Cochrane Unfiltered Aug 9, 2010

• Pelosi Pens Path for Wandering Dems.
• Judge Slaps Down Jerry Brown and Prop 23 Opponents.
• China Consolidates Grip On North Korea: Sabre Rattles
• Terrorist Bomb Did Damage Japanese Tanker in Straits of Hormuz
• First Obama ‘Military’ Aid To Israel: Arabs and Turks Get 12X More
• Brown Squeaks Ahead of Whitman: Fiorina Closes On Boxer
• Israeli Forces Bushwhacked By Lebanese Army and Hezbollah
• Al Qaida’s Nuclear Weapon Quest: FBI Launches Search
• The Sad Saga of St. Nicholas’ Church Destroyed on 9-11
• White High School Boys Least Likely To Enter College
• Bell Ding Dongs Just Dig Deeper

Richard Nixon resigned his presidency 35 years ago yesterday.

Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office has provided a detailed blueprint of suggested themes for Democrats hard pressed in the coming November election such as:

• Sept. 6 to kick off “Fighting For The Middle Class: Make It In America Week” — and
• “helping install new windows or insulation with homeowner and clean energy workers” to highlight efforts to fight climate change.

Can’t you just imagine Congressmembers like Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters and Lois Capps clad in bib overalls with a claw hammer dangling from the leg loop?

By providing a blueprint for her party dragged down by Obama’s plunging 41% job approval rating (latest Gallup poll) is an effort to herd her party’s candidates out of the  ditches on both sides of the campaign road with 89-days to go.

Pelosi’s first move was to recall Congress to vote on a so-called jobs bill.

WikiLeaks says it will continue to release confidential documents about Afghanistan reportedly it is ready to dump another 15,000 documents.

A judge calls Jerry Brown’s ballot language for Proposition 23 “false,” “misleading,” and “prejudicial.” The highly critical ruling is a huge blow to the credibility of gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Brown and opponents of Proposition 23.  The castigating ruling will advantage Brown opponents in the Governor’s race.

“This is a major victory for Taxpayers and California voters today,” said Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “Today’s judgment sends a message to the elite ruling establishment in Sacramento: gone are the days when you could pull the wool over the peoples’ eyes and get away with it. Voters have the

right to know the truth about the measures they’re voting on at the ballot box, and they are intelligent enough to vote either for or against the initiative based upon the its own merits.”

The Judge ordered significant amendments be made to the official ballot language which will be presented to voters in November. Among them:

The judge determined that the term “polluters” had such negative connotations that it would give voters a false impression of entities regulated under AB 32. The judge further stated that the term conjured up images of “dirty smokestacks” which did not fairly describe the broad range of emitters regulated under AB 32.

The judge found that Prop. 23 would not lead to the “abandonment” of the state’s global warming law at all, but instead will merely “suspend” its implementation. He ordered the language to be changed in order to remove references to “abandonment” and replace it with “suspends implementation.”

The judge’s ruling also makes clear that Proposition 23 only impacts AB 32-related regulations which apply only to greenhouse gas emissions associated with global warming — not general state pollution laws that protect the environment and the public from smog emissions and those related to asthma and other health risks.

If Proposition 23 passes, it will suspend AB 32, a law enacted in 2006 that is sometimes disengenuously titled the Global Warming Solutions Act. Sponsors of the initiative refer to their measure as the California Jobs Initiative saying AB32 will kill business and jobs. The goal of the November initiative is to freeze the provisions of AB 32 until California’s unemployment rate drops to 5.5% or below for four consecutive quarters.

Friday Gunmen killed 10 members of a medical team traveling in the rugged mountains of northern Afghanistan, demonstrating the reach of insurgents far from their traditional havens and shocking the expatriate community. Six Americans, one Briton, one German, and two Afghans were murdered  by Taliban terrorists in what was once the safest Afghan province. The murdered had just returned from a two week medical mercy mission. A Taliban spokesman claimed the killings, telling the Associated Press that the group was “spying for the Americans” and “preaching Christianity.” There has been a big increase in violence in recent weeks.

One consequence of U.S. support for South Korea following the March sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan is that China’s powerful military has trumped any pro-U.S. civilian leaders in bolstering ties with military-dominated North Korea.

Note: Intelligence reports place North Korean submarines in the area when a South Korean warship was sunk that killed 46 South Korean sailors. North Korea has 20 Romeo-class submarines, 40 Sango-class submarines and 10 “midget” submarines (known as Yeono-class subs) often used for covert operations.

The sources said that intelligence reports revealed that one Sango and one Yeono submarine were detected leaving their bases two to three days before the March 26 attack on the Cheonan.

The submarines also returned to their bases two to three days after the attack.

North Korea denies its  involvement. Driven by mutual enmity toward the U. S. and the perception of Obama’s weakness and woobling foreign policy China’s military officials have been outspoken iand demonstrative in their support for North Korea and against the Seoul-led international investigative unit that concluded a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors.

The first indication of Chinese-North Korean military solidarity was presented by Chinese Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, head of the National Defense University, who told Defense Secretary Robert Gates during at heated exchange at a Singapore defense conference in June that there were “controversial views” on who sank the Cheonan despite the probe that found irrefutable evidence that a North Korean torpedo sank the ship.

China’s military then used near-hysterical rhetoric to denounce the joint U.S.-South Korean naval maneuvers that were designed as a show of force against the North Korean ship attack. A Chinese general said that any U.S. naval maneuvers in the Yellow Sea would be regarded as similar to the 1961 Cuban missile crisis that put the U.S. and Soviet Union on the brink of nuclear war.  That was echoed by the North Koreans. Obama caved in and moved the exercise to the Sea of Japan a political victory for China and its North Korean clients.

China is North Korea’s main supplier of energy resources and has helped bolster the failing regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il through trade, primarily mining contracts for natural resources in North Korea.

For punctuation and to push back at joint South Koirea-U, S, military exercises the People’s Liberation Army has held several major and well-publicized maneuvers since mid-July.

The frequency and complex nature of the drills have illustrated well the principal message delivered by Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie on Army Day on Aug. 1: That even during peace time, “the PLA will never waver from its priority task of preparing for military struggle.”

Simultaneously North Korea’s aging and increasingly feeble Ductator Kim is known to be transferring billions of dollars to his son’s control.

In a surprising court filing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joining AG and Governor candidate Jerry Brown asking Friday that gay marriages be allowed to resume immediately in California after a lower federal court ruling that the state’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

A terrorist attack was behind an explosion last week that damaged a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the United Arab Emirates official news agency said on Friday. Apparently a suicide bomber blew himself up in an effort to hole the tanker with its 200,000 barrels of oil creating a mess.

More than a third of the world’s traded oil flows through the oil-rich Gulf’s strategic waterway that is bordered by Oman, the UAE and Iran, and the terrorist attack, heightens, security concerns in a region where tensions are already running high, analysts said.

Remains of a homemade explosives were discovered on the M Star’s hull, as was a dent on the starboard (right) side of the ship, a UAE coastguard source was quoted as saying by the Wam agency.

“Probably the tanker had encountered a terrorist attack from a boat loaded with explosives,” the source was quoted as saying. The investigation into the incident was conducted in the UAE’s Fujairah port. U. S. Navy divers were employed to examine the ship’s hull but were not cited in the allegation.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an opaque group affiliated to al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

It seems likely the attack was a warning against stiffer U. S. sanctions, and to demonstrate Iran could fulfill its threat to stop oil flow from the Gulf damaging the U. S. far more than Iran.

The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.5 billion loss in its most recent 3 months  Thursday, as mail volume plummets and retiree health care costs mount. It is not clear how it could manage to lose $400,000 a hour.

Obama has approved an Israeli request for $2 billion in aviation and diesel fuel  as military aid. The Defense Department has relayed the Israeli request to Congress, which is expected to approve the proposed sale.

This marked the first approval by Obama of an Israeli ‘military ‘request. In contrast, the administration has approved more than $23 billion in military requests to Arab countries and Turkey.

The Democrat controlled Congress has been pressing the White House to begin approving Israeli military requests ahead of elections

in November 2010 and this is viewed as paltry and trivial while giving Democrats CYA cover without angering Arabs or Turkey and maybe even shake lose some Jewish bucks.

A July Gallup poll found, 63 percent of Americans - a near record high — say their sympathies in the Middle East conflict are with Israel, while 15 percent side with the Palestinians. A Spring poll of American Jews -a generally liberal lot found just 15% say they are Republican and  50% say Democrat-a seemingly schizophrenic result found America Jews support Obama while saying they are close to Israel and 84% claim their faith is very important to them.

Michelle Obama and 40 friends are spending $75,000 a day on a lavish Euro vacation while average Americans are hard pressed. Just the secret service per diem is $90,000 and the roundtrip on Air Force 2 is nearly $170,000. That does not include the Globemaster cargo plane loaded with armored GMC Suburbans and scores of personnel. The claim that she and her guest are footing their own costs is fiduciary fornication.  The tone deaf first lady has earned the brand as a modern Marie Antoinette.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in California,s governor race finds Jerry Brown with 43% support and Meg Whitman earning 41% of the vote. Six percent (6%) prefer another candidate, and 10% are undecided.

For both candidates, this reflects a drop in support over the past month. In July, Whitman was at 47% and Brown at 46%.

Democratic incumbent U. S. Senator Barbara Boxer gets 45% and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina 40% Less than a month ago, when the longtime senator held a 49 percent to 42 percent lead over the former CEO of Hewlett Packard.

Democrats enjoys a big registration lead in California with 7.5 million to 5.2 million for GOP, and 7.1 calling themselves “independent” or are in other parties.

Republicans need to pick up 39 seats in the House to take control from the  Democrats. An arcane fact is that for presidents whose approval rating is under 50 percent on a general election day, those president’s Party have lost an average 41 (House) seats since 1962. Obama’s is below 50% in every major poll. In the Senate, Democrats have a 59-41 advantage and most experts doubt Republicans could win the majority there but will gain seats.

Israel has handed Lebanon an ultimatum. Before a line can be drawn on the Lebanese-Israeli clash which flared Tuesday, Aug. 3, the Lebanese Army 9th Brigade commander responsible for sending snipers to shoot at Israeli troops clearing brush on their side of the border and killing Lt. Col. (Res.) Dov Harari, must be dismissed or court-martialed, This burst of Lebanese sniper fire triggered the clash.On Thursday, July 29, Israel notified UNIFIL that a few Israeli soldiers would be crossing the security fence in order to cut a tree and remove a few shrubs in Israeli territory but near the Blue Line (the actual border between Israel and Lebanon). This foliage blocks the view of Israeli security cameras positioned deep inside Israel.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, about 10 Israeli soldiers with saws went through a gate in the security fence on foot. This detachment was covered by an Israeli patrol which included a few tanks, armored vehicles, and a command vehicle. As UNIFIL had been informed, the patrol stayed 200-300 meters south of the border fence.

Snipers hiding in the bush adjacent to the Lebanese Army position fired on them, killing the Israeli battalion commander (a lieutenant-colonel) and critically wounding the company commander (a captain). The sniper fire came from a professional ambush that had been organized on the basis of the advance warning provided by UNIFIL.

Major activity followed. Intense fire - small arms, heavy machineguns, mortars, and RPGs - was opened from both several Lebanese Army positions as well as Hizbullah positions in Adissyeh, a nearby village. The whole thing was an ambush.

Nevertheless Israel is being painted as the aggressor and provocateur. Before the clash forces were being mustered near the border by Lebanon.

Saturday morning Aug. 7, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman visited the site of the Lebanese-Israeli border clash of Tuesday, Aug. 1. Twenty-four hours before him, a group of Iranian intelligence and commando officers toured the border area, for a good look at IDF positions on the other side. Their Lebanese army escort included heads of the 9th battalion, which started the clash by shooting across the border and killing Lt. Col. Dov Harari.

The president first visited the blackened house in Adeissa village that was torched by Israeli retaliatory tank fire. A former Lebanese chief of staff, he was also due to visit that same 9th battalion.

The Iranian visitors in civvies toured the border area openly in full view of Israeli spotters and walked through sections of the south Lebanese road which run south of the UN Blue Line border drawn in 2000 by mutual consent.
This was the first time Iranian officers had stepped

At the same time Obama and U.S. Central Command intends to expand Lebanon’s Air Force and logistics support over the next two years. Gen. James Mattis acknowledged concerns by Congress that U.S. weapons to Lebanon would be seized by the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah. He said Centcom would closely monitor Lebanon’s military and security forces to enhance counter-insurgency, internal security and stability.  Of course if Hizbullah gets its hands on the weapons it is simply too late. Cynics say it is a clandestine way to arm Hizbullah.

Six-in-ten American families with children at home (62 per cent) say they plan to spend less this year than last or nothing at all on back-to-school shopping, according to the RBC Consumer Outlook Index. Although most families are cutting back, nine per cent say they actually plan to spend more and 29 per cent say they will spend about the same this year as last year on back-to-school items.

Most Americans favor a sales tax holiday for school supplies but there is little support among elected bodies no matter how many families it might help.

A relatively primitive Hiroshima-sized enriched uranium atomic bomb smuggled into the U.S. inside a cargo container detonates in California’s Port of Long Beach, killing 60,000 people instantaneously, exposing another 150,000 to deadly radiation, touching off massive fires and forcing the evacuation of 6 million panicked people in the Los Angeles basin. Other fear s dirty bomb could contaminate a port rendering it useless for sometime. Could it happen?

It is a consensus of top experts that it not only could happen, it is “more likely than not” to occur within the next several years.

Last month the Obama administration admitted that al-Qaida is frantically trying to acquire a nuclear device. A special report in Newsmax  magazine raises the alarm and describes what could and what should be done as well as what is and is not being done.

On Saturday, August 7^th US federal agencies announced the hunt was on again for Adnan Al Shukrijumah, 35, who lived in the US for 15 years and may now be Al Qaeda’s new global operations chief, and an expert on radiological weapons (dirty bombs). His whereabouts are unknown.

Puerile (PYOO-uhr-il, -uh-ryl, PYOOR-il, -yl)  adjective: 1. Immature; silly; childish. 2. Relating to childhood. Etymology From Latin puer (boy). Ultimately from the Indo-European root pau- (few, little), which is also the source of paucity, few, foal, filly, pony, pullet, poultry, pupa, poor, pauper, poco, and Sanskrit putra (son). USAGE:”An Australian friend recently jolted me with an apparently aesthetic but obviously puerile suggestion, ‘Mate, can we amend this burqa ban so that only ugly women are required to wear them while the good-looking ones are mandated to wear bikinis?’ He was referring to the boiling controversy in Europe over the body-covering burqa.” Chan Akya; Burqa Over the Bastille; Asia Times (Hong Kong); Jul 24, 2010.

On 9-11 tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was crushed in the collapse of the World Trade Center South tower. For 9 years its members have quietly struggled with New York City bureaucrats to get permission to rebuild. So far they have been stalled and put off. The plight of the tiny church and its 70 families is being refocused upon after this week’s decision advancing building of a 10 story $110 million mosque 600′ from the World Trade Center site..

In 1919, five families raised $25,000 to buy a tavern at 155 Cedar Street and converted it into St, Nicholas. The building stood on the site since 1822.

The sliver of a church, with its four-story whitewashed exterior and lavishly decorated interior, survived even as the World Trade Center was built in the 1960s, just to the north. On Wednesdays St. Nicholas opened its doors to the public, and dozens of office workers and tourists found it a soothing refuge from the hurly-burly of Lower Manhattan. Although many of its congregants moved to the suburbs, St. Nicholas rebuffed offers for the property from the Milstein real estate family, which owned the parking lot that surrounded the church the parking lot has been sold for $59 million.

Ideas to relocate St. Nicholas nearby have been dithered over and delayed, and many say it simply doesn’t have the clout or political correctness that the Mosque advocates do and St. Nicholas is being pushed aside.

Some are complaining that at a time when one cannot put a manger scene on public property Muslims can routinely block traffic in New York City. Every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout NYC where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque - they fill the surrounding streets, facing east for a couple of hours between about 2 & 4 p.m. - Besides this one at 42nd St
& Madison Ave, there is another, even larger group, at 94th St & 3rd Ave, etc.,
etc. Clearly there is a double standard.

By a margin of 61 to 26 percent, New Yorkers oppose the proposal to build the cultural center/mosque. Such opposition and even ire appears meaningless.

A Wisconsin Assembly candidate’s lawsuit against election officials for barring her from using the phrase “NOT the ‘whiteman’s bitch’” to describe herself on the ballot has been rejected.

California’s white male high school graduates are the least likely societal subgroup to immediately continue their educations in public colleges and universities, the California Postsecondary Education Commission has found.

Asian/Pacific Islander graduates of both genders are the most likely to move quickly into post-secondary education at 64.7 percent, down five points from the high a year earlier. Filipino Americans are next at 63.9 percent, followed by African Americans at 48.7 percent, Native Americans at 48.3 percent, Latinos at 47.1 percent and whites at 41.8 percent.

White males, at 41.2 percent, are the lowest enrolling subgroup. However, the data don’t measure private college enrollments or college attendance later.

The data also show a large gap in the type of higher education sought with 23.1 percent Asian/Pacific Islander graduates entering the UC system, more than twice the percentage of any other group. At the other end of the scale, just 4 percent of Latino graduates and 5.7 percent of white graduates attend a UC school.

Jejune (ji-JOON) adjective: 1. Dull; insipid. 2. Lacking maturity; juvenile. 3. Lacking in nutrition.  Etymology: From Latin jejunus (empty, hungry, fasting, meager). A related word is jejunum, the middle part of the small intestine. It was so called because it was usually found empty after death. Usage “Some songs are inspired and done with a knowing sense of irony. Others are jaw-droppingly jejune.” John Doyle; Glee’s Back; Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Apr 13, 2010.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate failed last week to advance campaign finance legislation

(US SB 3628) that is a top priority of the Obama administration. The bill, intended to reduce the impact of the landmark Supreme Court decision in January striking down the ban on political advertising by corporations and labor unions, fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster.

The measure, which, among other things, would force companies and unions to disclose their donors and spending on elections, is opposed by many of the nation’s largest interest groups, including both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO.

Republicans said the legislation would impose tougher restrictions on corporations, hindering their ability to support GOP candidates. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KENTUCKY) called it a “transparent effort to rig the fall election for the Democrats.”

“Unions are the ultimate victors under this bill,” he said.

Democrats vowed to keep fighting for the measure, despite the fact that it would

likely curb support from one of their own key constituencies.

“The only ones fearful of transparency are those with something to hide,” said the ever ,ore supersolious Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NEVADA).

Unless Democrats make some accommodations to win Republican support, however, the legislation will likely remain in limbo until after Labor Day and probably for the rest of the year.

In what almost everyone agrees was silly, heavy-handed mistreatment of a 7-year-old Oregon girl by a local bureacrat has created quite a stir. Last week at a local arts fair, the child and her mother were surprised when a county inspector demanded to see their restaurant license for the child’s lemonade stand. They didn’t have one. The inspector threatened  them with $500 fines if they didn’t stop selling lemonade. The county has since apologized for its bureaucrats arrogant stupidity.

Voter approval was not needed for Bell’s $35 million bond debt, which is more than twice the size of the city’s budget. Even before the salary scandal broke, Bell had signaled that it was in trouble on the $35-million debt.

Thierry Martiny, a lenders spokesman, told The LA Times that the city had informed the bank earlier this year that it could not make payments. In June, Martiny said, the bank and Bell agreed on a “framework for confidential negotiations” to resolve the issue.

But no one, apparently, has been designated to negotiate for the city now that Rizzo, iuts disgraced city administrator,  is gone. Nor can anyone explain how the tiny city could legitimately borrow such an amount raising more serious questions about the shenanigans that have been perpetrator on a hitherto comatose citizenry.

Due to a quirk in CALPERS - the State’s retirement pool - taxpayers up and down the state of California are howling as it appears to be on the hook for a slice of Bell’s multimillion dollar pension apparently owed to city employees disgraced and forced into retirement.

Grim Statistic: Seven men and five women were murdered in Los Angeles last week. Over the same period last year, 15 people were killed, 20 fewer than in 2007.  385 have been murdered in the last year.

Four chaplains — a Methodist, a Jewish Rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Reformed Church in America minister — saved lives aboard the USS Dorchester on Feb. 3, 1943 by giving up their own..

The ship was about 100 miles from Greenland when it was struck by a torpedo launched by the U-223, a German submarine. 600 of the 900 men aboard perished. A few were saved including those who were given life jackets by the four chaplains. Survivors saw the four men arms linked praying on the deck as the ship sank below the surface

World War II veteran William Holliday, 83, will host an informal group tour of the Sanctuary honoring the four aboard the Queen Mary10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on August 14.

Holiday hopes that others will continue to remember and honor the four men and their unselfish sacrifice.