January 10, 2011

• Arizona Shooter and Other “Nutty” Connections
• Repealing ObamaCare Saves Over Half Trillion: CBO
• As U. S. Fades China-Japan Building Up
• Wither Sudan North vs. South
• Obama and O’Reilly TV Talk Before Super Bowl.
• Gates Cuts 47,000 Troops & F-35s
• ACLU - USSR Link Uncovered.
• Gasoline Up Production Drops Amid Obama Delays
• Good New Years Medical News
• Filibuster Facts and Fiction
• Anti-American Shiite Cleric Returns to Iraq
• “Birther” Rants During Reading of Constitution
• U. S. Sonar “Cloak” Described
• Ortodox - Coptics Celebrate Despite Threats.
• Cussing Legal In Quaker State
• Cleric Calls for Resistence as U. S. Troops Leave Iraq.

Some prominent bloggers and others wasted little time before politicizing the horrific and tragic shooting of a Arizona Democrat Congresswoman  in Arizona on Saturday. One linked it  to Sarah Palin. Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin wanted to “target” during the 2010 mid-term elections — which included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords’ district (among others) — DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas hatefully Tweeted: “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.”

Giffords’ Democratic colleague, Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, told Mother Jones magazine within hours after the rampage that the “political tone and tenor” created by Palin and the tea party movement had set the stage for the shooting.

America’s lexicon overflows with such references as “being on the bullseye” and “being targeted’ that harken back to its early days when citizens shouldered their own rifles to fight off oppression, defend themselves and enshrined their right to bear arms in the Constitution.

The shooting of the congresswoman, murder of six others and wounding of more by a deranged man has launched a festival of recrimination and sanctimony including a bizarre blaming of the late Ronald Reagan for ‘mainstreaming’ over 300,000 mental patients as a better alternative to their institutionalization.

Reports that the disturbed murderer:

• favored reading Mein Kampf and Das Kapital is raising anti-Semitism and anti-American motives, and
• He might have been connected with the anti-government organization American Renaissance that is connected to the white supremacist New Century Foundation Members typically espouse anti-Semitic and anti-government views.

The latter organizations deny any connection. So far there is only speculation to tie the shooter to any of this except allegedly shared language.

Some point out the right to be crazy is far better than Hitler’s idea of euthanizing the enfeebled. Conversely if connections to a hate group the dimensions are changed.

Gifford is reportedly in an induced coma to allow her brain to rest and begin to repair. Her neurosurgeon says the bullet did not damage critical parts of her brain.

A combat experienced Navy medic tells me Rep Gabrielle “Gabby” Gifford was “lucky” to have been shot in the temple and to have the bullet exit her forehead.

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet” — Abraham Lincoln

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in an email to Capitol Hill staffers says that repealing ObamaCare would reduce net spending by $540 from 2012 through 2021. That number represents the cost of the new provisions, minus Medicare cuts.

Repealing the bill would also eliminate $770 billion in taxes. It’s the tax hikes in the health care law (along with the Medicare cuts) which accounts for the $230 billion in deficit reduction.

A relevant part of the email says,

We have been asked to provide the revenue and direct spending components of that total.  Extrapolating the estimated budgetary effects of the original health care legislation and accounting for the effects of subsequent legislation, CBO anticipates that enacting H.R. 2 would probably yield, for the 2012-2021 period, a reduction in revenues in the neighborhood of $770 billion and a reduction in outlays in the vicinity of $540 billion, plus or minus the effects of forthcoming technical and economic

Many say every those enormous numbers are too low and that unless dramatically changed the national healthcare law, as currently configured, will costs trillions; eliminating jobs, and dragging the U. S. economy backwards.

Bumper sticker: “Lord walk beside me with one hand on my shoulder and the other over my mouth”.

Ancient Asian enemies reviving their centuries old rivalry with a wary eye on the U. S.

China has reportedly developed a prototype stealth fighter jet to rival its United States counterparts. now cancelled F-22.

Designated the J-20 is said to be years from final completion, according to Japanese media reports, but it is expected to eventually match the U. S.  F22 cancelled by Obama.

Stealth jets have radar-avoiding capabilities and China’s J-20 will reportedly be able to reach the US territory of Guam carrying large missiles. Guam, in mid-pacific is now the most forward U. S. base in the Pacific..

The People’s Liberation Army is in the process of a major modernisation and having stealth fighter jets would enable it to rival US airpower in the Asia-Pacific.

Japan approved building up its military forces in the face of growing threats from China and North Korea saying:  a “global shift in the balance of power has been brought about by the rise of emerging powers and relative change in the U.S. influence. Military modernization by China and its insufficient transparency are of concern for the regional and global community,” a Japanese summary states.

Additionally, the Japanese defense leaders stated that North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats “are immediate and grave destabilizing factors to the regional security.”

Japan also warns that the threat to Japan posed by “gray area” incidents is increasing. It defines such incidents as “confrontations over territory, sovereignty and economic interests which have not escalated into wars.”

One example is Japan’s recent confrontation with China over the Senkaku Islands, where a Chinese fishing boat rammed a Japanese coast guard vessel, setting off a diplomatic row that included threats from China and a cutoff of exports of Chinese rare-earth minerals used in high-tech manufacturing.

Other security dangers include what are described as “increasingly robust” Russian military activities.

Although no public notice was taken of it by U. S. media Russian jets interfered with a recent joint U.S.-Japan military exercise in the East Sea/Japan Sea less than a month ago, prompting Japan to scramble its jet fighters. The Russian jets temporarily disrupted the exercises.

On nuclear weapons Japan says it will “continue to maintain and improve credibility of U.S. extended deterrence, with nuclear deterrent as a vital element, through close cooperation with the U.S.”

Japan plans to increase its submarine force from 16 to 22 and will deploy missile defenses nationwide as a result of the growing threat from China and existing threat from North Korea.

China  denounced Japan’s new defense policy saying “No country has the right to appoint themselves the representative of the international community and make irresponsible comments on China’s development,”

In an apparent surprise to U. S. intelligence China has achieved early deployment of its anti-carrier DF-21D ASBM missile directed at denying U. S. aircraft carrier task groups in the western Pacific. The DF-21 is a two-stage, Mach 10, solid-propellant, single-warhead anti-ship ballistic missile with a range of at least 2,000 miles. The speed of sound is about 770 mph u nder nominal conditions..

China says its ASBM is not nuclear armed. But, experts say it could be fitted with a 500 kiloton nuclear warhead. A professor at the U.S. Naval War College says that carrier-killing missiles underscore that the U.S. can no longer assume naval supremacy in the western Pacific as it has since the end of World War II. There is little doubt China can scupper the U. S. Naval power there. The consequences will be profound and long lasting.

The national unemployment rate was dropped from 9.8% to 9.4% principally driven by the number of Americans who have simply stopped looking for a job. Smart alecks said that after only two day of a GOP takeover unemployment dropped by almost half a percent is a very good sign. That’s just a joke but it underscores the politics.

Sudan is the largest country in Africa and the Arab world physically more than a quarter the size of the USA and the tenth largest in the world. It has 45 million people, mostly in the north whose  median age is 18 years, and life expectancy is 58 years. (In the United States, the median age is 36 years, and life expectancy is 77 years.).

Tens  of thousands of southern Sudanese have travelled by river (the white Nile) and road back to their homeland to vote in the weeklong voting for permanent independence Voice of America’s website reported that before dawn on Sunday, the first day of voting, tens of thousands were already lined up to vote. 60% of the south’s voters must vote for it to be legally binding splitting the country. Only three times in the last 50 years has America achieved that rate including: 1960-63.1%; 1964-61.7% and 1968-60.8.

After gaining independence from Egypt and the United Kingdom in 1956, Sudan suffered 17 years of civil war followed by ethnic,  religious and  economic conflicts between the Northern Sudanese (with Arab, Muslim and Nubian roots), and the Christian and animist Nilotes of Southern Sudan. This led to a second civil war in 1983, and due to continuing political and military struggles, Sudan was seized in a bloodless coup d’état in 1989. Since 1983 the government has tried to impose Sharia law with bitter resistence from the 30% who are Christians or animist Nilotes.

Sudan is rich in crude oil, Sudan’s economy is currently amongst the fastest growing in the world because China and Japan are goobling up its oil.

After an Islamic legal code was introduced on a national level, the ruling National Congress (NCP) established themselves as the sole political party in the state and has since supported the use of recruited Arab militias in guerrilla warfare, such as in the ongoing bloody conflict in Darfur.

The politics of Sudan are widely considered by the international community to take place within an authoritarian military dictatorship that since independence largely non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese have oppose a largely Muslim  Arab north.

The final North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in January 2005, granted the southern ‘rebels’ autonomy for six years. That referendum to make that permanent was Sunday.

A separate conflict, which broke out in the western region of Darfur in 2003, has displaced nearly two million people and caused an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 deaths. The UN took command of the Darfur peacekeeping operation from the African Union on 31 December 2007. As of early 2009, peacekeeping troops were struggling to stabilize the situation, which has become increasingly regional in scope and has brought instability to eastern Chad.

Many fear the referendum could be stolen.

Homosexual groups are applauding new U. S. passports that drops reference to mother and father replacing them with parent one and parent two.Bill O’Reilly of Fox News will interview Obama on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb, 6, before the network’s NFL championship game broadcast. Obama talked with NBC’s Matt Lauer in 2009 and CBS’s Katie Couric in 2010 prior to those networks’ respective Super Bowl telecasts.

 

 Obama’s upcoming visit with O’Reilly will likely be shorter, friendlier, more sports-oriented and less substantive than his last visit. Then-candidate Obama spoke with the conservative commentator about war, the economy and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, among other topics, for a string of interview segments that aired on “The O’Reilly Factor” in the fall of 2008.

At this writing no time or length of the segment are known. Matt Drudge broke the initial story.

California taxpayers are paying to staff, office and support over 400 different agencies ranging to from sublime to the ridiculous. This alphabet soup costs tens of billions of dollars a year and despite claims and promises has increased staffs and costs in recent years regardless of California’s crippling deficits. Retread Cal Governor Brown cut a couple departments and promises more.

The Pentagon will have to cut spending by $78 billion over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday, forcing the Army and Marine Corps to shrink the number of troops on active duty by 47.000 and the Navy to make deep cuts, and all braches to end budget increases for five years. This comports with Obama’s directive to shrink U. S. forces. Some have expressed concerns that such cuts will handicap U. S. ready forces and mean significant cutbacks at home and elsewhere dismaying allies many of whom are already twitchy about U. S, reliability and now future capability.

Gates quickly cut and delayed orders for the F-35 fighter. The new plan is for 325 F-35 fighters over the next five years, 124 less than previously planned.  Obama almost immediately cut the air superiority F-22 stealth fight when he took office. Russia and China and pushing hard for their own fifth generation stealth fighters.

The U. S. will rely on the F-18 Hornet which was designed in the 1970s. It is still a capable fighter. But its capabilities are being eroded by adversarie’s efforts.

Lockheed Martin confirms the US Air Force has decided to retain tooling for the F-22 after the production line in Marietta, Georgia, shuts down as scheduled in 2012.

The decision means that USAF officials will be able to repair and modernise the  aircraft, or manufacture new Raptors.

Obama has capped the F-22 fleet at 187 aircraft. When USAF Generals said that risks America’s security Gates fired them.

President Obama plans to sign a $1.4 billion food safety bill. The most dangerous thing about American food? The portions. - Leno

Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.

Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.

The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.

Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.

In contemporary times the ACLU has tried to distance itself from Baldwin and its early leanings and activities with little success.

Caught sneaking so-called death panels back into regulations Obama has about-faced, and with a red face to boot on the issue, striking references to end-of-life planning as part of annual physical exams in a Medicare regulation that took effect Jan. 1, Obama had put it back by Executive order in early December.

Gasoline prices are edging toward $4 per gallon and that has been exceeded already in some locales as domestic production contuse to fall already down 13% in Gulf. .

Two months after the Obama announced he’s lifted his ban on drilling in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico, oil companies are still waiting for approval to drill the first new oil well there. Experts now expect the wait to continue until the second half of 2011, and perhaps into 2012.

The impact of the delays goes beyond the oil industry. The Gulf coast economy has been hit hard by the slowdown in drilling activity, especially because the oil spill also hurt the region’s fishing and tourism industries. The Obama administration in September estimated that 8,000 to 12,000 workers could lose their jobs temporarily as a result of the moratorium; some independent estimates have been much higher.

On December 4, 1857 Sam Colt started selling his COLT REVOLVER to the U. S. government beginning the iconic weapon’s rise to legendary status particularly in the American West.

After more than 30-years of trying breathalyzer technology has been made so sensitive that the gadgets will soon be in doctor’s offices where it can detect a few parts per billion in a patient’s breath detecting a variety of conditions and diseases like diabetes and even cancer.

Engineers and scientist at Indiaina’s Purdue University provided the backbone of the project.

In other medical news already this New Year comes good news about a blood test that can detect microscopic cancer cells and can be performed in a doctor’s office to detect a cancer or check on the outcomes of chemo, radiation and other therapies.

Millions of private capital is porring into the new test to establish and exploit it..

Ice Core Samples Prove 9,099 Out Of Past 10,500 Years Warmer Than 2010

Democrat Harry Reid wants to change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster because Republicans have enough votes to do it a more than enough to block Democrats. Most say he’ll regret it after the 2012 election when Republincans are favored to take the Senate majority.. A twitch is a so-called temporary rule change that could be reversed is Democrats make gains in the Senate in 2012.

Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster — from a Dutch word meaning “pirate” — became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.

In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could filibuster. As the House of Representatives grew in numbers, however, revisions to the House rules limited debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued on the grounds that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.

In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate’s right to unlimited debate.

Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of ultra-liberal President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as “cloture.” The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to Southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 57 day filibuster against the Civil Right Act of 1964.

In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current one hundred senators making filibustering more likely.

Many Americans are familiar with the filibuster conducted by Jimmy Stewart, playing Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra’s film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but there have been some famous filibusters in the real-life Senate as well. During the 1930s, Senator Huey P. Long effectively used the filibuster against bills that he thought favored the rich over the poor. The Louisiana senator frustrated his colleagues while entertaining spectators with his recitations of Shakespeare and his reading of recipes for “pot-likkers.” Long once held the Senate floor for 15 hours. The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina’s J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Happiness is being healthy and having a bad memory, Claudette Colbert (1903-1996).

Anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, 37, one of Iraq’s most controversial and powerful figures, returned to Iraq last Wednesday after operating from Iran for more than three years, a homecoming that promises an unwelcome new headache for both the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

Mr. Sadr considers the U.S. government the root of all evil in the world and remains vehemently opposed to meaningful ties with America.

Before leaving Iraq, Mr. Sadr was known for his fiery anti-American sermons during Friday prayers at the main mosque in Kufa, near Najaf. He played a decisive, in absentia role in helping Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki win a second term and eventually assemble a government.

Reaction to Mr. Sadr’s arrival was largely muted inside his traditional bases of support in impoverished neighborhoods in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite south. But his presence in Iraq, particularly if prolonged, is sure to present fresh challenges for both Baghdad and Washington as they prepare for the full withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of December and attempt to lay the foundations for long-term security, economic and cultural cooperation.

“Sadr is the leader of an Iraqi political party that won a number of seats in the March [2010] election,” U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in a briefing. “His return is a matter between him and the government of Iraq.”

The first question is whether Sadr will stay, or go back to Iran. Sadrist officials said the Maliki government has guaranteed his safety and freedom from arrest. They say that whether his return becomes permanent depends on how things go, suggesting he is testing the waters.

But some of Sadr’s companions who escorted him from Iran gave the impression he is there to stay, a Sadrist official said. Sadr himself has not made any public announcement of his plans.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs is leaving his White House post soon after the State of the Union address set for January 25, 2011 - he will likely leave in early February. An Auburn, Alabama native and fan he promises to toilet paper a White House tree if Auburn beats Oregon and win the national championship tonight.

When the clock hit 11:31AM Thursday morning  and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) was reading from Article II, Section 1, the mandate that only a “natural-born citizen” may be elected president.

A woman rose in the public gallery and shouted: “Except Obama! Except Obama! Help us, Jesus! My name is Theresa.. . .”

But before the “birther” could say her surname, she was taken out by Capitol police.

When things got back to order members continued and finished reading the entire Constitution. There was a minor rift over reading it in its orginal or amended form. The latter prevailed.

The very liberal Ellen Weiss, Senior VP for news at NPR has “voluntarily” resigned. She is the person who fired Fox News commentator Juan Williams. Questions linger about whether the “policy” leading to Williams termination will be evenly applied. Vivian Schiller NPR President and CEO remains but will not get her yearend bonus. NPR’s Board expressed confidence in Schiller who had suggested Williams needed a psychiatrist.

An independent investigation found NPR did nothing illegal in firing Williams but that the incident was not handled well. Af teer Weiss’ resigned Williams said NPR’s culture is highly ingrown if not incestuous that manages the news to fit its internal views.

Led by mechanical science and engineering professor Nicholas Fang, and other University of Illinois researchers have demonstrated an acoustic cloak, a technology that renders underwater objects invisible to sonar and other ultrasound waves.

“We are not talking about science fiction. We are talking about controlling sound waves by bending and twisting them in a designer space,” said Fang, who also is affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. “This is certainly not some trick Harry Potter is playing with.”

While materials that can wrap sound around an object rather than reflecting or absorbing it have been theoretically possible for a few years, realization of the concept has been a challenge. In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, Fang’s team describe their working prototype, capable of hiding an object from a broad range of sound waves.

The cloak is made of metamaterial non-naturally occurring materials engineered to do specific “unnatural” things. A lot of recent talk has been about sonar undetectable submarines. Fang’s team designed a two-dimensional cylindrical cloak made of 16 concentric rings of acoustic circuits structured to guide sound waves. Each ring has a different index of refraction, meaning that sound waves vary their speed from the outer rings to the inner ones.

Most think this has been a scientific probability, and so research into other detection techniques have been proposed and tested for decades. One can almost imagine the interests from U. S. adversaries to steal this still secret technology. Hopefully it is being tightly secured.

Although the gadget uses metamaterial it differs significantly from the invisibility cloak except that it too redirects, in its case light around an object, but there are conceptual similarities.

A morose Associated Press 1922 article published by the Washington Post reported on higher temperatures producing a shrinking ice cap, dirth of ice bergs and other dramatic climate changes including uninhabitable coastal cities by midcentury.  None of which came to pass.

A village on Long Island’s “gold coast” is banning smoking on public sidewalks in front of businesses. Violators could face a $1,000 fine.

The Great Neck village board approved the ban Tuesday night. It claims to be the first municipality in the state to enact such a restriction. Neighboring New York City is currently considering a smoking ban in parks and pedestrian plazas.

Last Fall a poll of over, 2000 City of Santa Barbara residents found a large majority supporting a comprhensive smoking ban and imposing taxes of $5 per pack of cigarettes and $3 oer cigar sold in the city.

A pack of cigarettes now costs $11 in New York City and that will increase soon to $14.50 per pack.

Twenty-three year veteran ESPN reporter Ron Franklin has been fired for calling a female sideline reporter an A**hole”  and referring to her as “sweet baby” in a private conversation before the Fiesta Bowl game last Friday. His firing came after he was not contrite enough. Franklin got in hack in 2005 for calling another woman “sweetheart.”

Egypt’s Christians celebrated Eastern Orthodox Christmas Eve on Thursday, January 5, despite their mourning and anger over a New Year’s Day bomb attack on a church that killed 25 Copts and their fears of more violence.

Rumors had earlier spread that Coptic Pope Shenouda III would cancel this year’s Christmas festivities. But despite Copts’ grief over the victims of the Alexandria bombing, the 87-year-old pope announced that celebrations would go on as scheduled.

“Of course we feel sadness, and the bombings will leave their mark on all Copts,” said Mina Emil, a Coptic banker. “But we will not allow this to overshadow our celebrations.”

Orthodox Christmas in the Holy Land and worldwide continues this week with Orthodox Christians celebrating their holidays and most of their services and festivities taking place on Christmas Jan. 6. About 8 million of Egypt’s 80 million residents are Orthodox or Coptic Christians.

Websites, preportedly al Qaeda connected , listed the address of Coptic churches as targets for attacks. .

Greek, Syrian, Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox Christians will converge at Manger Square in Bethlehem for their Christmas nearly two weeks after the Catholic and Protestant celebration of the holiday.

The disparity in the dates stems from the year 336 when Roman Emporer Constantine declared Christianity the empire’s religion. Eastern churches continued to commemorate Christmas on January 6 as the date for Christ’s birth and his baptism, which up till then was celebrated as part of the Epiphany, the observance of the Magi arriving to see Jesus. The Western church continued to celebrate the Epiphany on Jan. 6 separate from Christmas and the Eastern churches celebrate the Epiphany on  Jan. 18.

Then in the 16th century Pope Gregory devised a new calendar. The Eastern Orthodox and some Protestants retained the Julian calendar, which meant celebrating Christmas 13 days later than their Gregorian counterparts.

Ortodox churches in the U. S. were also on alert. No major incidents were reported.

Borders bookstores are struggling to stay in business. This could be the first time in our country that borders are actually closed. - Leno

Pennsylvania State Police will stop arresting folks for cussing.  Two people a day were arrested last year for their blue language but thanks to an ACLU lawsuit that has ended. The ACLU argued profanity is protected speech under the Constitution..

“Besides being a waste of police resources, these types of citations are often used by police to ‘punish’ people who argue with them.” Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

Police officers will be told they can no longer ticket people who use profane words or gestures, even if they are directed at the officers.

The brouhaha started when a Luzerne County woman reported a motorcycle incident and was cited for using the profanity. The motorcyclist was also ticketed, the ACLU said.

Pennsylvania’s disorderly conduct statute carries a possible 90-day jail term and $300 fine. The woman paid $1,500 to fight the ticket, while the deliveryman lost $560 in wages and had to pay a $75 towing fee, the suits stated.

Quaker State trooper issued about 750 citations for profanity last year charging disorderly conduct.

The candidacy of Mormon Mitt Romney will become a battle for the pews particularly in the South- pundits predict. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saint (LDS or Mormon) is reportedly the fastest growing sect in the USA.

Radical Shiite cleric al-Sadr back in Iraq for a week said Saturday his followers in Iraq were still resisting the U.S. “enemy” with all means, including military. But he tempered his fiery words by saying the new Iraqi government should be given a chance to get American forces out of the country in a “suitable” way.

“Let the whole world hear that we reject America. No, no to the occupier,” al-Sadr said during his 35-minute speech in Najaf, a holy Shiite city about 100 miles south of Baghdad. “We don’t kill Iraqis - our hands do not kill Iraqis. But we target only the occupier with all the means of resistance,” he added.

He left open the possibility that some 50,000 U.S. troops set to leave Iraq at the end of this year could be targeted.

“We are still resisters and we are still resisting the occupier militarily and culturally and by all the means of resistance.”