• China Choking Off Vital Rare Minerals
• Titanic Director Joins Terminator Buddy In Anti-Jobs Move
• Cal Guv Lite Race Tightens Up
• Economy Suffers 1 - 2 Punch
• Iran Arms Hizbullah With Nuclear Capable Guided Missile
• Nuke “Big Gamble” Obamacare: WVa Manchin Says
• Pastor Wins New Car For Not Burning Koran
• 50-States Investigate Foreclosure Fiasco
• Liar, liar pants on fire.
• Obama’s Far Left Past Exposed by New Book
• Google Earth Spots Guided Missiles Near Damascus
• Post Office Bankrupt And Getting Worse

Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver, the quintessential 1950s sitcom mom on “Leave It to Beaver,” from 1957 to 1964 has died.  She was 94.  ”Leave It To Beaver” is the longest continuously running  show in TV history seen in some 40 countries.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Lebanon that Israelis are “the enemies of humanity” and are on their way to “annihilation.”

Ahmadinejad on Thursday visited the town of Bint Jbeil near the Israeli border, where Iranian-backed Hezbollah fought battles with Israeli soldiers in 2006, and told thousands of Hezbollah supporters: “The world should know the Zionists are mortal. Today the Lebanese nation is alive and is a role model for regional nations.

“The world should know that Bint Jbeil is proud and will stand against the enemies till the end.”

Then during a visit to the nearby village of Qana, Ahmadinejad - who refuses to refer to Israel by name - said: “You are victorious and your enemies are defeated.

“You will stay and your enemies, who are the enemies of humanity, are on their way to demise and annihilation. You are honored and your Zionist enemies are humiliated and weak.”

During his visit to Lebanon, Ahmadinejad met at the Iranian embassy in Beirut with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who has rarely emerged from his bunker since the 2006 war in Lebanon, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Nasrallah gave Ahmadinejad a gun he claimed had been taken from Israeli soldiers during the war.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Ahmadinejad was “transforming Lebanon into a platform for his aggressive plans against Israel.”

Rare earths gained me a failing grade on a quiz in undergraduate school when asked to list and spell them. I couldn’t and I flunked.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.

Seeing weakness,  indecision, and even a  sympathic  White House China is set to tighten its hammerlock on the market for some of the world’s most obscure but valuable minerals. Rare earth elements consist of a group of 15 metals. In most cases and usage patterns in the modern economy, these 15 elements are oxides. The names of the elements are Cerium, Dysprosium, Erbium, Europium, Gadolinium, Holmium, Lanthanum, Lutetium, Neodymium, Praseodymium, Samarium, Terbium, Thulium, Ytterbium, and Yttrium.

Their uses include: catalytic converters and larger-scale equipment to reduce the sulfur oxide emissions; to increase refining outputs; strong permanent magnets. Cell phones, portable CD players, computers and most modern sound systems would not exist in their current form without using neodymium magnets, increasing fuel efficiency and a plethora of civilian and military uses,

Skip to next paragraphChina currently accounts for 93 percent of production of these so-called rare earth elements - and more than 99 percent of the output for two of these elements, dysprosium and terbium, vital for a wide range of green energy technologies and military applications like missiles.

Like the Mideast has oil, China has rare earth elements. As OPEC has done with oil, China is now starting to flex its muscle. In fact China now has controlling interest in Australian rare earth deposits,

Even tighter limits on production and exports, part of a plan would ensure China has the supply for its own technological and economic needs, and force more manufacturers to make their wares in China in order to have access to the minerals.

In each of the last three years, China has reduced the amount of rare earths that can be exported. This year’s export quotas are on track to be the smallest yet. But what is really starting to alarm Western governments and multinationals alike is the possibility that exports will be further restricted.

China has adopted a much more aggressive stance staking claims to lasgre section of the South China Sea, contesting Japan for islands off its coast and supporting North Korea’s deadly attack on a South Korean frigate.

Bill O’Reilly appeared on “The View” and Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg stormed off the stage. You would think people named Joy and Whoopi would be more cheerful and happy. - Jimmy Kimmel

Academy Award-winning director James Cameron - whose movies have featured. Arnold Schwarzenegger - on Friday pledged $1 million to oppose Proposition 23, a measure that would suspend the state’s landmark climate change law until unemployment drops to normal..

Cameron joins environmental groups, green tech advocates and financiers who already had lined up with Schwarzenegger in opposing the measure. The director’s contribution signals the governor’s growing role in protecting the greenhouse gas reduction law, a significant part of his policy legacy.

Schwarzenegger, who signed the climate change law in 2006 and has referred to Proposition 23 backers as “greedy Texas oil companies,” starred in several Cameron productions, including the “Terminator” films and “True Lies.”

The 56-year-old Cameron won an Oscar for “Titanic.” His most recent film, “Avatar,” offered a pro-environment message. Business interest say the Proposition will deepend Cal;ifoprnia’s already high 12/4% rate of unemployment and increase the number of businesses fleeing the state (151 left in the first ten months of 2010.)

“Mr. Cameron is not only a filmmaker with a conscience, whose environmentally themed Avatar rocked the world box office, but he is willing to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to this important fight for California jobs and our clean energy future,” said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for the No on 23 committee.

The “Yes” group proposes the law, its taxes and fees not be implemented until unemployment falls to 5.5%.

An elderly woman had just returned to her home from an evening of church services when she was startled by an intruder. She caught the man in the act of robbing her home of its valuables and yelled, “Stop! Acts 2:38!” (Repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.)

The burglar froze in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.

As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar, “Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a scripture to you.”

“Scripture?” replied the burglar. “She said she had an ax and two 38’s!”

It is likely apocryphal but, it is still worth a smile.

In the race for California’s  Lt. Governor a Hispanic (or as he says a Mexican), Abel Maldonado, a self-styled moderate - some say liberal –Republican being challenged by the arch-liberal Gavin Newsom, San Francisco’s  Mayor has tightened up. Newsom’s lead in the polls has shrunk to 4 points and reflects a distinct geographic  bias.

 In a September 29, 2010 statewide poll Newsom had a 4 point advantage  - it was 9% in July.  Newsom holds a big preference advantage among his rank-and-file Democratic Party voters (65% to 11%), who constitute 44% of likely voters in November. Maldonado is an even bigger choice of Republicans Party voters (69% to 4%), who account for 35% of the likely electorate. The deciding ingredient is among the 21% of voters registered as non-partisans or with a minor party, Newsom is favored 41% to 28%, with 31% undecided. So, turnout will be key.

There are big differences in voter preferences by region of the state. Newsom is preferred 54% to 30% among likely voters in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area and also holds a fifteen-point advantage in Los Angeles County (42% to 27%). Central Valley voters are heavily favoring Maldonado over Newsom 47% to 28%. Voters in Southern California outside of Los Angeles are backing Maldonado narrowly (37% to 32%). 71% of votes will be cast in the Bay, LA and San Diego regions.

 Newsom was elbowed out of his bid for Governor by Jerry Brown, et. al. with a promise of lots of money to run for Lt. Governor to set him up to win in 2014 or 2018 at the worst. Brown will be 76 in 2014 and termed out if he somehow would be reelected. Brown and the Democrats have come through with raising nearly $2.5 million as of October 7.

Maldonado was appointed by Schwarzenegger. But, he nor Republicans have anted for him as he has raised just $1.3 million including a personal loan of $100,000

 Newsom and Maldonado are each just 43-years old so they have a long time to politic.

 Democrats don’t appear likely to get much help on Nov. 2nd from Hispanic voters, who comprise more than 9 percent of the nation’s electorate and tend to vote Democratic. Recent polls indicate that Latinos are less enthusiastic about next month’s election than other voting groups, due to frustration over the way the president and Congress have handled immigration and the economy.  A third of Californians are Hispanic but, only a fifth of its voters who are mostly in southern California.

American businesses added just 64,000 jobs last month, a significant drop from the 93,000 jobs added in August and the 117,000 added in July, the Labor Department reported last week.

Particularly disconcerting to economists is the fact that the length of the workweek has hardly budged in six months. If businesses aren’t giving more work to their existing employees, economists say, it may be a while before they’ll be able to justify additional hiring.

“We’re looking for companies to get more confident in the pace of recovery and start to hire around 150,000 jobs a month, which is what we need just to keep the unemployment rate flat,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “But I just don’t see that happening between now and the end of the year.”

 At the same time that private-sector hiring is slowing, public-sector jobs are disappearing at a record pace. The government shed 159,000 jobs at all levels in September. Seventy-seven thousand of those job losses were the result of the census5winding down. But local governments cut workers at the fastest rate in nearly 30 years, shedding 76,000 jobs, mostly in education.”We need to wake up to the fact that the end of the stimulus has really hit hard on local governments,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project. “There is much more of a slide in the job market than what we really need to clearly turn around.” With the waning of federal stimulus funding,getting new economic recovery measures through Congress has proven difficult. President Obama’s repeated calls for infrastructure projects and tax incentives have been met with opposition from Republicans over deficit concerns. Even the word “stimulus” eems to have become politically toxic in the run-up to the midterm elections. When asked what policies Congress should consider to bolsterjob creation, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Baloney (D-NewYork), who leads Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, responded, “What’s important now is to get Democrats re-elected.”

 With Congress likely to remain in partisan stalemate until at least November,

Federal Reserve officials may take more unconventional monetary policy measures

to try to spur hiring and discourage deflation. Since interest rates are already near

zero, the expectation is that the Fed will buy long-term bonds, driving down rates

and potentially making consumers and businesses more willing to spend. Confidence

about the likelihood of Fed action among analysts and investors drove up the major

stock market indexes last week, sending the Dow over 11,000 for the first time since May

Brett Favre was hit in the groin with a football during practice. He didn’t go to the doctor, he just sent a picture-Craig Ferguson

Hizbullah has received training in the operation of an advanced Iranian-origin solid-fuel rocket as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad carried through on plans to confront Israel during his visit to Lebanon.

 Pro-Western parliamentarians have expressed concern that Ahmadinejad’s visit, which on Oct. 11 was extended from two to three days, would signal an impending Hizbullah war with Israel. They did not rule out that Hizbullah would use Ahmadinejad’s visit to further erode the authority of the Hariri government. “Hizbullah wants to maintain quiet until Ahmadinejad’s visit to Beirut, and then resume the war against us,” Antoine Andreius, the deputy chairman of the ruling Future Movement, said.

Arab officials said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been training Hizbullah to operate the Fateh-110 solid-fuel guided missile carrying a 600 kilogram (272 pound) high explosive warhead. It is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that so far Iran is not believed to possess. Using a nuke on Israel would ensure retaliation as it is believed to have at least 80 warheads although it has never confirmed it has sny.

IRGC instructed scores of Hizbullah fighters on Fateh-110 in 2010 as part of preparations for war against Israel.

Fatah-110 has been deemed one of Iran’s most advanced rockets. The nine-meter-long solid-fuel weapon, displayed by the Iranian military in August 2010, was said to have a range of 200 kilometers.

“The test was successful, and  [Hizbullah] units that participated returned to their bases in Lebanon,” an official said.

On Sept. 19, the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai Al Aam said Fateh-110 could be used in Hizbullah rocket attacks on critical facilities in Israel. The newspaper, quoting officials, cited power stations and other targets.

So far, officials said, Hizbullah has been training with Fateh-110 in Iran. They said Hizbullah was believed to have received the rocket in Lebanon but could not test the weapon out of concern of Israeli detection.

Jerry Brown is extending his lead over Meg Whitman in the California gubernatorial race now leading her 50-44%. If he pierces 50% it is a very bad sign for Whitman.

Despite spending tens of millions Whitman has been unable to knock the septuagenarian Brown out of his walker. The quinquagenarian (56-year-old) Whitman is running out of time.

Whitman accepted accepted Brown’s apology for someone in his campaign calling her a whore. The National Organization for Woman (NOW) that endorsed Brown after the comment now says Whitman was properly labeled. 

West Virginia’s Governor and Democratic U. S. Senate candidate Joe Manchin has gone from approving the new healthcare law to saying he would support repeal of it if the law can’t get it fixed.

In California Congresswoman Capps called Obamacare a “big gamble” and might well have to be fixed.

“The president’s plan - Obamacare, as it’s been called - is far too reaching. It’s overreaching. It needs to have a lot of it repealed,” Manchin says. “If you can’t fix that, repeal the whole thing.”

It is unknown what motivated Capps’ comment except for a poll that showed over half the voters in her district looking for an alternative to her.

Manchin appears likely to lose Robert “KKK” Byrd’s Senate seat that he held for half a century.

100,000 homes foreclosed in September; one hundred thousand and one if you count Nancy Pelosi’s seat in the House.

A New Jersey car dealer plans to keep his word after offering Florida pastor Terry Jones a new car if he promised to not burn a Koran.

Brad Benson made the offer in one of his dealership’s quirky radio ads.

He says he was surprised when a representative for Jones called to collect the 2011 Hyundai Accent.

Jones never burned a Koran but he tells The Associated Press that the offer of a car was not the reason. He says he learned about the offer a few weeks after Sept. 11.

The Gainesville, Fla., pastor says he plans to donate the car to an organization that helps abused Muslim women.

Jones must pick up the car in person, although a handover date has not been set.

Benson asked radio listeners for advice and says a majority of callers told him to honor his promise to the preacher.

Vice President Joe Biden says that President Obama has asked him to run with him in 2012. So on behalf of all late night hosts, thank you Mr. President.– Leno

Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and other banks and mortgage companies are backing away for foreclosing on homes in a widening scandal. In Septrember over 100,000 homes were foreclosed nationwide.

Some banks hired offshore companies in Guam and the Phillipines to prepare,often flawed  foreslosure documents, and then hired so-called robo-signers to scribble signatures on documents they did not prepare, understand or could attest to.

 Attorney generals in all 50 states are said to be at least investigating imrproperly foreclosed homes. So far no arrest have been made or charges brought. But, you can be certain there are years of civil litigation ahead.

My father-in-law , who was treasurer of a major thift in Wellesley, Mass told me of being offer any foresloced house in the 1930s for $100 down and takig over the loan payments = describiong it as disasterous.

 At a rally in Lebanon Thursday under an enormous photograph of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,were the words loosely translated from Arabic “yes we can.” He was there to whip up Hesbollah. Ahmadinejad predicted the demise of arch-foe Israel from a Hezbollah stronghold in south Lebanon, just miles from the Jewish state.

With the campaign season in full swing, voters are more cynical than ever about the promises politicians make on the campaign trail. But Democrats are far more trusting than Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 81% of Likely U.S. Voters now say that most politicians do not keep their campaign promises. That’s up five points from 76% in November of last year.

 Only seven percent (7%) think most do keep their campaign promises, but 12% more aren’t sure.

Half (50%) now believe that when politicians break campaign promises, it’s because they deliberately made a false promise to get elected. Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree and say unforeseen events after they took office forced them to break their promises.

 Yet while 61% of both GOP voters and those not affiliated with either of the major parties think the politicians made deliberate false promises, 56% of Democrats say unforeseen circumstances forced them to break those promises.

Similarly, 61% of Mainstream voters say after they’re elected politicians break promises that were deliberately false. But 58% of the Political Class think the politicians were forced to break the promises because of unforeseen events. 

 Left wing co-hosts Joy Bahar and Whoopi Goldberg made fools of themselves by storming off the set of The View Thursday in personal disagreement with show guest Bill O’Reilly. Barbara Walters was clearly unnerved and chastised them for their antics, and they returned soon thereafter. Both should be given a few weeks off to think whether they can act as adults or not.

Paul Kengor a professor at Grove City College, in Western PA and the executive director of its Center for Vision and Values, writes that “The Communists could not succeed without the dupes.” His book is titled, Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. But the key question, is never completely answered in his book, is whether Barack Obama is a dupe - or something else.

It is Obama, generates the most controversy, based on a careful analysis of his associates and Communist Party USA mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Those who read Kengor’s book will wonder why they were not given this information during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Examining Obama’s run for president, Kengor says, in regard to the group, “Progressives for Obama,” that it reads “like a Who’s Who of the ’60s radicals called to testify before the House Committee on Internal Security.” That committee, Kengor notes, was the new version of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, started by Democrats with Republican support. That was a time when there was bipartisan agreement that communism was a threat to the American way of life. The committee was abolished by Congressional liberals.

With the hiring of avowed communist Van Jones by Obama, and his return to the Soros-funded Center for American Progress after his firing, it is clear that anti-communism is no longer a sentiment shared by the modern-day progressive movement. Jones was fired by the White House not for his communist beliefs but because questions about how he was hired - and by whom - were beginning to reach Obama and his advisor, Valerie Jarrett. That is when the media let the matter drop. It was getting too close for comfort to the White House.

If anything should come out of Kengor’s well-documented new book, Dupes, it should be a determination by the new Congress to re-establish the House Committee on Internal Security, so that all of the facts about radical subversion and communist networks in America should be exposed to public view. His book makes extensive use of the investigations from that and other congressional committees, as well as FBI files on prominent personalities. What is needed is up-to-date information from witnesses provided under oath.

Personally I do not know Mr. Kengor. I do know that Grove City can generally be described as a very conservative college. That does not make it or he good or bad. But, it is a context worth bering in mind.

In the 1970s Grove City’s cheer leaders were forbidden from moving their hips in a seductive manner giving rise to a subdued cheering style. Of course that neither adds nor detracts from Kengor’s argument and likely provide him a forum where he can raise such issues.

The Obama administration had lifted the six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, provided that the oil companies follow the new safety regulations. For example, there has to be at least one sober person on the rig at all times. - Leno

A Scud missile base has been detected near Damascus, the Syrian capital by Google Earth. The website shows construction of several military bases throughout Syria. One of the Syrian bases, located near Damascus, was believed to contain short- and medium-range Scud-class ballstic missiles.

“The photographs also suggest that Hizbullah activists are being trained at the base on the use of Scuds,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

The satellite images of the Syrian bases were said to have been taken in March. One of the largest missile bases, surrounded by hills 400 meters high, was reported near Adra, about 25 kilometers northeast of Damascus.

Israeli analysts said the Google Earth images confirm reports of a Syrian missile buildup as well as training of Hizbullah. The images show what appears to be Scud B, the medium-range Scud C as well as a mobile launcher at Adra, a base that includes concrete tunnels.

Scud B was said to have a range of 300 kilometers. Scud C’s range was reported at 550 kilometers.

Israeli and Arab media reports assert that Syria was providing Hizbullah with Scuds as well as the M-600 rocket. The M-600 was said to have a range of 300 kilometers.

Adra was identified as a key Syrian supply base for Hizbullah. Western intelligence sources said Iran deployed scores of military personnel at Adra to facilitate the flow of missiles and rockets to Hizbullah bases in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley ithin striking distance of Israel.

“The long-range missiles Syria recently gave to Hizbullah are just the tip of the iceberg,” Israeli Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, the head of military intelligence’s research division, said in mid-2010. “Hizbullah already has thousands of rockets of all kinds and all ranges.”  

The Iranian president was in neighboring Lebanon last week exorting Hizbullah and in Syria he predicted Israel’s demise. The Damascus missile site is within range of TelAviv.

Much of the arms flowing into the area are from Iran.

Solferino (sol-fuh-REE-no) noun: Purplish red color. Etymology After Solferino, a village in northern Italy, where the Battle of Solferino was fought on June 24, 1859, resulting in forty thousand casualties in a single day. The color was named so because the dye of this color was discovered shortly after the battle, and supposedly the color represented how the battlefield appeared after the bloodshed. The immense suffering Henry Dunant witnessed in the Battle of Solferino inspired him to campaign, which led to the founding of the Red Cross.

USAGE:“Next season we will be drenched in solferino, their having exhausted rose, magenta and fuchsia in recent years.” Frances Cawthon; Most Kids Don’t Need to Know; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Jun 16, 1986.

Last year the average postal worker received about $79,000 in total compensation, compared to $61,000 for the average private sector employee. The U.S. Postal Service is close to maxing out its $15 billion line of credit with the Treasury and could run out of operating cash by the end of the year.

Labor accounts for 80 percent of the USPS’s costs - the Service has the second largest civilian workforce in the nation, behind only Wal-Mart - and 85 percent of workers are protected by the collective bargaining agreement.

“No-layoff” provisions protect most postal workers, forcing the USPS to lay off lower-cost part-time and temporary workers before it can fire a full-time employee.

Only 13 percent of USPS employees are part-time, compared to 53 percent for UPS and 40 percent for FedEx.

Despite the USPS’s difficulties, the American Postal Workers Union - which represents more than 200,000 workers - is in contract negotiations with the Service and union chief William Burrus insists a pay increase for his members is an “entitlement.” He said the union wants “more money, better benefits.”

An analysis by the CATO Institute says,  ”The postal unions are likely betting that in a worst case financial scenario for the USPS, policymakers will tap taxpayers for a bailout. Unfortunately, if recent history is a guide, they’re probably correct.