• “Food Justice” Assaults Happy Meals-Meaning?
• Iraqi Army Stages Biggest Exercise To Show Strength
• Daylight SavingsTime Version 2010
• Midterm Election Results: California Crazy
• New Civil War Looms In Sudan
• Docs Ready For Lameduck Session Fight on Medicare
• Last Two Tough Men From Treblinka Death Camp

Metro Goldwyn Mayer perhaps the studio most known from most nostalgic period in film has filed for bankruptcy. MGM maybe best remember for its iconic film “Gone With the Wind.”

Tuesday San Francisco voters advanced something called “Food Justice” banning fast food that includes a toy and has more than 600 calories and 30% fat content. Of course the ban targets McDonald’s popular Happy Meals which has Mickey D’s underwear in a bunch.

Turns out food justice is a gaggle of organizations and activists associations. At the core appears to be statements similar to: “Rich governments and corporations are buying up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.”

Amid all this are claims of obesity while others are undernourished and a quest to redistribute food and clean drinking water worldwide, while blaming the “rich” for the misdistribution and using food as a weapon.

The San Francisco episode is merely a contemporary domestic example. What else may be on the movement’s agenda is murky and politically messy.

Major Democrat contributors have told Obama to decide on his 2012 bid before yearend or risk losing their support. The demand reflects wide discontent, disappointment,  and profound concern.

The Iraqi military has concluded what officials termed its most advanced military exercise since 2003. The exercise was meant to demonstrate the ability of the Iraqi military and police to ensure security when the last U.S. troops leave in December 2011.

Commanders said this marked the most difficult combined arms exercise since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003.

Officials said NATO has been working with the Interior Ministry to train police assigned to protect energy facilities. They said the program envisioned the training of more than 1,100 officers, who would help guard crude oil sites in Basra and Kirkuk.

“This is an important program for both Iraq and NATO,” U.S. Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy chief of the Iraqi training program, said.

Under the NATO program, Iraqi cadets would undergo six weeks of basic training. Officials said the course, given by Italy’s paramilitary Carabinieri, would turn the top 25 cadets into Iraqi trainers.

“For Iraq, this training program will greatly increase the skills and capabilities of the oil police who secure Iraq’s critical oil infrastructure,” Barbero said.

Officials said each class would consist of 125 cadets, both from the police and military. They said NATO plans to hold nine courses until December 2011 and graduate 225 Iraqi instructors.

“The instructor training builds enduring, self-sustaining Iraqi capabilities to train oil police,” the U.S. military said on Oct. 26.

In August, NATO completed the training of 9,000 Iraqi officers as part of an effort to form a paramilitary force. The alliance said the training, focused on counter-insurgency and other skills, would continue through 2011.

“The last batch, consisting of 530 servicemen, has concluded the basic training course that would allow them to move on to other areas of expertise,” NATO deputy commander Gen. Claudio Angelini said.  

Comminate (KOM-uh-nayt) verb tr.: To threaten with divine punishment; to curse. Etymology: Back-formation from commination, from com- (intensive prefix) + minari (to threaten). Ultimately from the Indo-European root men- (project), which is also the source of minatory, menace, mountain, eminent, promenade, demean, amenable, and mouth. Earliest recorded use: 1611. USAGE: “I think he deserves comminating, don’t you? Nancy said people like that ought to be put down, didn’t you, Nancy?” Mollie Hardwick; Malice Domestic; Fawcett; 1992.

Sunday at 2AM Americans will turn their clocks back an hour to so-called Standard Time.

The phrase “Spring forward, Fall back” helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of Standard Time (”Spring forward,” even though Spring doesn’t begin until late March, several weeks after the start of Daylight Saving Time). We “Fall back” at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November (that’s this Sunday, November 7) by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to Standard Time.

The change to Daylight Saving Time ostensibly allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours. During the eight-month period of Daylight Saving Time, the names of time in each of the time zones in the U.S. (map) change as well. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time, Central Standard Time (CST) becomes Central Daylight Time (CDT), Mountain Standard Time (MST) becomes Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), Pacific Standard Time becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and so forth.

Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time is four weeks longer since 2007 due to the passage of the Energy Policy Act in 2005. The Act extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, with the hope that it would save 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses during daylight hours. Unfortunately, it is exceedingly difficult to determine energy savings from Daylight Saving Time and based on a variety of factors, it is possible that little or no energy is saved by Daylight Saving Time.

Legend is the idea was advanced by Benjamin Franklin to give farmer’s more daylight. That is of course is absurd. As a farm boy the work day began when you could look beneath the sun as it rose in the East and ended when it touched earth in the west.

Russian skies are now open to light aviation—no longer is there a requirement to receive advance permission [hard to get] for every flight.

On Monday Gallup found a record 55% favoring Republicans compared to 40% supporting Democrats - a record gap. Except in California it came to pass with as many as 65 House seats shifting from Democrat to Republican the most in 70-years. Some of those races are not yet final. In any case that means the acerbic and wildly unpopular Nancy Pelosi (D) San Francisco gets flushed as House Majority leader.

The Senate stayed in Democrat hands with Nevada’s Harry Reid (D) eking out a victory as its majority leader but with six fewer votes.

In part as a result of two weak opponents’ campaigns ‘crazy’ Californians reelected Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown as Governor and Senator Barbara Boxer (D) and ratified AB32 the draconian job killing environmental bill, and lowered the threshold from 2/3rds to half to pass a spending bill. Every incumbent state senator or Assembly member on the ballot won re-election, whether they were Democrats or Republicans. In the Assembly, 35 incumbent Democrats and 17 Republicans won new two-year terms. Both Assembly leaders were re-elected.

Those results almost guarantee a continued and even accelerated flight of businesses and jobs out-of-the-state, and guarantees a frantic campaign to convince Obama to financially bailout the bankrupt state which will almost certainly provoke the ire of many.

Meg Whitman poured $150 million of her own money into her election bid added her name to the list of rebuffed billionaire California politicians.

With 27 governorships under their control and several more still up for grabs, Republicans appeared close to their goal of winning the top office in 30 states. The Republican dominance came even as they lost small states such as Rhode Island and Hawaii, along with population-rich California. That’s important for redistricting that takes place over the coming months as well as for the electoral college in 2012.

About the only flicker of sanity was California’s repudiation of the recreational use of marijuana and a local effort to raise sales taxes to build a second  jail in Santa Barbara County. In the City of Santa Barbara voters kept its assembly seat in Democrat hands while refusing to ban medical marijuana dispensaries inside the city.

The Republican rising star is Cuban-American Marco Rubio who is Florida’s new Senator-elect and already being touted as a VP candidate in 2012.

Tiger Woods’ career is collapsing. He is no longer ranked as the World’s top golfer.

Sudan, facing the prospect of southern secession, could be plunged into another civil war, a report said.

Khartoum’s opposes independence of the non-Muslim south. Sudanese President Omar Bashir has been supported by virtually all Arab states.

The Rift Valley Institute asserted that Sudan has been torn by disputes between the Khartoum regime and the semi-autonomous south that could lead to renewed war. The institute, which operates in Sudan and the Horn of Africa, cited delays in a referendum in January 2010 regarding whether the oil-rich region of Abyei should join the north or south.

“A disputed result would hold serious risks in terms of a potential return to north-south military confrontation,” the report, titled “Race  Against Time,” said. “Failure could mean a return to war.”

[On Oct. 31, the southern Sudanese army said the Khartoum regime has sent troops to conduct ambushes in the Upper Nile state. The southern army said the latest clash took place on Oct. 30 amid a military

buildup in the disputed Abyei region.]

“At this final stage, brinkmanship, delays and broken agreements - old traditions of Sudanese politics - threaten to turn the political and technical challenges of the referenda into a national disaster,” the report, authored by Aly Verjee, said.

On Jan. 9, 2011, Sudan was scheduled to present two ballots that could determine the future of Africa’s largest nation. Voters would cast ballots on Abyei as well as independence for southern Sudan, now controlled by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.

“Only concerted international attention and skillful diplomacy can bring the process of self-determination in Sudan to a successful conclusion,” the 65-page report said.

The report expressed doubt whether the Jan. 9 referendum would be held. Verjee cited numerous delays, disputes on voter eligibility and lack of preparations for fair and transparent elections.

“The most critical area of potential dispute in the registration process will be the registration of southerners in northern Sudan,” the report said. “There are very large numbers of southerners living in the cities of the north.”

The report warned that elections could be marred by violence throughout the south. Verjee said southern police remain poorly equipped and trained to ensure election security, which could enable SPLA domination.

“Violence could easily prevent the Abyei vote from proceeding, and there could be spillover from problems in Abyei into Warrap and Unity states, affecting the southern referendum as well,” the report said. “Some Southern Sudanese interviewees expressed fears that if stalling the referenda is no longer possible, and secession appears inevitable, a desperate NCP [ruling northern party] would encourage or fund proxy forces to destabilize strategic areas of Southern Sudan and Abyei.”

Chevy’s $41,000 electric “Volt” is being labeled the new Edsel amid revelations it doesn’t deliver the promised miles per charge, cost far too much even with a $7,500 taxpayer paid credit, and is generally a dud. Critics point to it as a prime example of a product of “Government” Motors mandated by bureaucrats.

While most Americans focused on the midterm elections, the American Medical Association is gearing up for a life-or-death lame-duck congressional session scheduled to start Nov. 15. Unless Congress intervenes, payments to doctors for treating Medicare patients will be cut by 23 percent on Dec. 1 and another 6.5 percent on Jan. 1.

If Congress doesn’t block the looming payment cuts, “this will be a catastrophe,” the AMA President says, with more and more doctors leaving the program and seniors having a harder time getting in to see doctors.

Whatever happens in the lame-duck session, the new Congress is likely to have more doctors. There are 16 physicians in Congress, but dozens more are running for the House or Senate this year. That might provide more sympathy for the AMA on the issue, but the cost of fixing the formula may still be viewed as prohibitive.

According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, Obama is the most joked about political figure this year. After his election, Obama was the fourth most joked about political figure behind John McCain, George W. Bush, and Sarah Palin. There are few things worse for a politician than being laughed at.

Eighty-seven year old Kalman Teigman and his friend Samuel Wittenberg, also 87 are the last two survivors of the World War II NAZI Treblinka death camp. Teigman organized a revolt with stolen weapons, and although wounded escaped to join the Polish resistence surviving with scant few others.

When ask of his escape and survival Teigman says, “Chance, sheer chance. It wasn’t because of God. He wasn’t there. He was on vacation.

“Both men now live in Israel and strive  to tell the story of that place and its horrors where 875,000 mostly Jews were murdered.

Dentulous (DEN-chuh-lus) adjective: Having teeth. Etymology Back-formation from edentulous (toothless), from ex- (out of) + dens (tooth). Earliest recorded use: 1926.

The  U.S. has abandoned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri leaving the country vulnerable tp Iran incursion. Lebanon has lost Saudi Arabia and the United States as allies as the result of the Obama administration’s Iran policy.

At the same time Obama’s policies or lack thereof  has left the West with no coherent strategies to cope with Iran and Turkey, the two important powers in the greater Middle East.

Obama’s disconnects and betrayal of Israel is symbolized by the recent failure in Yemen even to gain approval from its president to kill or capture the man who engineered the 2009 Christmas airliner bomb plot and last weeks attempted UPS bombs shipment into the U. S.

Yemen refused an ultimatum from the Sauds and Obama to land a Marine force to do so. That force is cooling it heels in the Red Sea. While Obama huffs and puffs but nobody is listening.

His repudiation at the polls last Tuesday is seen as further evidence of a muddled, confused, ineffective presidency.

Mickey Rooney is celebrating his 90^th birthday. He is the the only person in history to appear in films in ten decades.