Without Reading, Congressional Democrats Ram Through Porkfest

There's no other way you can describe this mess. The Democrats own this porkfest that will cost trillions of dollars going forward, not the $789 billion price tag that Democrats and the media are spinning. These are commitments to spend that amount and don't include the interest and inflationary pressures that this massive porkfest will bring.

It undermines market determinations of salary, which is a populist move by Congress and one that many Democrats think didn't go far enough in limiting executive compensation (Rep. Barney Frank D-economic illiterate, I'm talking to you). It is a socialist move to limit compensation and one where the government dictates how much you can make.

For all the talk about how this mess provides tax relief to millions of taxpayers, the sad truth is that states and localities have already spoken for the $400-$800 and more through tax hikes. In New York and New Jersey, reductions or eliminations of property tax relief mean that taxpayers are going to see government demand hundreds or thousands more than the pittance Obama provides. It is a shell game.

Things were close in the Senate where the White House had to fly in Sen. Sherrod Brown from his mother's wake to cast the deciding vote.

The Senate finally adopted the bill at 10:47 p.m. after what appeared to be the longest Congressional vote in history. The peculiar 5-hour 17-minute process was required because Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, had to return to Washington from his home state after attending a funeral home visitation for his mother, who died Feb. 2.

Under a procedural deal between the parties, the bill needed 60 votes to pass. The vote began at 5:30 p.m., but from 7:07 p.m., when Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, cast his “aye,” the tally hung at 59 to 38, until Mr. Brown arrived.

Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill on Monday.

Among the senators voting against it was Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who withdrew this week as the president’s nominee for commerce secretary.

Despite the bill’s promise of increased unemployment benefits and new health care subsidies, as well as more than $100 billion in aid for states, House Republicans did not break rank. Even those from states hit hardest by the recession opposed the bill, in a rebuke of the new president.

During the debate, the Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, angrily dropped the 1,073-page bill text to the floor with a thump, as he accused Democrats of failing to read the legislation.

It is curious though that the New York Times admits that the tax cuts are fast acting, while the overwhelming majority of the bill is going to take far longer to have an effect on the economy:

The $787 billion plan — a combination of fast-acting tax cuts and longer-term government spending on public works projects, education, health care, energy and technology — was smaller than Democrats first proposed.

The reason this bill ended up smaller was because the Democrats cut more from the tax relief than they did from the pork portion of the bill.

That's right folks, the one area that the Times admits would cause immediate benefit was cut by the Democrats to get the price of this mess down. The Democrats are economic illiterates and even the Times is forced to notice.

And no one who voted on this mess actually read it. They voted like lemmings to show that they are doing something about the recession (which has happened before and will happen again as a natural cycle of economic growth and contraction) but have gone on to produce the most expensive piece of legislation in world history - outspending even the Manhattan Project and the New Deal. The 111th Congress shall live in infamy, not that they care since all of their pork dreams have been realized, including Harry Reid's billions for a high speed rail project between California and Las Vegas.

Of course, the media will call this a major victory for Obama, even though claims of bipartisanship went out the window and has provided the GOP with the means to reclaim seats in 2010 because of the fiscally irresponsible pork-laced "stimulus". Obama too shall live in infamy for his economic disaster foisted upon the nation.

UAV Strike Killed 25+ In South Waziristan

Once again, an American UAV has struck at al Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan's troublesome frontier provinces. The latest attack hit a compound in the town of Malik Khel within South Waziristan, which is Taliban territory. There are conflicting reports as to the number of terrorists and Taliban killed, ranging from 25 up to 32. All of those involved appear to be foreign fighters. Bill Roggio reports that many were Uzbek mujahideen, and this particular area is controlled by Baitullah Mehsud.

Today's strike is the fifth attack this year and the first since Jan. 23, when US Predators conducted attacks in North and South Waziristan. The Jan. 23 attacks took place just two days after President Barack Obama took office.

The airstrike in South Waziristan is also the first since Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disclosed that the CIA was operating a covert air base that is used to conduct the attacks inside of Pakistan. "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," Feinstein said after brushing off criticism and protests over the attacks.

Senator Feinstein's spokesman later claimed she was referring to a February 2008 report in the Washington Post. In September 2006, the Asia Times reported the US was operating a secret base in Tarbella, a region 12 miles outside of Islamabad.

Pakistan's defense minister rejected Feinstein's claim on Feb. 13. “We do have the facilities from where they can fly, but they are not being flown from Pakistani territory," Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said. "They are being flown from Afghanistan... I do not know on what she based all this.”

Senior officials in Pakistan's government and military, including the president, the prime minister, and the Army chief of staff, have repeatedly protested US airstrikes inside the tribal areas as violations of the country's sovereignty. The disclosure of the base puts the Pakistani officials in a difficult situation with the citizens of Pakistan.

Pakistani officials are in serious trouble with all this. On the one hand, they can't provide tacit and open approval for the airstrikes against targets inside Pakistan without provoking the sizable Islamist population to rise up against the government in Islamabad. On the other, they are continuing to struggle to control these frontier provinces and stem the tide of terrorism that spreads from those areas and the airstrikes are taking out terrorists associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban who support them.

The New York Times claims the following:

Some Pakistani security officials have complained that the American missile attacks have been aimed solely at Al Qaeda and Taliban who cross the border into Afghanistan to fight American and NATO soldiers.

The officials have said that if the Americans were going to attack targets in the tribal areas, where Al Qaeda, with the support of the Taliban, have built safe havens, the Taliban that operate against Pakistan should also be targeted. Mr. Mehsud is considered responsible for many of the more than 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan last year.

I'm not quite sure who that official could be, but they're in the minority or at least recognizes the threats posed by the Islamists. Further, the US is engaging in striking at only those al Qaeda and Taliban who pose a threat to the US; they're not overtly expanding it to all Taliban who pose a threat to Islamabad, which could coincidentally destabilize the Zardari government in Islamabad because public sentiment in Pakistan opposes these airstrikes.

The problem for Zardari's government is that they're incapable of controlling these areas on their own. The frontier provinces are autonomous and the Taliban control wide areas of the country, including into Swat. That's a sign that the Pakistani government has lost control over the situation and destabilizing acts could precipitate an even worse crisis in the region.

Parisian Romance

Because nothing says I love you as much as arranging skulls in the famed Parisian Catacombs in the form of a heart. Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Mugabe Already Moving Against Opposition Day After Government Sworn In

It didn't take long for the thug Robert Mugabe to begin going after the political opposition. A day after taking office under a power sharing agreement, the number three person in the opposition party, Roy Bennett, was arrested by security forces and held under suspicion of plotting against Mugabe.

Authorities picked up Mr. Bennett, the treasurer general of the Movement for Democratic Change and the nominee to become deputy agriculture minister, at a small airport in Harare, likely in connection with accusations dating back years that linked him to a plot to destabilize Mr. Mugabe’s government — accusations he has denied.

Mr. Bennett was about to board a charter flight to Johannesburg, where he has lived in exile in recent years, for a celebration of his 52nd birthday on Monday, his wife Heather said in a telephone interview. He had planned to fly back to Harare to be sworn in on Wednesday along with the other deputy ministers appointed by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change.

“I spoke to him just an hour ago,” Mrs. Bennett said Friday afternoon. “Obviously, he’s been worried the whole time he’s been in Zimbabwe, but Morgan had said to him it would be fine to fly out.”

Mugabe was never going to give up power willingly and the opposition led by Tsvangirai had no choice but to deal with Mugabe and allow him to hold on to power. That means that the MDC will continue to be harassed by Mugabe's thugs. Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean people continue to suffer the ill-effects of Mugabe's social and economic policies that have brought the nation to ruin.

This Is Why Housing Will Remain Unaffordable In NYC

The City will buy unsold condos and coops to be resold as affordable housing.

The city is starting a program to buy vacant apartments to bolster its affordable-housing stock, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced in her annual State of the City speech yesterday.

The plan, which Mayor Bloomberg supports, would empower the city to buy unsold condos and co-ops and ensure they are resold as affordable units.

"Where developers have units they cannot sell, the city will negotiate the lowest possible price and make these homes affordable for middle-class families to rent or buy," Quinn said at City Council chambers.

Details will be rolled out in the coming months, according to Quinn and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Lieber.

Quinn vowed that the city would not end up being a landlord for homes in foreclosure, as it did in the 1970s.

Yes, you read that right. This goes against supply and demand - basic economics.

Allowing those units to remain on the market pushes the prices units down, making them more affordable. By purchasing these units and holding on to them, it provides a price support that distorts the market and ensures that prices remain higher than they should be had the market been allowed to adjust to the current economic conditions.

Affordable housing is not affordable when the government steps in and takes actions like this because it makes homeownership more expensive for everyone else. There are better ways to make sure that units get sold at affordable prices, and they all involve the private sector being allowed to build more units without price controls - rent stabilization or other government interference which has hampered the construction of residential real estate in the City for years.

The longer that units remain on the market, the more pressure there is on developers to lower the prices - and we already see that the price pressures are resulting in lower prices for units across the market (high end on down).

It also ignores the costs to the City to buy and hold on to these units; costs that the City can ill afford when it is cash strapped as it is.

This is a bad idea all the way around.

Nanny State Paterson Fails In Soda Tax

New York State Governor David Paterson has failed to get sufficient support for his nanny state sugared carbonated beverage tax.

New York Gov. David Paterson admitted Thursday one of his most talked-about tax proposals, an obesity tax on sugary drinks, is fizzling.

But he said it popped the right question.

In meeting with college students over his budget, Paterson told the young New Yorkers not worry about his soda tax because the Legislature won't go for it. But he said it has served its purpose of raising awareness of childhood obesity.

His proposal would put an 18-percent tax on soda and other sugary drinks containing less than 70 percent fruit juice. His analysis showed it would raise a projected $1 billion in revenue over two years and reduce use of sugary drinks by 5 percent.

The fat tax was the subject of articles, editorials, polls, talk radio and TV commentaries.

The plan had been supported by New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

(HT: Kyle Carpenter)

Yet, he thinks that he got the point across to the public?

Really? People see it for what it is: a tax grab using health as a convenient excuse.

If people are truly concerned about obesity and their health, there's a simple solution that doesn't cost a damned thing - and may actually save you money in the short and long term.

Portion control.

It works. And it doesn't cost you a thing (unless you're on Weight Watchers or other programs that are essentially doing the portion control for you). If you limit your portion size over time, you will lose weight.

The Runaway Pork Train Continues

The Democrats continue demanding that this massive load of pork, redistribution of wealth and a not so stealthy overhaul of medical care be passed immediately. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is looking to get this massive pork offal passed as quickly as possible so that she can jet off to Rome, Italy. What's more important? Pelosi's travel plans or close study of the largest spending plan in the history of the nation? Pelosi's travel plans of course.

This is a 1,000+ page monstrosity and I doubt any member of Congress has actually read all of it. Many members in the House may never get the chance to read this mess before they are asked to vote on it because Pelosi has gone back on her pledge to get them a clean copy of the bill on which they are to vote.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) notes that many wont get a chance to read the bill. Even if they're provided copies, I doubt many have read all of the summations of this bill given that they are so substantial in and of themselves let alone the budget projections that show what a mess this bill makes of the economy going forward and the true cost to the nation. It isn't merely the $789 billion right now, but the $2.3 trillion or more that future generations of Americans will be paying off (if at all).

It's hysterical to hear about how the Obama Administration blames President Bush for leaving him with a trillion dollar deficit, and yet Obama is about to triple it in one fell swoop with this stimulus package, even as the Democrats ponder a follow on stimulus package that would be nearly as costly. The CBO doesn't take kindly to any of this either, and has a handy dandy graphic to highlight what this does to 2009 alone. How is any of this fiscally responsible.

It isn't.

That's why so many people are starting to balk at the package. Sen. Harry Reid doesn't know if he's got the 60 votes needed to close debate and bring the measure to a floor vote. Now that Sen. Judd Gregg is back in consideration after bailing on the Commerce Secretary nomination over the porkfest and census data grab by the White House, the numbers are even tighter.

UPDATE:
Will the stimulus stimulate the economy? Nope.

The compromise economic stimulus plan agreed to by negotiators from the House of Representatives and the Senate is short on incentives to get consumers spending again and long on social goals that won't stimulate economic activity, according to a range of respected economists.

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy. He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending.

"It's unfocused. That is my problem. It is a lot of money for a lot of nickel-and- dime programs. I would have rather had a lot of money for (promoting purchase of) housing and autos . . . . Most of this plan is really, I think, aimed at stabilizing the situation and helping people get through the recession, rather than getting us out of the recession. They are actually providing less short-term stimulus by cutting back, from what I understand, some of the tax credits."

It's also curious to watch Democrats cheer the tax cuts that might provide $500-600 to many Americans when they pooh-poohed the same when President Bush offered additional rebates in that amount last year. In fact, Michelle Obama lambasted the Bush tax break, claiming that the $600 would buy only a pair of earrings. The Anchoress has more, but what is also important is that the federal government is going to provide tax breaks at a time when the states are looking to raise taxes to cover their costs.

Consider that New York City has already stated that they're not going to give the expected property tax rebates. That's roughly $400 per homeowner. In New Jersey, Gov. Corzine has contemplated something similar, and the property tax relief in New Jersey would have exceeded the amount provided by the Obama tax cut. In other words, taxpayers in many parts of the country will never see the benefit of the tax cuts because localities are busy raising taxes or cutting rebates that siphon off still more taxpayer dollars. It's a shell game, and no one can keep track of where all the money is going.

UPDATE:
The House has voted to pass this porkfest 246-183. All GOPers and seven Democrats voted against (one Democrat voted "Present"). It was bipartisan opposition to this mess.

You Don't Say: Pelosi Worried About Murtha Corruption Probe

You could have fooled me that the House Democrats were worried about corruption and the appearance of impropriety. After all, they have been extremely busy defending Rep. Charles Rangel from a GOP effort to strip him of his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee as an ethics panel investigates his tax evasion and ethics violations.

They have been busy ignoring Rep. William Jefferson's freezer stuffed with cold cash that is now the subject of a federal bribery and corruption investigation.

And now, they're worried about the reprehensible Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania who was reelected to his seat despite showing utter disdain to his own constituents and the residents of rural Pennsylvania and the ongoing concerns about his ties to lobbyist groups and improprieties.

It turns out that there was good reason to be concerned about this former unindicted coconspirator of the ABSCAM case. The FBI is busy looking through the records of close associates.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are “concerned” by a widening criminal probe that may involve Rep. John P. Murtha, but sources close to the leadership say there’s no move afoot to force him out as chairman of the powerful Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee.

“We are watching to see what happens,” said a senior House Democratic aide. “At this point, there is nothing for us to do. There is not a clear indication yet that Mr. Murtha has done anything wrong or that the Justice Department is targeting him in any way, so there is no reason to take any action.”

The new worries about Murtha come in the wake of news of a November raid of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm with close ties to the veteran Pennsylvania Democrat.

PMA was founded in 1989 by former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti and was ranked the 10th biggest lobbying firm in Washington as recently as last year. But a source close to the firm said it has “disintegrated” over the past few days, with Magliocchetti heading off to potential retirement in Florida and other top lobbyists there busy starting up their own new company.

Several sources told Politico on Wednesday that Magliocchetti has hired a criminal defense attorney to represent him in the probe, but attempts to reach Magliocchetti for comment were unsuccessful.

Note too that they're not so concerned that they would strip him of his chairmanship either.

This is getting to be a regular pattern with the Democrats since Pelosi took over. She regularly looks the other way as her caucus engages in corrupt and unethical practices, and continues to appoint these individuals to high ranking posts.

Court Ruling Finds Vaccines Not to Blame For Autism

Science and facts trump fear and hysteria. Via the Associated Press:

In a big blow to parents who believe vaccines caused their children's autism, a special court ruled Thursday that the shots are not to blame.

The judges in the cases said the evidence was overwhelmingly contrary to the parents' claims — and backed years of science that found no risk.

"It was abundantly clear that petitioners' theories of causation were speculative and unpersuasive," the court concluded in one of a trio of cases ruled on Thursday.
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The ruling was anxiously awaited by health authorities and families who began presenting evidence in June 2007. More than 5,500 claims have been filed by families seeking compensation through the government's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The claims are reviewed by special masters serving on the U.S. Court of Claims.

The plaintiffs had to prove that it was more likely than not that the autism symptoms in the children were directly related to a combination of the measles-mumps-rubella shots and other shots that at the time carried a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal.

They could not.

This comes on the heels of exposing Andrew Wakefield as a fraud. It was his bogus study claiming a link between vaccines and autism that started us on this destructive path, which has caused untold injuries and costs as a result of people choosing not to seek vaccinations for easily and wholly preventable communicable diseases. He fudged the data and created causality where none existed by claiming that children in his exceedingly small study suffered ill-effects following vaccination when several of the children were already exhibiting developmental disabilities prior to vaccination.

Meanwhile, we continue learning that autism has both genetic and non-genetic causes and that the increased awareness and evolving definitions autism is responsible for the increased rate of diagnosis. There is no one single genetic marker for autism, which makes figuring out treatments and possible cures all the more difficult.

Also, Kaiser Permanente has been sued in a class action by parents of autistic children to demand treatment.

The suit says that Kaiser Permanente’s Kaiser Foundation Health Plan pays for speech, occupational and physical therapy, but not when the individual is diagnosed with autism. The plaintiffs, who are the parents of children with autism, say the insurer told them that their children’s needs are educational and should be handled by their school districts.

Economy Rebounding Without Stimulus Package In Place?

New employment and retail sales figures suggest that the worst may have passed and that the economy is starting to work its way out of the recession without any government action - and that includes the $790 billion porkfest (1,434 pages in total!)

That's right.

Retail sales were up in January and unemployment claims dropped in January, both defying expectations.

Of course, none of this matters to the Obama Administration and Democrats, who are pushing for still more packages that will redistribute still more wealth beyond the very troubling porkfest "stimulus" package. Never mind that the stimulus package - the most expensive piece of legislation ever considered by Congress - may be instituted after the worst of the recession is over, but we'll be paying for the costs of those programs for generations to come.

It's also not stopping the Democrats from pushing still more profligate spending. Their latest plan calls for buying up distressed mortgages and reselling them to the borrowers who were unable to pay them.

Under the proposal, the government would draw on $50 billion in funds already approved for the financial bailout to buy up millions of mortgages at a discount. A $300,000 mortgage on a house now worth $200,000, for example, might be bought at a 30 percent discount.

The homeowner then would be able to refinance the smaller mortgage with lower monthly payments. The government could then sell the loan back to investors, freeing money to buy more loans.

The new approach could eliminate one of the biggest roadblocks that has stymied the government efforts to buy up so-called “toxic assets” that are clogging the financial system. Trading in these securities — backed by thousands of loans — has all but shut down because banks, investors and potential buyers are unable to predict their future value. But individual loans are much easier to value, making government purchases more practical, according to the plan’s proponents.

We've been down this road before, and 60% of those borrowers who had their terms renegotiated under the last homeowner bailout found themselves right back in the same situation just months later.

Lower home values make the properties more attractive and affordable to qualified buyers. That's the key term - qualified buyers. Far too many homeowners are not qualified buyers because they simply do not have the income to support such loans and borrowing. That's how we got into this mess in the first place. In the desire to chase after higher homeownership, lending standards were relaxed and lawsuits pressuring lenders to provide terms to those who didn't have qualifications to borrow forced banks to make bad judgments. Throw in some predatory lending for those folks who didn't understand what they were getting themselves into, and it was a recipe for disaster the moment the housing market bubble burst and prices starting dropping.

Still, the amount of pork in the stimulus package is astounding, but so is the blatant spending by none other than Harry Reid, who got billions inserted into the package to pay for a high speed rail connection between Las Vegas and California. Reid is the US Senator from Nevada. Never mind that he continues to block the opening of the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, which would enable nuclear power plants to safely store nuclear waste in a secure facility and provide a jump start to the nuclear industry to build a new generation of power plants that do not require fossil fuels and the emissions that go along with them. He's all about the pork and what he can bring home to his constituents, little of which will actually result in spending during the current fiscal year when it is most needed.

Has anyone in Congress actually read this monstrosity, let alone knows what it contains? The summaries of bills this size can be books unto themselves, and yet Congress is going to probably vote within hours.

This is government spending to grow government at the expense of the private sector. So much for doing things right and being responsible with my money.

It pays to be irresponsible.

Perks of Power

The New York Times has a nice report about how the NYS State Senate Republicans larded up the pork for their friends and cohorts, reveling in their position.

Democrats took control of the State Senate last month after more than four decades of Republican rule, then set out to determine how the Senate’s own budget of nearly $100 million and its attendant perks were being distributed.

They are still trying to figure it out.

They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate’s own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up — all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.

Democrats also came across what they are calling the “Brunomobile,” a $50,000 specially outfitted GMC van, with six leather captain’s chairs (some swiveling), a navigation system, rearview camera and meeting table. Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader who was recently indicted on corruption charges, traveled in the van after his use of state helicopters sparked a feud with the Spitzer administration.

Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol. Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30 Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more than 800.

And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in quasi-political research for the Republicans.

It's true.

They did spend quite a bit on pork and the perks of being the party in power for decades. That's taxpayer dollars wasted on pork barrel projects and programs designed to maintain the political status quo.

Here's my problem.

Why didn't the New York Times do anything to uncover any of this use and abuse of our taxpayer dollars before the Senate changed hands from the GOP to Democrat control this year? These are longstanding issues - some going back decades, and yet only now the Times is getting its story?

One has to wonder what the Times could uncover if it bothered to check out what the Assembly Democrats have concocted for decades, given that they have held on to that chamber for as long as the Senate Republicans held on to that chamber.

Albany is an equal opportunity porkfest and given how until this year the legislature was split between Democrat Assembly and Republican Senate, both legislative leaders (Speaker Shelly Silver and until last year Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno) were signing off on the spending for both chambers and the larded up porkfest that are called member items.

The press covering Albany has been lackluster in showing just how the state spends our money and wastes our money on such perks of power.

Weird Story of the Day

A pedestrian was struck and killed by a car in Queens. That's not the weird part. The weird part is that another car then struck the body and dragged it for more than an hour and 17 miles before someone finally noticed and got the van to stop.

The corpse's gruesome journey began when the man was hit while trying to cross 108th St. in Corona and did not end until the van driver finally noticed the body in Brighton Beach, police said.

Thinking he smelled something burning, the cargo van's driver pulled over once along the way, but did not discover the body until other motorists flagged him down on Brighton 10th Terrace an hour later, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

"People were signaling him to stop the vehicle," Kelly said. "That's when the body is discovered under his car."

Investigators believe the dead man - whose body was too mangled to immediately identify - was trying to cross 108th St. near 51st Ave., when an SUV driver ran him down just after 6 a.m.

A maroon Chevy van was a few cars behind the SUV and its driver later told detectives he noticed that other vehicles were swerving to avoid something in the road, police sources said.

The van's driver, identified by sources as Manual Gaspar Latuna Sanchez of Corona, thought they were trying to avoid a pothole and kept driving straight ahead - inadvertently picking up the body.

Investigators believe the body got stuck in the van's chassis, so when the driver of the SUV pulled over to call 911 that he hit someone, the victim had already vanished.

Oblivious to the body underneath his van, Sanchez got on the Grand Central Parkway a few blocks away and then drove south on the Van Wyck Expressway and west on the Belt Parkway before exiting in Brighton Beach.

Unbelievable. No charges are expected against either the driver that originally struck the pedestrian or the driver of the van that took the body on the 17 mile joyride stuck to its chassis.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Ruthless Dictators

It isn't surprising that Robert Mugabe decided to throw himself quite the birthday bash. This dictator has run Zimbabwe into the ground all while he and his wife continue the globe trotting (and trotting over the faces of photographers) and spending extravagantly on their own needs.

For his birthday, he's demanding the following:

The list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or ’61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of prawns; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates; 3,000 ducks; and much else besides. A postscript adds: “No mealie meal” — the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country’s collapse rendered even that a luxury.

Those who prefer to give in cash, not kind, are invited to send “donations” of between $45,000 and $55,000 to a US dollar bank account in the name of the 21st February Movement, a youth organisation controlled by Zanu (PF) and named after the date of the President’s birthday.

His nation is the poster children for lifestyles of the poor and wretched.

Of course, this is the same for dictators the world over, but few have a domestic situation as dire as Zimbabwe, with 231 million percent inflation, unemployment rates that are probably above 90% and starvation and disease rampant.

PSE&G Launches Solar Power Campaign

It will require requesting and receiving authorization from New Jersey to add surcharges to bills, but PSE&G is moving forward with a plan to install solar power collectors on its utility poles and other properties around the state.

The proposal, filed today with the Board of Public Utilities, calls for the installation of solar panels on 200,000 utility poles – the largest such project in the nation – as well as on schools, municipal buildings, low-income housing and brownfield sites.

The panels would produce electricity that would be fed into the utility’s power grid.

The proposal calls for a five-year rollout, Ralph LaRossa, PSE&G’s president and chief operating officer, said by phone.

Customers would pay only a small part of the cost — an average of 10 cents a month during the first year. That will increase to 35 cents a month by the fifth year, but will drop after that, the company said.

The company would recoup most of its costs through a combination of sources, including the sale of energy, adjustments from the regional power grid, a federal investment tax credit and the sale of energy credits, LaRossa said.

So, the average customer would see their annual bill rise between $1.20 and $4.20 by the fifth year to install the solar power arrays around the state.

The plan breaks down as follows: Neighborhood Solar (40 megawatts) - $264 million investment; Local Government Solar (43 megawatts) - $273 million investment; Centralized Solar (35 megawatts) – $221 million investment; and HMFA/Affordable Housing Solar (2 megawatts) - $15 million investment.

When fully implemented, the arrays would produce 120mw of power, or 1% of the state's peak needs. It would also satisfy only 7% of the state's renewable energy requirements by 2020.

I'd say it's a good start, but it also highlights that the private sector is moving forward on alternative energy even without government interference or supposed stimulus from the government. Now imagine if $13.2 billion could put arrays on utility polls around the entire nation, adding 2,000mw to the grid (based on the neighborhood solar portion of the PSE&G allotments, multiplied out by 50 states).

That's far more concrete than any of the plans put forth by Congress, and PSE&G did so without a stimulus check.

Still, this is a stopgap because the only way to truly wean the nation off petroleum based fuels is to go nuclear, and the state and federal government continues to stand in the way of development in that area.

Israel Voted and the Losers Are Known

That's a graphic put together by the Jersualem Post.
Labor lost out in a big way. The winners are far less certain. Kadima appears to have won 28 seats while Likud won 27 seats. Kadima is a center right party, while Likud is a right wing party. Those figures could still change as voting tallies are confirmed, but I expect this to be the final breakdown.

The far right wing Israel Beiteinu won what appears to be 15 seats. The religious party Shas won 11 seats. Labor won 13 seats. If anything, Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu party siphoned off just enough votes to keep Likud from having the plurality to overtake Kadima.

It takes 60 seats to form a government.

The media is trying to portray this as some kind of inconclusive election, but that shows a stunning lack of knowledge about the Israeli political system.

Inconclusive election results sent Israel into political limbo Wednesday with both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hard-line leader Benjamin Netanyahu claiming victory and leaving the kingmaker role to a rising political hawk with an anti-Arab platform.

Livni's Kadima Party won 28 seats, just one more than Netanyahu's Likud, in Tuesday's election for the 120-member parliament, according to nearly complete results. Both held victory rallies, but without a clear majority neither can govern alone. Hard-line parties won a majority of the votes, meaning that Netanyahu has more natural allies and a better chance of forming a coalition.

The results set the stage for what could be weeks of coalition negotiations. The first meetings began Wednesday, with Netanyahu meeting the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas faction and Livni meeting Avigdor Lieberman, whose ultranationalist party received 15 seats and emerged as the third-largest force in parliament.

This is absolutely clueless drivel from the AP.

Israel always has coalition governments and they require weeks of negotiations to form the government. In fact, as each government functions, parties that make up the coalition routinely threaten to leave the coalition in order to demand and receive additional perks, concessions, from the primary party in charge.

None of this is new. A history lesson would show that Israel has required coalition governments to function since its inception in 1948. Israel's President will choose a Member of the Knesset to form the government, and deadlines are provided by statute.

What is new is that this election marked a repudiation of Labor altogether, but it showed that Kadima is still preferred despite the corruption surrounding outgoing Prime Minister Olmert and the failures of the Olmert government, including Foreign Minister Livni, to deal with the terror threat from Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

The qualms over Livni and Kadima appear to be least felt in the one area of Israel where the rockets and land for peace is least likely to be felt - Tel Aviv. That's where Kadima won the election. Likud won in Jerusalem and had strong showings elsewhere in the country, including in and around Israel's borders with Gaza.

UPDATE:
Carl in Jerusalem has speculation on who Bibi might choose to fill out his government. That's assuming that Israel's President Shimon Peres (formerly of Labor) chooses Netanyahu over Kadima's Livni. The US would likely put pressure on Peres to choose Livni over the right wing Netanyahu, but the ultimate decision rests with Peres, who's seen his dreams of peace shattered by the incessant war launched by the terrorists in the face of every Israeli concession, including the Gaza unilateral withdrawal. Israel's Knesset is made up of more right-leaning parties than left (via Israellycool), and they're recommending Netanyahu get first crack at forming the government.

If Bibi gets first dibs, Kadima has also lost out, although it may still end up as part of the coalition government. Any party trying to cobble together a coalition government must arrive at the magic number of 60 to govern. Let the games begin.

Rangel Survives Another Attempt To Remove His Chairmanship

Democrats continue to protect the detestable Rep. Charles Rangel and maintain his position as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, despite numerous ethics investigations and his ongoing tax problems.

Never mind that Rangel is responsible for the operation of the Committee which sets tax policy.

Rep. John Carter, a Republican sought to have Rangel removed as Chairman. The House voted 242-157 to defeat Carter's resolution. Carter had also introduced legislation that would establish the Rangel rule - providing all taxpayers with the same benefits afforded Rangel by the IRS.

Democrats continue to insist that they don't stand for corruption and are highly ethical, but their actions show otherwise. They show a complete and utter disdain for all Americans by standing behind tax cheats. They show that there are two Americas - the one that the rest of us have to pay our taxes, and the other in which high profile Democrats don't have to.

In fact, Rangel was selected to be on the Conference Committee to take part in the negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the porkfest.

Once again Democrats show that they have no interest in weeding out the corrupt and unethical from their numbers. They're only interested in expanding their power.

Porkfest Heads To Conference Committee as Markets Tank; UPDATE: Done Deal

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the stock markets tanked after President Obama's speech gave little hope that the porkfest passing its way through Congress will work and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's press conference yesterday only solidified the fact that the Obama Administration doesn't have a clue what to do and that they're simply using the shotgun approach to "save" the economy. It shouldn't surprise anyone that stocks around the world also dropped after hearing about the Obama and Geithner plans and defenses of massive government spending.

They are continuing to use fear and intimidation to get passage of a stimulus package that economists believe will do little, if anything, to stimulate the economy during the current fiscal year, but which will saddle generations of Americans to come with huge debt.

Geithner's latest TARP proposals didn't win any converts either, as the markets reacted negatively.


As for the porkfest, it now heads to conference committee and good way to keep track of what the key differences are between the House and Senate versions. My expectation is that the solution to the differences will not be to take the item that costs lower, but to include the higher amounts. This bloated grabtastic porkfest will cost future generations billions in carrying costs that they can ill afford, and no one expects this porkfest to actually stimulate anything other than an increase in government spending and size.

Obama deserves quite a bit of the blame for this mess, as he didn't demand a structured and coherent bill from Congress. Instead, Congressional Democrats rammed through a highly partisan and incoherent wish list of pet projects and program spending that is wholly unrelated to actually stimulating anything other than government growth and power at the expense of the private sector and individual liberties.

President Obama's communication skills need a vast improvement if he was attempting to sell this pork to the public. The markets started tanking yesterday even before Geithner spoke, which relates to how the markets responded to Obama's speech the night before. Geithner's plan was skewered by the experts on Wall Street, who found it to be incoherent despite the fact that all the players involved know what the issues are and have been confronting them for weeks. Geithner's solution is to throw still more money at the problem and hope it works. Some reports suggest that the Geithner plan may run as high as $3 trillion.

That's the whole solution proffered by the Democrats - throw money at the problem and demand that the government solve things, when all it does is stifle the private sector and the private sector responds by cutting investment and spending as it entrenches to ride out the storm.

Some see this latest plan as nothing less than the nationalization of banks and shareholders don't want to be left holding a worthless bag, so they were dumping stock left and right yesterday. There's a reason that banks have tightened lending standards - they don't want to repeat the same mistakes made that got everyone into this mess in the first place - lax lending standards pushed onto the industry by Congress who wanted affordable housing and easy credit for everyone, including those who were not credit worthy.

The new Treasury plan continues to put most of the emphasis on pushing banks to make more loans to over-indebted consumers, homeowners and firms. Unlike last year, however, Geithner now believes, "Our policies must be designed to mobilize and leverage private capital, not to supplant or discourage private capital. When government investment is necessary, it should be replaced with private capital as soon as possible."

That's a laudable goal - but contradictory. In reality, government capital replaces ("crowds out") private capital, leaving taxpayers holding a bigger and bigger bag. Call that nationalization by default.

Under the new and old TARP schemes, the mere threat of incremental nationalization of banks and insurance companies will always "supplant and discourage private capital." You could watch it happening while Geithner spoke - as investors rudely pushed bank stocks down sharply. (An "ultra short" exchange-trade fund that bets heavily against financial stocks (SKF) was up 15 percent by the end of his talk and 18 percent at closing.)

Now, these same banks that were burnt by the toxic paper crisis are looking to avoid the situation, but Geithner's plan wants the banks to open the spigots once again on lending. It wants to support and expand the very kinds of lending that led us to this very costly solution to solve the affordable housing issue.

Obama's solution is to assure that affordable housing and easy credit remains available. People who sought and received mortgage modifications under last year's bailouts are now back in line demanding more assistance and bailouts.

These are people who should have never been extended the credit to buy in the first place, but are now facing a situation that requires either the banks to eat the losses or the foreclosure of properties. Never mind that the foreclosed properties provide a good opportunity for those who have good credit and can afford the now truly affordable housing now that the housing bubble has burst in many parts of the country.

Here's a memo to Geithner and the Obama Administration. Even if the banks were to open up lending to everyone, they can't do so in a timely fashion because everyone cut staff as the real estate market crashed and the toxic paper crisis hit the mortgage industry hard. There aren't enough staff on hand to process all the mortgages and refinancing in the pipeline as it is. I had to wait nearly a month longer than anticipated before closing on a refinancing because the bank wasn't able to process it any faster.

Easy credit got us into this mess, and easier credit isn't going to get us out of this mess. Restraint on government spending (certainly not evidenced by the porkfest stimulus package) - targeted government spending can help, but assuring the private sector that the government will get out of the way will free up more capital for use in investment, growth, and jobs. Why should any business throw its own money into creating jobs when they're expecting that the government will do it for them?

The Obama Administration continues to take the wrong lessons from past recessions and doubled down on government spending, which will have disastrous consequences for all Americans for years to come.

UPDATE:
That was quick. The Conference Committee has managed to reconcile the two versions, and the plan is now supposedly below $800 billion. They didn't cut the spending, but instead limited quite a few of tax cuts offered, including one put forth by Obama. Nice.

As far as bipartisanship is concerned, only three GOPers are involved in the process in any way, shape, or form - Sen. Arlen Specter, Olympia Snows, and Susan Collins. This is a Democratic show, and it's a farce. They've spent a few hours coming up with this mess, and it's going to cost Americans dearly.

Guilty Plea Expected For Miguel Tejada in Obstruction/Perjury Before Congress

All-Star shortstop Miguel Tejada has been charged with lying to Congress about steroids, with the baseball player scheduled to appear in court Wednesday where he is expected to plead guilty.

The charges against Tejada, who currently plays for the Houston Astros, were outlined in documents filed in Washington federal court on Tuesday.

The documents indicate that a plea agreement has been reached with Tejada, who won the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player award while playing for the Oakland Athletics and is a five-time All-Star.

Tejada faces as much as a year in jail if convicted on the misdemeanor charge of making misrepresentations to Congress. Under federal guidelines, he would probably receive a lighter sentence.

This comes on the heels of Alex Rodriguez's admission to using steriods for several years before joining the New York Yankees. It also puts Roger Clemens and other baseball players on the hot seat if they lied to Congress about their use of performance enhancing drugs.

Note that this isn't about the drug use per se, but lying to Congress and obstructing federal investigations. (Via anonymous emailer)

Fear Is the Mind Killer

It's quite instructive to see how President Obama is using fear to demand passage of the porkfest "stimulus" package that will not deliver stimulus in a timely fashion. It isn't even a focused effort. Obama is using a shotgun approach and hoping that something hits that he can hang his hat on to show that this mess has done something to stimulate the economy, even though it is a government stimulus package.

This is so fundamentally different than what FDR did during the Great Depression, when Roosevelt realistically portrayed the economy and focused on the positives to induce spending and growth and economic development. Roosevelt sought to avoid panic, while Obama is describing the situation as catastrophic when it is not the case.

Obama is going in the completely opposite direction by warning of far more catastrophic damage to the economy if the stimulus and TARP 2, the wrath of TARP, doesn't come to pass.

Failing to act may lead to a catastrophe. So, what will acting in a grossly irresponsible and fiscally harmful manner do?

It will make it worse. That's what the CBO says.

Yet, we're supposed to believe that the recession will get worse unless we not only go through with porkfest 2009, but TARP 2, the wrath of TARP, and a player to be named later.

That's at least $2 trillion in spending that Obama wants to unleash without one care what it does to the economy. His only support for such massive spending is the fear of doing nothing, even though experts believe that this recession will end later this year even without any stimulus package.

We have examples of what massive government spending and irresponsible policy have wrought. It's called Japan from the 1980s onwards. They've had a crummy economy for years on end because the government stuck its piehole where it didn't belong, and the private sector suffered horribly for it. Of course, Obama claims that the Japanese government failed in its stimulus package because it didn't sufficiently spend enough money. By that reasoning, even the amounts Obama is talking about aren't going to be enough, and he will demand more.

That's why we're hearing Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner talk about the need for yet another TARP bailout package, which may cost another $1 trillion.

We're going to repeat that same mistake, except Obama hopes that his presence will change things. I've reported on such nonsense before - it's what socialists and Marxists say every time they get their hands on the engines of economy. They will change things and make them right, and all they succeed in doing is destroying economies and causing untold misery.

It's what happened in Zimbabwe. It's what is happening in Venezuela and a whole laundry list of countries around the world who suffered under the socialist delusions that this time - with the right people in charge - socialism will prevail.

Obama's politics and those of the Democrats are expanding government like never before and it undermines the market system and your liberty and freedoms. It puts the federal government in greater control over the economy in ways never before envisioned by the Founding Fathers, and in ways that even FDR would never have contemplated.

UPDATE:
And the Senate Democrats, plus Republicans Collins, Snowe, and Specter, have now gone and thrown its lot in with the trillion dollar porkfest. The final vote was 61-37 approving this nonsense. It's no wonder that the markets are tanking.

Not only did Tim Geithner's little talk about TARP 2 sound the wrong message, but the markets reacted in a bad way.

The markets had been looking for an outcome because they want certainty. They've gotten it. The markets will certainly continue trending down because the porkfest will suck the life out of the private sector.

UPDATE:
Fear is the economy killer. At no time in the past 60 years has the government solution to a recession been a multitrillion dollar plan that is unaffordable and pork-laden. Yet, the Democrats continue pushing the meme that this is the worst crisis in history, and can top the Great Depression unless immediate action is taken.

The statistics tell a different tale.

Democrats Introduce Legislation Opening Up Travel To Cuba

Via anonymous emailer comes word that Democrats in the House have introduced a bill to allow travel from the US to Cuba.

The Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act introduced in the U.S. House on Wednesday would allow American citizens unrestricted travel to Cuba for the first time since 1963. The bill by Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., and eight cosponsors also would lift limits on travel by Cuban exiles living in the United States. The president would not be able to regulate travel to the island unless an armed conflict arose.

Bay of Pigs veteran Miguel Reyes, founder of the Cuban American Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., thinks that the bill doesn't matter much. He has no plans to travel to Cuba and doesn't care if other people do.

"As an American, I think I have the right to go wherever I want to without anyone stopping me," said Reyes, whose views are independent from the club.

"It's a betrayal, and it's not going to resolve anything," said Jose Lopez, president of the Broward County Latin Chamber of Commerce. Lopez left Cuba in 1961.

Tourism dollars spent in Cuba will inject more oxygen into the dying Castro regime, he said. Lopez also thinks Cuban exiles who want to return to the island whenever they please are abusing their refugee privilege.

If passed, it would be the first time that travel between the US and Cuba was allowed since before Fidel Castro rose to power.

Cuba used to be a beautiful country with lovely beaches and it used to have a vibrant travel and tourist industry. Now, it is a shell of its former self, largely because of the collapse of Soviet Union and the lack of capital to support the industry.

While I wouldn't mind a vacation to Cuba at some point in the distant future when the Castros are no longer in any position of power, I think any such travel now would still benefit the privileged classes - those connected to the Castro clan, rather than the people of Cuba who are still oppressed under the harsh restrictions of the Cuban economic and political system.

Then again, unrestricted travel to Cuba would show just how blighted the socialist "paradise" truly is. It would reveal that the vaunted medical care system in Cuba is nothing more than wishful thinking and that medical tourism provides two-tiers of service - one that brings income to Cuba for the privileged (the part that Michael Moore highlights in his agitprop movie Sicko), and the rest of the country gets substandard care that borders on the criminal.

Cuba continues to hold political prisoners and maintains restrictions on speech and conduct of business is strictly regulated. In fact, Cuba's elites are little more than a criminal gang.

Unusually, organized crime in Cuba is run by the state. This is a result of the decision to bolster the Cuban military and intelligence apparatus by granting its top generals control over the lucrative tourism and hospitality industry. The island nation’s security and intelligence apparatus, estimated at 20,000 strong, is part of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. This means the Cuban security and intelligence community is also a major business operator on the island, overseeing the country’s booming tourist industry, cigar production and distribution of illicit goods.

Don't expect any of that to change anytime soon.

Yet, the Democrats are looking to change the policy even though the Castro regime has shown that it is unwilling to hold free and fair elections or release political prisoners. It is still a dictatorship.

Illegal Fireworks Caused Massive Beijing Blaze

The spectacular blaze that gutted a Beijing skyscraper at the CCTV complex was the result of an illegal fireworks display set up by one of the Chinese Television's employees.

Fire authorities in Beijing said the fireworks were high-explosive devices that were set off illegally Monday evening during celebrations to mark the end of the Lunar New Year holiday. One firefighter died after inhaling toxic fumes while battling the fire and seven other people were injured.

CCTV issued a statement Tuesday saying one of its employees hired a company without authorization to let off fireworks in a compound that houses the Television Cultural Center building, which was gutted by the blaze. That building – in the shape of a silver boot -- is next door to the landmark $800 million CCTV tower, which appears to be undamaged, according to a fire department official on the scene Tuesday.

In its broadcast statement, CCTV apologized for causing "serious damage to the country's treasure," referring to these two buildings, part of an award-winning design by architect Rem Koolhaas that helped to transform the Beijing skyline ahead of the August Olympics.

The admission of culpability is an embarrassment for the powerful state broadcaster. The statement went on to say the broadcaster felt "heartache" and it apologized "for the traffic jam and inconvenience to people around the area." Almost 600 firemen, 85 fire-engines and 16 military units were involved in fighting the flames within the vast compound, which is about the size of 37 football fields.

Israelis Go To Polls; Hamas Continues Consolidating Grip on Gaza

Israelis are going to the polls today in large numbers, and it is likely that the new Knesset will move substantially to the right, with Labor losing out big, slipping to fourth in size for the first time in the party's history. It's a tossup between Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Kadima, and it is similarly a tossup between Binyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and Tzipi Livni. Israellycool is liveblogging the elections.

Meanwhile, Hamas is busy consolidating its grip on Gaza, killing collaborators and anyone who might pose a threat to Hamas' continued hold on power.

The human rights group said in a report that at least two dozen men have been shot dead by gunmen from the Palestinian militia that governs the Gaza Strip since December 27.

"Scores of others have been shot in the legs, knee-capped or inflicted with other injuries intended to cause severe disability, subjected to severe beatings ... or otherwise tortured or ill-treated," it added.

"Hamas forces and militias in the Gaza Strip have engaged in a campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats against those they accuse of 'collaborating' with Israel, as well as opponents and critics," the report said.

The victims included members of Palestinian Authority security forces and members of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas' Fatah party, Amnesty said.

The campaign began shortly after the beginning of the three-week Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip on December 27 and continued after the ceasefire on January 18, according to Amnesty.

I've been reporting on such extrajudicial killings and the shooting of collaborators for weeks, which included the hospital incidents where Hamas would go through hospital wards murdering and kneecapping those people they believed were collaborators.

Yet the world expects Israel to make deals with Hamas? Hamas has no interest in peace with Israel, and the outcome of the Israeli elections will reflect the fact that the center-left has failed to protect Israel through negotiations and diplomacy with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Kadima has likewise failed, but that doesn't mean that the far right Israel Beitinu is any better; its policies border on the fascist in demanding loyalty oaths and of course the Arab media is busy portraying the outcome as being even more extreme than it will be.

Israel is responding to the incessant attacks and the Hamas war on Israel that has been unabated for years, and despite the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas has used the withdrawal from Gaza to consolidate its grip on power and now uses Gaza to fire rockets deeper into Israel. It was Kadima's failures to deal with the rocket - by ignoring the attacks until they were so numerous and the Israeli casualties started piling up that they no longer could be ignored. Israel's restraint was seen as weakness by Hamas and they fired rockets.

Hamas still attacks, even during the so-called "truce," which is really nothing more than a hudna to allow Hamas to regroup and resupply. The end of Operation Cast Lead was not due to a military decision, but a political one. It meant that the military gains against Hamas - destroying Hamas leadership, weapons caches, and smuggling tunnels stopped short of dealing Hamas a fatal blow. It has allowed Hamas to declare victory amid the ruins of its buildings. Livni and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert deserve the blame for this situation, which follows their disastrous handling of the Hizbullah war in 2006. It is a pattern of indecisiveness and a failure to see the military campaign through to victory. Instead, the Israeli political class appears willing to settle for a stalemate, which only serves to benefit the terrorists and their terror masters.

UPDATE:
Carl in Jerusalem points out that the Arab media portrays any Israeli party that doesn't accept Arab right of return to Israeli territory extremist. Considering that all the Israeli parties, including the dovish-far left Meretz doesn't accept the right of return, it pretty much guarantees that all parties would be accused of being right-wingers.

Massive Fire Breaks Out in Beijing Skyscraper

A major fire broke out at China's CCTV complex, which was one of the featured buildings in the Beijing skyline during last year's Olympics.

A fierce fire engulfed a major new building in Beijing that houses a luxury hotel and cultural center on Monday, the last day of celebrations for the lunar new year when the city was ablaze with fireworks.

The building was designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and is part of China Central Television’s new headquarters, an angular wonder of modernist architecture that sits astride the city and was built to coincide with the Beijing Olympics last year. The CCTV building was a hugely expensive trophy of Beijing’s pre-Olympics building boom, costing millions of dollars, and any damage is likely to be embarrassing for the ruling Communist Party.

The fire was burning from the ground floor to the top floor of the large building, the flames reflecting in the glass facade of the main CCTV tower next to the hotel and cultural center. The 241-room Mandarin Oriental hotel in the building was due to open this year. Flames were first spotted around 7:45 p.m. and within 20 minutes the fire had spread throughout the building, dominating that part of the city.

That suggests that the sprinkler systems were not operating properly, or were overwhelmed. Either scenario isn't good news, and there are reports of debris falling onto the streets below.

Here's the video:



You'll note the appearance of fireworks in front of the fire, and it's not clear whether fireworks had anything to do with the fire.

This is a developing situation.

UPDATE:
CNN has additional video from closer to the scene.

UPDATE:
Here's more detail on the Mandarin Oriental hotel that was scheduled to open in the affected building. It's the building on the left in the artistic rendering.

Other reports are indicating the fire may have started because of the fireworks display in the vicinity. The CCTV complex, including the affected building were designed by Rotterdam, Netherlands, architects Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren for the firm OMA. The hotel building also included restaurants, visitors center, a theater and exhibition spaces.

UPDATE:
The conspiracy freaks think that this fire and that the building has not collapsed as yet is somehow proof that something nefarious happened at 7WTC on 9/11. Yes, something nefarious did happen on 9/11 - airlines destroyed the Twin Towers and the falling debris from the towers damaged key structural members and the resulting uncontrolled fires led to the collapse hours after the rest of the complex.

Here's another video:


UPDATE:
It appears that firefighters have knocked down the fire:



The cause remains under investigation.

Tipping Point

Some New York City restaurants are attempting to play fast and loose with the tipping conventions. Most establishments in the US do not add gratuities as a part of the tab for groups of under six to eight people, but instead leave it up to the customer to add the amount to the bill, which is usually 15-20% of the pre-tax tab.

Now, these restaurants are adding in the gratuity, but aren't telling the customers who may not realize that the tip has already been added to the bill. (HT: Gothamist) That violates consumer protection laws and is highly unethical.

New York City eateries have begun tacking on automatic gratuities to meal checks, making up for the economic downturn by socking the wallets of unsuspecting customers.

The Post last week found a dozen restaurants foisting tips on diners - sometimes as high as 20 percent and regardless of party size and without noting the policy on the menu, all in violation of consumer laws.

"I felt cheated and taken advantage of," said Dazi Chen, who discovered a 20 percent tip stealthily added to his check at Midtown's Bombay Eats, where he dined with a friend.

"They're trying to get double gratuity," fumed Chen, 31.

When he complained to a waitress, he was told the tip is "programmed" into the cash register and could not be refunded.

It's one thing to state up front that the gratuities are already added to the bill and separately stated as such, but it's another to throw in the tip and bury it in the bill. I always scan the bill for such instances, which are common when you have a larger group (6 or more), but these restaurants appear to be adding the gratuity on groups of two.

One of the excuses is that these restaurants find that Europeans don't tip the staff. Given that European restaurants often build the tip into the bill, it's understandable that those tourists coming to the States might not see a reason to add the tip to the bill, even though tour books often highlight the need to tip in American restaurants (and those tour books of Europe highlight that tipping is built into the bill in Europe so American tourists should avoid overtipping).

I have mixed feelings over mandatory tipping because good service should result in a good tip, while bad service shouldn't be rewarded with a mandatory tip (at whatever amount set by the restaurant), but including the tips into the bill can make it easier to split the bill for the math challenged. However, when those tips are buried into the bill and aren't clearly stated, it crosses the line and I would not do business with such restaurants again. I would also make a stink with the restaurant manager over the unethical and illegal practice.

Name the Names: UPDATE: A-Rod Admits Steroid Usage

I want names. All of them. Let's see who else was taking steroids according to a report from 2003 when more than 100 players were found to be taking steroids.

Only one name was leaked over the weekend.

That was Alex Rodriguez. He was singled out from more than 100 players. Even if all the other players were named, his would still be the marquee face on the latest revelations from baseball, because he is the most recognized player and was seen as the one clean player with the best chance of breaking Barry Bonds home run records.

No longer.

Name the names.

“I’d be all for the 104 positives being named, and the game moving on if that is at all possible,” former Boston ace Curt Schilling wrote on his blog Sunday.

“In my opinion, if you don’t do that, then the other 600-700 players are going to be guilty by association, forever,” he wrote. “It appears that not only was it 104, but three of the greatest of our, or any, generation appear to be on top of this list.”

Rodriguez joined Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on an ever-growing list of stars tainted by the Steroids Era scandal. Sports Illustrated reported Saturday the Yankees slugger, already dubbed “A-Roid” in the tabloids, tested positive for two steroids in 2003.

Rodriguez, the players’ union and Major League Baseball were mum Sunday.

“Alex has been out of the country. I expect him back later today and want to confer with my client before saying anything,” agent Scott Boras said.

Meanwhile, one recently retired player wanted to know how Rodriguez’s name got out. Sean Casey, who spent last season with the Red Sox, said he felt violated by the leak.

“A little bit, because it was supposed to be a survey test and those results were supposed to be confidential,” he said. “The only reason we opened up the collective bargaining agreement was on those terms.”

MLB has brought this disaster upon itself because it failed to address the steroid issue for far too long and the players union decided that it was better to protect those players who were juicing than to honor those players who were doing it without any enhancements.

If I were a clean player in baseball, I'd want to see all the names, because it would put my own numbers and statistics into its proper perspective.

How many A-Rod home runs can be attributed to steroids? What about the MVP awards? How much money was thrown at him for his superhuman statistics as a result of steroid enhancement?

Baseball owes its customers not only an explanation, but an apology.

It starts with naming names - and for the players union to allow its release - for the good of the game.

UPDATE:
A-Rod admits to having taken steroids before becoming a New York Yankee.

“When I arrived at Texas in 2001 I felt an enormous amount of pressure to perform, and perform at a high level every day,” Rodriguez told Peter Gammons. “I was young. I was stupid. I was naïve. And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time. I did take a banned substance, and for that I am very sorry and deeply regretful.”

The acknowledgment by Rodriguez came two days after Sports Illustrated’s Web site, SI.com, reported that Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids in 2003, when he was in his last season with the Texas Rangers and won the first of his three Most Valuable Player awards.

The next season, Rodriguez joined the Yankees. He is now the highest paid player in baseball and widely viewed as the most talented.

Rodriguez said he did not know exactly what substances he took, but that he hadn’t taken substances since 2003.

“I am guilty of being negligent, naïve, not asking all the right questions,” Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman, said.

Nonsense. He wasn't negligent or naive. He knew that other players were taking it to get an edge in performance, whether it was to improve conditioning or to increase strength to hit home runs or both. He can just claim as much now, but he lied to the public when he gave interviews in the past few years that he had not taken steroids or other performance enhancing drugs.

Once he sets about lying, it becomes difficult to trust anything he says, including that he stopped using performance enhancing drugs after joining the Yankees.

And you know who deserves yet another apology? Jose Canseco, who repeatedly stated that Rodriguez was taking steroids. He was brushed off as peddling a book or lying about how Rodriguez was hitting on Canseco's wife, to say nothing of his broad claims about how many baseball players were juiced. He was right again.

UPDATE:
Anyone care to weigh in on whether HIPAA privacy laws may affect the release of the names or whether there was a violation of Rodriguez's rights? Based on the HIPAA website, it wouldn't appear that there are any privacy concerns as the baseball union isn't a covered entity.

The current terms and conditions of the MLB drug policy does set forth certain conditions for release of certain private information. However, it is not necessarily relevant here as the positive drug tests occurred prior to the implementation of the MLB test regime.

Part of the way that the test results became public was that the union failed to destroy the list showing who tested positive in a timely fashion as per the union agreement with MLB; the federal investigation into BALCO short circuited the process and the union had tried to fight the implementation of the tests altogether by claiming false-positives to bring the percentage of those players taking steroids and performance enhancers under the threshold required by the MLB to test all players. CNNSI has more on that facet.

Slouching Towards Collapse

Venezuela continues slouching towards disaster and [T]hugo Chavez's socialist plans for his country are going down in flames as he no longer has the oil revenues flowing to prop up his plans. Chavez doesn't have the money to pay the contractors who keep the oil industry churning along.

Venezuela’s state oil company is behind on billions in payments to private oil contractors from Oklahoma to Belarus, some of which have now stopped work, even as President Hugo Chavez funnels more oil revenue to social programs.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, says unpaid invoices jumped 39 percent in the first nine months of last year — reaching $7.86 billion in September. And that was when world oil was selling for $100 a barrel.

With prices plummeting by more than half, PDVSA is trying to renegotiate some contracts. But analysts say hardball tactics to reduce charges from crucial service providers could backfire by lowering Venezuela’s oil output. And foreign debt markets are reflecting jitters about Venezuela’s finances.

Chavez doesn't have the money to pay for his military expansion, the oil industry, and the folks he needs to buy the votes of in the elections scheduled for later this year. Without the pork projects he hopes will bide him more time among the poor who rely upon such things, Chavez wont have anything to offer Venezuelans other than the usual amount of socialist claptrap and blaming everyone but himself for Venezuela's problems.

Meanwhile, the situation in Zimbabwe isn't improving either. The cholera epidemic shows no signs of letting up as 69,000 cases are now reported.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change's decision to create a unity government with President Robert Mugabe could give authorities a better chance of tackling the disease that has deepened Zimbabwe's hardships.

Zimbabwe's health system has collapsed under an economic crisis that has left eight in 10 people out of employment in the once prosperous country. Poor medical facilities and sanitation have helped spread the cholera.

More than half of Zimbabwe is surviving on food aid and the population is also struggling with the world's highest inflation rate of over 231 million percent as of July last year.

Zimbabwe's parliament passed a constitutional bill last week to allow a coalition government of Mugabe and opposition rivals to be set up under a deal to end the political and economic crisis.

That's a far too optimistic picture of the situation in Zimbabwe given that Mugabe has refused to give up power and the opposition led by Morgan Tsvangirai isn't going to have the power to actually alter the economic policies that led Zimbabwe to ruin. Tsvangirai's deal with Mugabe only allows some foreign assistance to flow, but doesn't address the underlying fundamental problems with the economy, which are due entirely to Mugabe's socialist redistribution policies that have led the country to ruin.

Terror Attacks Continue Against Israel With Elections One Day Away

Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue their war against Israel, firing rockets and attempting to infiltrate into Israel across the Gaza-Israel border. Israel responded with attacking Hamas outposts.

It's expected that the attacks are tied to tomorrow's elections, but the outcome is sure to not work out in Hamas' favor, especially if Israel elects leaders who are more likely to go after Hamas after every single attack rather than wait months or years before carrying out raids against Hamas terror infrastructure and the smuggling tunnels that enable Hamas to resupply with more advanced weaponry.

It comes as Israelis prepare to go to the polls tomorrow to determine the makeup of the Knesset. There are 120 seats in the Knesset, and it is expected that no single party will come up with even 30 seats. It takes 60 seats to form a government and that means that the party that comes up with the most seats gets an opportunity to form a coalition government.

Outgoing Prime Minister, the lame duck corrupt Ehud Olmert has thrown his support behind fellow Kadima party leader Foreign Minister Livni, which may be a kiss of death as far as I'm concerned. Olmert's judgment has been worse than awful given the way he allowed and tolerated Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror attacks against Israeli communities within range of Gaza for years on end. Israel's Operation Cast Lead was a start in the right direction, but the Israelis have to maintain zero tolerance for any terror attacks, and the politicians continue to allow some number of attacks to occur without taking military action. That is unacceptable.

Livni is more likely to continue the string of failures that Olmert began. Binyamin Netanyahu is a flawed candidate, but is far better than Livni and the alternatives.

What's interesting is that some polls seem to suggest that support for Hamas has dropped since Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead. People in the region are beginning to see Hamas and the other terror groups as the cancer they are.

Let's only hope that the Israeli voters see that a strong hand against Hamas will result in safer Israeli communities and improved security. Concessions result in Hamas and the other terrorists taking advantage and engaging in still more attacks against Israel by any means possible.

MMR Vaccine Link Study With Autism Faked?

The man behind the study that claimed to have established a link between MMR inoculations and autism faked the data and misrepresented his findings.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.

As a result of his widely reported study, vaccination rates dropped from over 90% to 80%, putting many people at risk of becoming susceptible to easily preventable communicable diseases.

This man's actions are criminal in their outcome. The hysteria over vaccines grew into a cottage industry, sparking lawsuits and tons of money thrown at a problem that didn't exist. How many children suffered needlessly as a result of missing vaccines that are unrelated to autism?

What a Drag

If you wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes in New York City, be prepared for serious sticker shock. The taxes on a pack outweigh the actual cost of the pack by one and a half times.

The cost of the pack of 20 cigarettes sold by the tobacco companies is generally $4. Taxes now make up $6 in New York City, bringing the total cost of a pack to $10.

With a new 62 cent federal tax on cigarettes added this week with the passage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program law, the new price of a pack of cigarettes will soar past $10 in Manhattan.

The NYC price is higher than anywhere in the country and more than twice the national average. And beginning April 1, two-thirds of that cost will be made up of city, state and federal taxes.

That might have the effect of reducing the number of smokers as people look to save money where they can, and cigarette purchases might go down.

Of course, that means that the expected revenues to fund the S-CHIP expansion will fall short and money will have to be found elsewhere in the federal budget, but Democrats didn't seem to have a problem with that either.

The cigarette taxes have been falling short of revenue projections, meaning that not only are they succeeding in reducing smokers, but they're meaning that the programs that are funded from the cigarette and tobacco products taxes are falling short of their revenue projections at a time when money is tight at all levels of government.