Laissez-faire

“I’m not bitter Sam. I’m just consumed by a gnawing hate that’s eating away at my gut until I can taste the bile in my mouth !!

– Woody Boyd on “Cheers”

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The bill “Bailout” that passed

From what I can see, not a damn thing of real significance changed with the bailout package ……….. not even a meager attempt at REAL reform - e.g. privatize Freddie and Fannie, repeal SOX and the Community Reinvestment Act, guarantee that not another dime of fed taxpayer $$$ will ever go to ACORN, tie congressional pay raises to the long term performance of the Dow, cut the capital gains tax & make the Bush tax cuts permanent to bolster the stock market, demand that at least a portion of the $700 billion (if not all) be offset with spending cuts over time, put congressional term limits to a full congressional (and transparent) vote, etc. etc. etc. ………. NOTHING that will lessen the likelihood that the taxpayer (and our children and grandchildren) will again be taken to the cleaners for more and more bailouts in the future. It’s still “business as usual.”

So there were plenty of reasons for real conservatives to continue to oppose this fiasco. And on top of that, the bailout continues to be opposed by voters by a greater than 2-1 margin ……… this was another “hanging curve ball” for the Stupid Party to hit out of the park. So naturally what did the Stupid Party candidate do ??? ……… he joined hands with a Congress that has a ~10% approval rating and a President that has a ~25% approval rating and fought with them tooth & nail in support of the bailout until it passed …….. pushing “bipartisanship” instead of conservative values.

The “maverick” just handed the election to the Evil Party. But I’m not bitter.

– Smitty, 10-5-08

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Source: http://www.newsmax.com/morris/mccain_principle_stand/2008/10/01/136350.html

McCain Must Make His Move

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 3:09 PM
By: Dick Morris & Eileen McGann

Trailing six points in Rasmussen’s poll, having fallen four points since he suspended his campaign last week, the question for John McCain is, Haven’t you learned anything?

His failure to do much of anything in Washington, after teasing the whole country and riveting its attention on him by suspending his campaign, has let the voters down — and they are turning away from McCain.

But there is still time for him to make his move. The House Republicans bought McCain another shot by turning down the $700 billion bailout package on Monday. With no House vote scheduled until Thursday, McCain still has time to do the right thing.

He should publicly announce his support for the House Republican alternative package of insurance, loans and tax changes to deal with the financial crisis. He should attack Barack Obama and the Democrats for supporting the use of tax money for a massive bailout when the same purpose can be accomplished by other, cheaper means.

McCain should draw a line in the sand and take a firm position.

The Democrats are not prepared to pass their bailout proposal by themselves. If they were, they would have done so on Monday.

Instead, they withheld the votes of their most vulnerable congressmen and let the package fail. If the Republican Party poses a united front in the House, with McCain’s leadership, the Democrats will have to fall in line. They cannot not do anything. By taking a firm line, McCain can turn the whole process around to his, and his country’s, advantage.

Who would have imagined that John McCain would lose the election because he had a failure of courage at the last minute? Who would have guessed that he would fail to stand on principle for fear of being criticized and would fail as a result? If John McCain is to lose this election, let it at least be fighting for principle, as he has done throughout his storied career.

By backing an alternative, McCain forces Obama to defend the Democratic/Bush package. He can tie Obama to Bush and to the Washington insider/Wall Street crowd. He can give his populism a programmatic reality and a topical relevance. Obama would have to spend the rest of the election defending the $700 billion turkey the length and breadth of the country.

America detests the bailout package. Polls show better than 2-to-1 opposition. Were McCain and the Republicans able to project that there is another alternative that works, the opposition would swell to even greater proportions.

Obama and the Democrats could cite the views of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and Wall Street executives that the Republican relief package would be too little, too late. But voters can be pardoned for skepticism. Paulson, a few years removed from Wall Street, and Democrats, in hock to the street for campaign contributions, are naturally eager to get their hands on $700 billion. If Obama lends himself to that cause, it could cost him the election.

McCain needs to have the courage to free himself from the web of Washington deals and take a principled stand for the right side and stay there. Then the inevitable dynamics of the process will bring the country around to him.

Otherwise, his campaign will have missed the opportunity to draw the kind of clear issue that would have gotten him elected president.

It is admirable to see a candidate of principle and conviction lose an election by standing on his beliefs. It is sickening to see one lose by abandoning them.

“If u wanna run with the big dogs, then don’t piss like a puppy!”

– Unknown

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A Brit Who “Gets it.” Now if only the Democrats had 1/2 his guts and understanding

– Smitty, 9-7-08

http://dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011

My cousin thinks that he has a lot in common with Ghandi. After all, they both spent a lot of time in prison.

– Anonymous

– Smitty, 8-3-08
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Source: http://www.twincities.com/ci_9916619

St. Paul man held in fatal stabbing of Hopkins woman, 90

27-year-old St. Paul man was freed from prison in March

By Mara H. Gottfried and Rhoda Fukushima
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 07/18/2008 01:17:19 AM CDT

A St. Paul man arrested in the stabbing death of a 90-year-old Hopkins woman had been freed in March from prison, where he had done time for robbing and beating a 66-year-old man in Roseville.

“Touch” DNA evidence was used to link Corey Omar Posley-Wells, 27, to the homicide victim’s apartment, officials said Thursday.

Posley-Wells was arrested Wednesday in St. Paul on suspicion of murder in the July 7 slaying of Irene Mary Kunze, Hopkins’ first homicide in eight years. Police said Posley-Wells was visiting another resident of the apartment complex where Kunze lived.

A family member, who checked on Kunze after she did not answer her phone, called police to Kunze’s apartment at 151 Eighth Ave. S. just after 10 p.m.

Officers found Kunze dead. She was killed by “sharp force injuries,” according to the Hennepin County medical examiner.

Samples were collected from Kunze’s apartment and DNA was found that didn’t belong to her, according to the Hennepin County sheriff’s office. DNA samples were taken from several people of interest, and the unknown DNA was matched to Posley-Wells, the sheriff’s office said.

Police also said they believe they recovered the weapon used to kill Kunze. Posley-Wells was in custody at the Hennepin County jail Thursday. Authorities haven’t disclosed a possible motive, but they expect he will be charged by noon today.

Posley-Wells was released from prison March 6 after serving time for first-degree aggravated robbery.

In 2001, Posley-Wells told Roseville police he had gone to the movie theater at Har Mar Mall, saw a man in the bathroom and the bulge of a wallet in his pocket, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.

“Wells said he wanted the money, so he grabbed a black metal post and struck the man on the left side of the head,” the complaint said. The 66-year-old man fell to the ground, and Posley-Wells kicked him in the stomach, the man told police. The man had head injuries, the complaint said.

Police found Posley-Wells soon after with bloodstains on his jacket and shoes, the complaint said.

Posley-Wells was sentenced to six years and two months in prison in 2002. He was imprisoned earlier for 1999 and 2000 St. Paul motor vehicle theft cases.

The touch DNA used in the Kunze case was the subject of national attention last week, when officials said it had exonerated members of JonBenet Ramsey’s family in her killing. Touch DNA is left behind when people touch things; they naturally shed skin cells that contain the genetic material.

Touch DNA technology has come about through advances in science, said Tim O’Malley, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent.

Formerly, a larger amount of a substance — such as a drop of a blood the size of a dime — was needed to test for DNA. Now, DNA testing can be done on evidence, including skin cells, that is invisible to the naked eye, O’Malley said.

This report includes information from the Associated Press

Support bacteria - they’re the only culture some people have.

– Unknown

– Smitty, 8-3-08
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Source:http://www.startribune.com/local/south/25650914.html?location_refer=Bios

Monsters who beat dad come straight out of today’s culture

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

July 19, 2008

The savage attack at Valleyfair on the night of July 4 horrified Minnesotans. A father was beaten and kicked unconscious as he tried to protect his 12-year-old daughter from being sexually groped by two men.

After the father intervened, the men used a cell phone to summon six others to “get these bitches,” according to a complaint filed in Scott County District Court. Eight males assaulted the father as his wife and daughters strove frantically to help him.
“We see assaults, but that’s brutal,” one police officer said.

Did these monsters descend out of nowhere on Valleyfair, a place we associate with wholesome family fun? Hardly. The attitudes they acted out in extreme fashion are part of a culture that is all around us and flourishes with our blessing.

Take for example, Pharrell Williams, an icon of the youth culture, who visited Minneapolis last month. A rapper/producer on the entertainment world’s highest plane, Williams won a 2007 Grammy Award for “Money Maker,” a song he performed with Ludacris. The lyrics, saturated with sex — which celebrate the adventures of “a bedroom gangster” — are so vulgar and degraded that this newspaper cannot print them.

Or take “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” a 2005 Grammy nominee that Williams performed with thug rapper Snoop Dogg (SING ALONG BOYS & GIRLS !!)

When Williams visited Minnesota last month, he was embraced — not shunned — by mainstream Minneapolis for songs like these.

At the Uptown store where he showed up to promote his luxury Billionaire Boys Club clothing line, nearly 200 fans from across the Twin Cities — including boys as young as 9 — waited eagerly to greet him. Many sported his high-end baseball caps and T-shirts, and mobbed him for autographs.

Is Williams just a passing youthful fantasy who offers kids a touch of danger? Adults are swooning too.

Williams is lionized by our tastemakers, opinion leaders, media and entertainment moguls. In 2005, Esquire magazine named him “best-dressed man in the world.” Louis Vuitton has signed a deal with him for a jewelry line. In August, Williams’ band, N*E*R*D, will appear in connection with the Democratic National Convention in Denver, according to www.rollingstone.com.

Williams is just one of many rappers who celebrate a lifestyle of hedonism. Turn your radio dial, for example, to Beat 96 (96.3 FM). You’ll hear a host of gangsta artists whose music bears three hallmarks.

The first is sexual degradation of women — “bitches” or “ho’s.” Females who get out of line can be slapped back into place. Rapper Ludacris captures the attitude with lyrics like “Move bitch, get out the way.” Lil’ Jon orders “bitches” to “crawl.”

Gangsta rap’s second hallmark is violence — reveling in it, using it to get what you want, and adopting it as manhood’s defining quality.

The third hallmark is crass materialism, on display in a music video that depicts a rapper swiping a credit card in a woman’s buttocks.

Where do the Valleyfair monsters come from? At least in part, they come from a philosophy of life that Pharrell Williams has articulated.

During his visit to our fair city, Williams summed up his worldview. “We do what we want,” he told the Star Tribune. “We encourage everyone to do the same. That’s called being an individual.”

This idea — that life is about doing, and getting, what we want — is widespread today. The narcissistic belief that our personal desires trump both social norms and duties to others fuels problems that range from family breakdown to drug abuse to corporate corruption.

Why do we find it easy to glorify Williams and his ilk? Because as a society, we’ve largely embraced the idea that powers their music.

Most of Williams’ fans don’t turn his narcissistic philosophy into action. For them, presumably, striving to look like rap stars is primarily about theatrics.

But some in our society will take the idea to its logical conclusion. When other voices of authority — parents, teachers, opinionmakers — are faint, or faint-hearted, rap’s high-decibel worldview may fill the void. Young men who lack restraints may act on it, using violence to take what they want.

The Valleyfair attackers are not from another planet. Every day we signal, in a variety of ways, that a youth culture that glorifies narcissism and violence is welcome in our communities. Shame on us.

Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, www.startribune.com/thinkagain

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A REAL conservative party would be all over this ……… this is a hanging curveball that could be hit out of the park. A real chance to defend the interests of the working class (including Reagan Democrats in key states) against the elites.

The Dems refusal to allow a vote on offshore drilling is because that would upset one of their primary special interests (envirokooks). The fact that the standard of living of the working class is going into the tank is not of any discernable concern to them (Al Gore and the rest of the Dem leadership can still afford to get around in private jets & limos, thank you very much).

Unfortunately, the Stupid Party’s candidate (John “Global Warming” McCain) is only offering lukewarm support of increasing supply (and no support for drilling in ANWR). After all he wants to be “progressive” on global warming so that the envirokooks might like him at least a little bit …….. apparently that’s more important than principle.

– Smitty, 8-3-08
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Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121677183870875523.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Notable & Quotable

July 23, 2008; Page A17

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in a July 17 interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN, on a bill to allow offshore drilling for oil:

BLITZER: John Boehner, who’s the Republican leader in the House, he says you have to let this come up for a vote. He says that you’re walking your blue dogs, who are the moderate and conservative Democrats, and other vulnerable Democrats off a cliff by not allowing this to come up for a vote, the offshore oil drilling legislation.

PELOSI: Is that right? Well, you know, just because John Boehner, who is my friend and whom I respect, says it, doesn’t make it so. . . .

BLITZER: Are you afraid if this comes up for a vote in the House you will lose, given the support for offshore oil drilling among these so-called blue dogs, or moderate Democrats, who will join with Republicans?

PELOSI: Afraid is not a word that is in my vocabulary. . . .

BLITZER: So let me get — will you allow this issue, offshore oil drilling, to come up for a vote on the floor of the House?

PELOSI: We’re going to exhaust our other remedies in terms of increasing supply in America by…

BLITZER: So the answer is no?

PELOSI: I have no plans to do so

I bet the people of Gomorrah felt like they got the short end of the stick. After all, they didn’t get a perversion or a criminal activity named after them.

– Unknown

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Rotsa ruck. In the minds of bleeding heart liberal judges and liberal politicians in MN, the 7 “gentlemen” in this story are the primary victims who deserve maximum sympathy. The father and daughter are only secondary victims, less worthy of any concern.

Besides, MN already has a law on the books to deal with this: it’s called “27 strikes and your out”

– Smitty, 7-27-08

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Source: http://www.twincities.com/ci_9913755

Assaults: Enough is enough

Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 07/17/2008 05:59:35 PM CDT

A man attempts to protect his young daughter from being sexually assaulted and he is stomped and kicked in the head in front of his family (”7 charged in attack at Valleyfair,” July 16). A bus driver is pulled from his bus and beaten and left for dead on a sidewalk in downtown St. Paul because he told the “thugs” they had to pay the fare to ride the bus (”Bus driver injured in fight with teen riders,” July 15).

When is this going to end? When are we going to get tough on these punks who have absolutely no regard for human life? What is it going to take before judges and lawmakers stand up and say, “Enough is enough”? Not until something like this happens within their own families.

Please, let’s do something before we all become prisoners in our own homes. Right now, that’s exactly where we are heading.

Laura McGinn, St. Paul

I think this High Tech stuff is getting way out of control. Now they even have wireless bras !!

– Unknown

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Liberals who plan to protest the RNC convention have hitched their wagon to anarchist scum and have made no effort to distance themselves from them. Wow, liberals must be so proud !!

Smitty, 7-27-08
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Source: http://www.twincities.com/ci_9927108

How real are anarchists’ rumblings? It’s unclear
But that doesn’t stop St. Paul police from taking their threats seriously

By Jason Hoppin
jhoppin@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 07/18/2008 11:59:31 PM CDT

On a November day in 1999, Seattle police lost control of their city.

During a meeting of the World Trade Organization, protesters blockaded intersections, cut off delegates from the conference and rifled through local businesses, causing extensive damage. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to control the crowd, but it took days to restore order.

A group of Twin Cities anarchists now is making similar threats against the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul. But they also made threats against the 2004 conventions in Boston and New York, and little ever came of them.

The question is what to make of the anarchists? Are they for real? And how seriously should the city take their threats?

“We’ve learned lessons from others cities, including Boston and New York, including Seattle,” said Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul Police Department. “We don’t simply think we can ignore the potential for a group of people to try to interrupt the convention by committing criminal acts. We feel we have a plan in place to deal with that.”

This month, the RNC Welcoming Committee, a group of self-styled anarchists, caused alarm when its Web site linked to an online plan for moving delegates to and from the Xcel Energy Center. The subsequent media coverage caused so much commotion, the Welcoming Committee’s Web site crashed.

The group differs from the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, which is organizing the main protest march on the convention, and its aims are broader. Rather than advocating an end to the war in Iraq, anarchists want an end to corporate globalization and, for some, a return to a more primitive lifestyle.

The anarchists say they won’t talk to “corporate media,” but one of the nation’s best-known anarchists is John Zerzan, a Eugene, Ore.-based author and host of Anarchist Radio. When contacted by phone, Zerzan said he regards the Seattle protest and riots as a success because they spotlighted anarchists’ antiglobalization message.

Zerzan — a confidant of Theodore Kaczynski in the mid-1990s while the Unabomber awaited trial — said anarchists want to end corporate domination of the planet and roll back technological advances. His new book is titled “Twilight of the Machines.”

Eugene-based anarchists were instrumental in the Seattle riots, and Zerzan does not back away from the methods. While he doesn’t condone violence against other individuals, he doesn’t see property damage as violent — “Certainly not corporate property,” Zerzan said.

Early in the 20th century, estimates of the number of anarchists in the U.S. ranged into the millions. As a group, they largely disappeared until the 1960s, when their numbers started to grow again.

They were thrust back into the national psyche during the WTO protests. “60 Minutes II” profiled the group, featuring Zerzam prominently in its report.

Jess Sundin of the Anti-War Coalition, part of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, said the group has had discussions with the anarchists but only to make sure they don’t disrupt the march.

“They’ve made a commitment not to interfere,” Sundin said.

Much as St. Paul is doing, police forces in Boston and New York took the groups seriously.

Boston Police Superintendent Robert Dunford said he tracked the groups through their online postings and literature (which St. Paul is also doing), but their threatened disruptions never materialized.

“A lot of it was street theater. A couple of marches,” Dunford said.

“These groups, some of them are real and some of them are not,” he added. “You really don’t know.”

New York City Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne echoed that thought. “We took it seriously. Some of it was boasting, and some of it was real. You can’t always tell,” Browne said.

But New York did disrupt anarchist activities before they occurred. “There were attempts, but we were well aware of the attempts in advance,” Browne said.

He added: “In cases where violence was being planned, we had direct information about it even when it wasn’t published.”

Anarchists also held classes on less-menacing activities — how to disable a bus engine, for example.

“We were at those classes,” Browne said, declining to say whether the department used undercover officers or simply attended the meetings.

He also pointed out that New York hosted an anti-war march viewed as the largest in U.S. history — estimates range up to 1 million — with relatively few arrests. But law enforcement officials say it takes only a few people to disrupt the peaceful intentions of many.

So is the Welcoming Committee real? Will they cause havoc at the convention? At this point, it’s tough to say.

The group posted a YouTube video featuring people wearing bandanas over their faces and clad in black that walks the line between camp and menace.

It shows why determining the group’s intentions is difficult. At one point an anarchist lights a Molotov cocktail.

The flaming bottle is tossed over a fence and lands in a barbecue, where another anarchist waits, spatula in hand.

Another group of about 150 anarchists from the U.S. and Canada were in Wisconsin this week training for demonstrations at the Democratic and Republican conventions. The anarchists were attending four days of workshops in Waldo in Sheboygan County. Some of the workshops focused on strategies for the upcoming conventions.

The sessions were organized by the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective, an underground group that has published anarchist texts such as “Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook.”

Anarchists generally do not conceal their intentions. What they plan to do is posted on the Internet and in literature handed out at left-leaning events. Some say they simply hope to inspire others to commit the acts they outline, without having to do it themselves. That’s why media coverage — despite the RNC Welcoming Committee’s stated aversion to mainstream media — is helpful to their cause.

“Every time you write a story about them, you give us a hard time,” Dunford said.

Does anyone know anything about “Utilitarianism” ?? I’d never heard of it before, but it must be the richest religion around, because they collect “donations” monthly from everyone I know or threaten to cut off their water, phone, gas or electricity !!

– Unknown

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……….. for continuing to obstruct the drilling of all petroleum products, including clean natural gas off our coastlines in order to “save” the planet (how does one “spill” gas anyway ??) in order to intentionally restrict supply & raise prices, while you shed crocodile tears for the working class you’re screwing, who depend on cheap energy to maintain a decent standard of living.

Instead your Cuban and Chinese allies will continue to take this resource from under our noses and laugh all the way to the bank …………

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/business/25650879.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:3

Prepare to be $hocked by heating bill$

By STEVE ALEXANDER, Star Tribune

July 19, 2008

Consumers already pinched by high gasoline prices could soon feel the pain of another energy spike — natural gas.

Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy are warning customers that their natural gas bills could be 30 to 50 percent higher this winter now that a glut of stored-up gas has been sold off.

Price increases are already being seen by those on budget plans that spread their costs over the year, because they essentially buy their natural gas in advance.

Gilbert Tornes of south Minneapolis got a 75 percent increase in his natural gas bill from CenterPoint Energy.

“I was expecting an increase, but I wasn’t expecting to get popped like this,” said Tornes, who is retired and on a monthly budget plan.

“I don’t know what more I could do to conserve gas. We already turn the winter temperature down to 64 at night and have it set at 68 during day, or maybe 70 if we’re feeling a little bit cold.”

He won’t be the only person who is surprised by higher gas prices this winter, although many customers’ increases won’t be that steep, say Xcel and CenterPoint, the two big natural gas companies serving the metro area.

Xcel is predicting average customers will see a 30 to 50 percent price increase. It sells natural gas in five states, including Minnesota; in the Twin Cities it serves the east metro area.

CenterPoint said customers who aren’t on a budget plan can expect 35 to 45 percent price increases this winter. CenterPoint operates in six states, including Minnesota, where it has 790,000 natural gas customers.

CenterPoint customers like Tornes, who are on a monthly budget plan and still owe money for last winter because of the exceptional cold, can expect 60 to 80 percent increases in their monthly bills due in September, said spokeswoman Becca Virden. The utility is calling thousands of customers to explain why the bills for this year’s budget plan are so high, she said. The bills will be reevaluated in six months to see whether they should be lowered, based on actual rather than projected gas prices.

Some hope for relief

Some analysts see an outside chance that the slack economy and a general decline in energy prices could combine to cut the price of natural gas back to last year’s levels.

Natural gas prices have dropped recently after posting a 60 percent increase since the beginning of the year. The decline accelerated after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the economy was in worse shape than expected.

But natural gas prices would have to fall a long way to reach the same level as last winter.

They base that on natural gas futures contracts, which are publicly traded contracts for future deliveries of natural gas, based on estimates of what the price will be at that time. (The budget bill Tornes receives from CenterPoint also is based on futures contract prices.)

The July futures contract price for natural gas to be delivered in January is slightly over $10.50 for a million BTU (British thermal units) of energy — about 46 percent higher than last January’s actual price. That’s a strong indication that consumers will see big price increases this winter, said Jeff LeMunyon, an energy consultant with Linwood Capital in Edina.

If natural gas prices decline significantly by early September, when natural gas prices get locked in for the winter, consumers might be saved from a price shock.

More factors in play

But several unknowns could affect futures prices for natural gas:

• A warm winter could reduce demand, cutting prices below what futures contracts predicted. Both the Xcel and CenterPoint estimates of higher prices are based on a “normal” winter around the country this year.

• If the economy worsens, less natural gas might be burned by industry and, as a result, prices could go down.

• It’s hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico. If storms disrupt natural gas production there, then gas prices could rise because supplies would be lowered.

• There is less natural gas in storage than last year. That oversupply helped keep natural gas prices low last winter, but tighter supplies this year could tend to keep prices high.

That said, analysts lean toward higher natural gas prices.

“The only thing that’s going to drive down natural gas prices before winter will be a drop in crude oil prices and the expectation of a softening economy,” predicted LeMunyon, the consultant in Edina.

Others aren’t so sure.

“A 50 percent increase in natural gas prices is absolutely possible,” said Darin Newsom, an analyst for DTN, an Omaha firm that tracks the prices of commodities such as natural gas.

“If oil were to fall to $100 a barrel [from about $130 today], you could see natural gas fall to $7 to $9 in January,” compared with $7.17 in January 2008, Newsom said. “But you’d need to see $100-a-barrel oil by September.”

Steve Alexander • 612-673-4553

Work Harder. Millions on Welfare depend on it !!

– T-Shirt Slogan

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Happy Independence Day !! Valleyfair Amusement Park now has a new “thrill” …….. assaults on a father protecting his daughter from sexual assault by gang scum on July 4 !!!!

The liberal goal to make MN a permanent welfare magnet, thereby attracting “refined working gentlemen” from Chicago, Flint, and Detroit to relocate here is succeeding beyond the pale !! The Twin Cities is well on it’s way to becoming a cold Detroit !! Well, thank God the taxes at least are low here !!!

P.S. Note the names of the arrested: Devondre Evans-Lewis, Andrew Shannon, Darris Evans, Terry Arnold, Derry Evans and Anthony Gildersleeve. Wow - - I didn’t know that such Scandinavian gangs existed in MN !!!

P.P.S. Per the radio, these “gentlemen” all already have posted bail (the group must have had a pool of $$$ saved up from working !!) and are already free. Surely they’ll show up for their hearings !! And that must have been a real stiff bail the judge imposed on them !!!!

– Smitty, 7-16-08

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Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/south/25452349.html?location_refer=Homepage:highlightModules:2

6 charged in attack on dad protecting daughter at Valleyfair

By ABBY SIMONS, Star Tribune
July 15, 2008

The father of a 12-year-old girl who tried to keep a young man from groping his daughter at a popular Shakopee amusement park was seriously hurt late on July 4 after he was allegedly kicked and stomped by a group of men in an attack police called “brutal.”

The attack on the unnamed man, which happened just outside Valleyfair Amusement Park, resulted in charges against at least six Twin Cities-area men. They were among several people the initial attacker called on his cell phone to summon them to join the assault.

The group beat up the father as his wife and daughter looked on, police said. The man was seriously injured and unconscious when police arrived.

“We see assaults, but that’s brutal,” Shakopee police Sgt. Jay Arras said.

Arras said the man and his family were leaving Valleyfair shortly before midnight on July 4 when a man “tried to grab the 12-year-old girl in a sexual manner” near the park exit, the father later told police.

“There was one initially that touched his daughter,” he said. “He protected her, and more were called in.”

When the attacker’s friends arrived, the victim “was jumped from behind by all of them,” Arras said.

Seven people were arrested at the scene, while an eighth who fled was caught a short time later.

The six charged with third-degree felony assault in Scott County District Court were Devondre Evans-Lewis, Andrew Shannon, Darris Evans, Terry Arnold, Derry Evans and Anthony Gildersleeve, according to media reports.

Arras said that he didn’t know the extent of the father’s injuries but that according to the criminal charges, the victim suffered skull fractures and possible bleeding on the brain.

“I just know they were bad,” he said.

He added that the group continued to assault other people unprovoked after the attack on the father. There were no reports of other injuries.

Scott County Attorney Patrick Ciliberto and others from his office could not be reached late Monday, and a call to a Valleyfair spokeswoman was not returned.

Abby Simons • 612-673-4921

If astrology isn’t true, how do you explain the impossibly unlikely fact that there are 12 astrological signs, and the 12 constellations in the zodiac just happen to match them perfectly?? HA!! Who’s the smart one now, Mr. Skeptic ??????

– Unknown

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McCain has very little credibility with me. This is the same McCain who “came around” on illegal immigration after the conservative uproar last year (muttering “I’ll build the goddamned fence if they want it”). Like illegal immigration, his heart is not really committed to fix the energy issue; he’s throwing conservatives some crumbs and hoping they’ll be dumb enough to think he means it. Note that he still opposes drilling in ANWR and supports cap and trade (i.e. higher energy prices) to “fight” global warming.” He’s trying to court both conservatives and envirokooks. Count me out.

– Smitty, 6-22-08

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Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121374864081982763.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

McCain’s Energy Drill

June 18, 2008; Page A14
Behold, a miracle: Public anger over $4 gas is forcing at least some of our political class to confront their energy contradictions. Last week, Republicans Jim Walsh of New York and Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland — two longstanding opponents of offshore drilling — asked for a mulligan. We can now add John McCain to the roll: In a speech in Houston yesterday, the Senator finally came out in favor of increasing domestic energy supplies.

This is progress, even if it did come dressed in some of Mr. McCain’s familiar policy confusions. In the past, the Republican has been a chief opponent of opening up the vast U.S. offshore regions and other federal lands where oil-and-gas exploration and production are prohibited, especially the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But oil at $135 a barrel is a powerful political motivator.

The candidate now says we must drill for more domestic oil “as a matter of fairness to the American people.” He did not back off from his sentimentality about ANWR — leaving off-limits nearly half of the proven reserves of the entire U.S. at 10.4 billion barrels. But he did propose to open most of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to development, so long as the nearby states were in favor. This could open up as much as 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 86 billion barrels of oil on the Outer Continental Shelf to development. That’s a big deal considering that we now consume nearly 10 billion barrels a year.

Mr. McCain also picked up on a good idea from the Bush years, in which states would share the royalties generated by offshore development. In 2006, Congress lifted prohibitions on leasing a narrow strip in the Gulf of Mexico, splitting 37.5% of oil-industry returns with Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. By filling state treasuries, this arrangement could build political constituencies for increased domestic production, and is attracting interest among the Southern seaboard states.

In 2007, at the urging of Democratic Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and the legislature, the Interior Department tried to open deepwater areas off the state to seismic testing. Yet Congress has so far refused to appropriate funds for even this preliminary step. Democratic leaders and the green lobby remain opposed to any exploration whatsoever, no matter how minimal the environmental disturbance from modern equipment.

This obstructionism may now be tested. We hear — and hope — that as early as this week President Bush may lift a 1990 executive order that prohibits offshore drilling. That would leave Congress as the only obstacle to drilling policies that would help alleviate record-high gas prices. Since those prices are hurting the GOP politically almost as much as they’re hurting consumers economically, Mr. McCain’s drilling reversal sets him up for a useful debate with Barack Obama.

For a candidate claiming the mantle of “change,” Mr. Obama’s energy policy might as well have been drafted in the 1970s. He supports punitive new windfall profits taxes on Big Oil, which won’t do anything for supply; as well as at least $10 billion a year in new subsidies for “alternative” energy technologies, which may take years or decades to pan out, if they ever do.

Mr. Obama’s hostility to new drilling relates directly to his larger hostility to all carbon energy. Last week, he told a CNBC interviewer that his only objection to higher energy prices was how fast they had risen. He said, “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.” His climate-change tax-and-regulation scheme known as cap and trade is designed to raise gasoline and other energy prices, albeit in a politically stealthy fashion.

Mr. McCain would have an easier time making a contrast with Mr. Obama if he didn’t also support a softer version of cap and trade himself, on top of all his other green genuflections. He also needs to get his bearings on the reason oil prices are high. It’s not merely rising demand from China and India, and it certainly isn’t because “some people on Wall Street” are speculating in the futures market, as Mr. McCain claimed yesterday.

Mr. McCain seems to lack a basic understanding of how markets work and so is often swayed by such populist nostrums. He would have been better off mentioning the Federal Reserve and Bush Administration’s weak dollar policy, which has sent all commodity prices soaring across the board since last August. By rightly blaming inflation, he would also have put himself on the side of the middle class the way Ronald Reagan did in the 1970s. That’s a wiser kind of populism.

No matter how far the country progresses in “the great turn away from carbon-emitting fuels,” as Mr. McCain put it, the truth is that fossil fuels will remain indispensable for decades. The U.S. Energy Information Agency forecasts that over the next 25 years, oil, coal and natural gas will provide roughly the same 86% of the world’s energy mix as they do today. Mr. McCain’s new willingness to drill is at least a welcome bow to that reality.