for Public Integrity, released an “investigation” alleging that the wife of a top Company X executive involved in tracking down Site 555 had improperly used her position as a deputy assistant secretary of defense to steer Iraq reconstruction contracts his way. “She stayed clear of this,” the former operations officer said, referring to their investigation and other operations in Iraq. “This was just a smear aimed at sabotaging our efforts.”

Returning to Baghdad on his own dime in September 2004, the former operations officer decided to brief U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, whom he had known from Iran-Contra day in Honduras. “His people said we were full of shit,” he told me. “But remember, this was when the ISG was coming out with their final report. They wanted no waves, no loose ends.”

The Iraq Survey Group “inspectors” rarely left their compound near the Baghdad international airport because of the danger of IEDs and insurgent attacks. Their rare sorties mainly involved trips to the airport stockade, where top officials from Saddam’s regime were being held. “The big shots knew about the program, but they didn’t know the details,” the former operations officer said. Details such as the precise grid coordinates of the underground facility beneath Site 555.

The more Hoekstra learned about Site 555, the angrier he got. He had encouraged the former operations officer to return to Iraq several times in 2005, and again in 2006. By now, they had narrowed down the area to search for the hidden entry tunnel, and believed they had located what appeared to be ventilation shafts for the underground production halls. But still the DIA refused to help.

Hoekstra pounded on the table, and sent House intelligence committee staff members repeatedly to DIA headquarters. He wanted them to send in a team with handheld underground anomaly detectors, but the DIA refused. So did General Boykin’s boss, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone.

Finally, Hoekstra went to the White House and met with Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, and suggested that he request a copy of the Company X report from General Boykin’s office at the Pentagon. Boykin eventually sent it over – minus the pictures, site diagrams, and key pages. What you guys are doing is history, one of Boykin’s aides said. We’re not interested in history.

Didn’t anybody get it? If they could locate an underground nuclear weapons site that had eluded the UN investigators and where uranium enrichment work had continued undetected for years, it would provide dramatic proof that Saddam Hussein had never abandoned his WMD programs, as the CIA, the Democrats, and the United Nations claimed.

Sometimes Hoekstra felt he was the only one who cared any longer to learn the truth about Saddam’s weapons programs.

To this day there had never been a concerted effort to follow up on this underground facility. Even to find out if it exists at all. Why not? If it exists it can be added to many other examples of evidence found that indicate Saddam was most assuredly in possession of WMD and had aspirations for the big one, nuclear.

• UN Inspectors found 11 empty chemical warheads in excellent condition prior to the invasion. They were illegal and supposed to be destroyed.
• Marines Reported two missiles tipped with sarin and mustard, and fourteen barrels of chemical agent. I already cited USA Today but…
• a cache of BM-21 missiles loaded with sarin were found and ready to fire.
• Polish troops find 17 shells of sarin and mustard gas
• 500 tons of uranium(enough for 142 bombs) found at an Iraqi nuclear facility. 1.8 tons were enriched, they found centrifuges (for enrichment) at the site, all was illegal.
• two separate attacks with ieds show one was filled with sarin, the other mustard. Both shells were tied to a cache Saddam supposedly destroyed.
• Dozens of soldiers, a CNN cameraman, a Knight Ridder reporter, and two Iraqi pow’s were all treated for exposure to nerve agents after finding a mobile labratory containing several chemical weapons including sarin, tabun and lewisite.
• we learn that 500 sarin and mustard gas shells were discovered in Iraq. They are not new, but very deadly and useful as wmds according to the US Report on the weapons.
• The fourth Infantry found a stockpile of .55 gal drums of cyclosarin…a nerve agent. Nearby were missiles, lab and chemical gear.
• It’s reported the Saddam government contacts Finnish government with regard to anthrax decontamination. Why would they need to know about anthrax decontamination? We certainly weren’t going to be using bioweapons.

also:

What A Obama Presidency Will Do To This Country
(more…)

by Regina Sztajer

While Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama is a charismatic motivational speaker who has called for change, his record leaves the American people with doubts. His foreign policy views and lack of patriotism are most unsettling. History has taught us change can be problematic if leadership craves personal power and glory above the welfare of the nation. Obama’s patriotism seems insincere when he refuses to wear a lapel pin of the American flag, is observed with his back turned to the American flag and not putting his hand over his heart when the pledge of allegiance is said or the national anthem is played. But he does not find fault with the flag of Cuba, Che Guevara, a communist hero, superimposed on it, hanging in his new office in Houston, Texas.

Obama’s wife Michelle also expressed a seemingly unpatriotic statement when she commented, “That, for the first time in her life, she feels proud to be an American.” (newsmax.com 2/21/08, Ronald Kessler.) She doubts her pride in an America that gave her the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School, her husband Harvard and Harvard Law School and for him to become a U.S. Senator making over $1 million a year from book royalties.

Her statement aligned itself with the hate America views of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, spiritual leader of Chicago’s Trinity United Church, of which the Obama’s have been members and long time friends. Wright has suggested the 9/11/01 attack was retribution for America’s racism!!!!! In his church magazine Trumpet he wrote, ” In the 21st century, white America got a wake up call after 9/11/01. While America and the Western World came to realize that people of color have not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” (www.newsmax.com.)

Wright is a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who he honored with a lifetime achievement award in December 2007, saying he “truly epitomized greatness.”(www.newsmax.com.) Wright praises a man who has made hate-filled statements that targets Jews, America, whites, and homosexuals. (www.newsmax.com)

Not surprisingly Barack Obama has recently distanced himself from Wright but not his church!!!! He replaced Wright with two high profile white ministers that do not preach racial superiority as Wright but seem to share his anti-Israel bias. Wright’s church is the highest recipient of the Obama’s charitable donations!!!! Wright’s anti-Israel rants have been chronicled, for example, ” The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up and to wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism. (www.americanthinker.com 1/16/08, Ed Lasky.)

Tucker Carlson of MSNBC called Wright a hater and wondered what ties bind Obama to Wright. These ties demand scrutiny!!!! Wright is a bigot which contrast’s Obama’s soothing melody of unity on the campaign trail. (more…)

Crossposted from Conservative Thoughts.

Daily Mail – Jails were declared absolutely full last night for the first time in history. Even court and police cells were packed as the number of prisoners rose to 82,068 – almost 100 above the official safety limit. The crisis is expected to trigger the early release of thousands of muggers, burglars and other convicts. In a desperate attempt to buy time, Jack Straw begged magistrates to imprison fewer offenders. But magistrates refused point-blank to help him out of the shambles – saying they would continue to hand down whatever sentence they saw fit. The Magistrates’ Association said it did not react kindly to being placed under “pressure” by ministers.

Daily Mail – A judge listening to graphic details of an immigration centre riot yesterday warned that Britain had lost control of its borders “for the first time since 1066″. Christopher Elwen gave the dramatic assessment after four foreign nationals were cleared of masterminding the “rampage” at Harmondsworth removal centre. Two of the men were jailed for the millions of pounds worth of damage caused during the huge disturbance, which left large parts of the 555-bed West London centre wrecked.

10 short years folks, 10 short years of leftist rule, now they have no guns, no protection, no justice, more taxes, the economy much worse than Americas’, the criminals let out early and their borders are a shambles. Earlier I read that the UK is going to strengthen its citizenship rules, a sort of reinforcing the barn door after the horses, donkeys and all the farm animals had bolted about a year ago. Apparently this is going to affect us Aussies who wanted to move to Britain, something about ancestry ties, I couldn’t help but think, who would want to go and live there now. Just 10 short years of leftist rule, that’s all it takes folks, just 10 short years.

ICE Agents Alerted to Presence of Illegal Aliens at CASA of Maryland Rally

The Maryland Minuteman CDC has requested that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigate a rally in Annapolis on Monday, February 25, 7-8pm, organized by CASA of Maryland which is intended to influence pending state legislation.

The purpose of the rally, according to CASA’s press release, is to convince Maryland State Legislators to offer in-state tuition, driver’s licenses, and citizenship for immigrants. No mention is made of legal status.

Minuteman officials are concerned about the increasing influence of illegal aliens on government legislators who are pledged to serve the citizens of Maryland , not citizens of foreign countries.

Minuteman officials suspect that a large number of participants bused in by CASA will be illegal aliens since studies have shown that the majority of workers at day labor centers like those run by CASA are here illegally and since CASA openly admits that they serve all immigrants without regard to immigration status. CASA clients also agree to participate in activities such as demonstrations in exchange for legal services.

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