• On Eve of Martin Luther King (1929-1968) Day No Unity
• Little Interest In Pro Football Talks
• Iran Has Hamas Armed To Teeth
• Obama/Gates Dangerous F-22 Blunder
• China Rethinks No First Use Policy.
• Harry Reid’s SS Delusion
• Texas Republican Senator Won’t Run In 2012
• SBA Jobs Bunkum
• Many Magnetic North Myths
• Issa “Investigator-In-Chief”
• Prosecuting Medical Quakery
• Billions In New Taxes Hidden Inside Obamacare
• ‘Big One’ Likely To Be Storm Than Quake

States have borrowed $41 billion from the federal government to help them pay benefits to millions of unemployed people, a debt that federal officials say could rise to $80 billion. Now the U. S. Treasury wants its money back and is billing state $1.3 billion in interests.

33% of Adults rate race relations in America today as good or excellent, while 15% rate them as poor. Only 38% of Americans think race relations are getting better. Twenty-nine percent (29%) think relations are getting worse, and just as many (29%) think they are staying the same.  

In January 2009, the month the nation inaugurated its first African-American president, 70% of voters said relations between blacks and whites were getting better. By October of that year, in the face of increasing opposition to President Obama’s policies, just 36% said the same, with nearly as many (33%) who said they were staying about the same and 27% who felt relations between the races were getting worse.

A plurality (43%) of Americans also don’t believe that celebrating King’s birthday as a national holiday helps improve racial tolerance in the country. Thirty-two percent (32%) say that it does, and another 25% are not sure.

Not surprisingly, there is a racial divide in the responses to these questions but not a wide one. While 35% of white Americans rate race relations today as good or excellent, for example, just 28% of African-Americans and 25% of adults of other backgrounds agree.

Similarly, 41% of whites say race relations are getting better, but only 28% of blacks and 29% of those of other races feel the same. Blacks are slightly more inclined than whites and those of other race to feel race relations are getting worse.

Most adults (53%) of other races and a plurality of whites (44%) do not think honoring King with a national holiday promotes racial tolerance. But nearly half (47%) of blacks disagree.

Archibald Alexander Leach’s 106^th birthday would have been tomorrow. You likely better  know him by his stage name Cary Grant, he was an English-American actor. With his distinctive yet not quite placeable Mid-Atlantic accent, he was noted as perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man: handsome, virile, charismatic, and charming. He died in 1986.

No NFL football in 2011?  This is a possibility, but professional football fans don’t appear to be paying much attention and they have mixed feelings on whether it will actually happen.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that one out of three professional football fans (33%) are following the current labor negotiations between the NFL owners and the players association.  A solid majority (65%) are not following these negotiations closely.

 As I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the retread Cleveland Browns as the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL playoff game Saturday  I could not help but recall Pittsburgh sportscaster Myron Cope,  born Myron Sidney Kopelman (January 23, 1929 - February 27, 2008), “the voice of the Steelers” who encouraged fans to bring and wave yellow dishtowels to the 1975 playoff game with the then Baltimore Colts launching  the “Terrible Towel.” Today it is arguably the best known fan symbol in pro sports. Cope gave his license to sell the Terrible Towels to the Allegheny Valley School for children with disabilities where his own  autistic son was enrolled.  AVS  has received millions of dollars from Terrible Towel  sales and licensing since.

As troops are massing on both side of the Lebanon-Israel border comes disturbing news that Iran has armed Hamas in Gaza in what some see as planning for a two front war against Israel. Looming over everything there is Russia’s Putin who has put the former Soviets in a front row seat in Lebanon, Iran and Syria in what is being called “a very negative role.”

 In a report, the Israeli agency, responsible for domestic intelligence, asserted that Iran smuggled missiles, mortars and rockets to Hamas and Palestinian militias in Gaza..

“In 2010, Iran continued to be the main driving force behind Hamas and Hizbullah activity,” ISA (Israeli Security Agency) said.

The agency said Iran supplied about 1,000 mortar shells to the Gaza Strip in 2010. ISA said Iran also sent several hundred short-range rockets to the Hamas regime and its Palestinian militia allies. In addition, Teheran smuggled “a few dozen anti-tank missiles over the past year,” the report said.

The report, released on Dec. 30, did not identify the weapons. But officials said they included the Iranian-origin Fajr-3 surface-to-surface rocket and the Russian-origin AT-14 anti-tank guided missile. Russia has also sold the man-portable anti-tank missile to: Syria, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, Morocco, Algeria and Greece

Most of the smuggled surface-to-surface rockets were said to have a range of between 20 and 40 kilometers. ISA said Hamas also acquired “several dozen anti-aircraft weapons,” but did not elaborate.

In late December, Israel’s military reported the destruction of a Merkava (Chariot) Mk-4 main battle tank by an AT-14 Kornet missile. The attack marked the first Hamas anti-tank operation with the Kornet, regarded as one of the advanced weapons in the world.

The attack prompted a decision by the Israel Army to install the Trophy active protection system in the Merkava fleet. ISA has determined that Hamas acquired around 50 of the Russian=made Kornets from Iran.

ISA said Iran was sending weapons to the Gaza Strip through smuggling routes in Egypt and Sudan. The report said Iran was also training Hamas operatives in facilities in Lebanon and Syria.

Still, Hamas and its Palestinian militia allies were said to have significantly reduced mortar and rocket attacks toward Israel. In 2010, Israel reported 150 rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, down from 569 in 2009.

“The Sinai Peninsula has turned into the backyard for Hamas operations as well as for storage of weapons that can later be smuggled into Gaza and used against Israel,” the report said. “As long as the weapons are in the Sinai they are not vulnerable to Israeli attacks.”

ISA said Hamas was also trying to reestablish its military infrastructure in the West Bank. The report said Hamas was focusing its efforts in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

“Hamas was making efforts to reestablish its military infrastructure in the West Bank with an emphasis on the Hebron area,” the report said. “Some of these efforts were thwarted by the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian Authority security forces.”

David Nelson, 74, has died of complications of colon cancer. David Nelson and his brother, Rick, joined their parents on ‘The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet’ on radio in 1949. The show moved to TV in 1952 and ran for 14 years. He was that famiiy’s last survivor

The weeklong referendum on southern Sudanese independence was the centerpiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended  21 years of warfare between north and south.  Many doubted whether the vote would take place, the preparations were supposed to be done over the course of three years.  Instead, it was thrown together in about four months. Last Saturday voting ended with some justdictions reporting 95% of those registered to vote having done so. The consensus is that independence won by a wide margin.

Except for some minor border skirmishes the process was suprisingly peaceful and orderly. Hurdles remain including certifying the results.

83 percent of registered voters had cast their votes in the south.  The numbers were much lower in the north, with only 53 percent of registered voters going to the polls.  But because only 116,000 people registered in the north, low turnouts there will not affect results, which required a sixty percent turnout to be valid. It appears that the required 60% threshold was achieved.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a speech urging Arab leaders to enact real reforms. Halfway through the speech, Arab leaders looked at each other and asked, “Why is a woman talking?” - Conan

The joke goes that ‘military intelligence is oxymoronic’ like a peace force or awfully good so when the head of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) disclosed yet another in a long line of blunders on China’s military this time revealing Beijing’s faster-than anticipated development of a stealth fighter there was little surprise..

The recent failure follows the U.S. intelligence community’s underestimation of more than a dozen Chinese military capabilities, ranging from new and quieter submarines to long-range cruise missiles and other asymmetric warfare capabilities.

They’ve entered operational capability quicker than we frequently project” said ONI admiral.. “We’ve been on the mark on an awful lot of our assessments, but there have been a handful of things we’ve underestimated.”

Recent photos of a new Chinese jet show “taxiing tests” on a prototype aircraft apparently photographed by people who saw it pass by.

China is reportedly trying to buy engines for its 4^th generation fighters causing ONI types momentary glee.

The faster development of the J-20 was first discussed by Chinese Gen. He Weirong, deputy commander of the Chinese air force last year. He predicted deployment as early as 2017.

The jet is expected to rival the U.S. F-22 superfighter whose production was frozen by Obama after 187 jets were built. In scrapping the F-22, Sec Def Gates stated publicly that one reason for his decision was that the Chinese would not deploy a comparable jet until 2020, thus more F-35 jets would be built instead of the F-22 now Gates’ logic looks hollow.

China’s  goal is to beat the F-22 and then build their own F-35 when the 18-ton thrust engine is ready. It is a full challenge to the U.S. strategy for air power.”

As for Pentagon claims that the Chinese are having problems developing an advanced engine for the jet, China is now ground-testing a new, more powerful jet engine and, as a result, could deploy the new suoer- jet by 2017 three full years earlier than previously thought.

Obama has the U. S. in sleep walking mode causing many to openly worry about the U. S. becoming second rate. Some are urging the U. S. to dust off its 6^th generation super fighter plane but few think Obama has the stomach for that while focusing on his vision for a remake of America domestically.

ONI’s current evaluation is that China is shifting from “hide and seek” to a “show and tell” strategy to be more intimidating and to use that to expand its influence worldwide. while Obama tucks tail.

California has 10 of the twelve most illiterate cities in the nation.  Nationwide 23 million American adults are functionally illiterate and 13% of all American 17-years-olds are too reading and writing at or below a sixth grade level.  85 percent of all juveniles in the juvenile court system are illiterate as are more than 60 percent of all adult prison inmates.

Eight percent of American whites, 24% of blacks, 11% of Asian and Pacific Islanders and 36% of Hispanics are below the basic literacy level. Only among Hispanics have basic literacy levels worsened since 1992. It is unclear if or how much language conflicts plays in that.

Secret documents show China’s military will consider conducting pre-emptive nuclear attacks if the government is faced with a critical situation in a war, internal documents uncovered in Japan reveal.

The policy is called “lowering the threshold of nuclear threats,” and appears to contradict China’s announced strategy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

The People’s Liberation Army’s strategic missile forces, or 2nd Artillery Corps, “will adjust the nuclear threat policy if a nuclear missile-possessing country carries out a series of air strikes against key strategic targets in our country with absolutely superior conventional weapons,” according to the documents, copies of which were obtained by Kyodo News.

The Pentagon has sought to engage China in strategic nuclear talks but Beijing has rebuffed the efforts.

China’s military leaders fear that engaging in nuclear discussions will help U.S. warplanners identify and thus target Chinese nuclear facilities for either kinetic or cyber attacks.

Most of China’s nuclear facilities are located in underground facilities in western China.

For decades analyst have debated whether China could survive a nuclear conflict and could “afford” a billion dead - cynics say it might even be better off if it did. Theere are ten Chinese for each American.

A 3:30AM, robocall awakened, alarmed and angered a man when he discovered it was a local school official telling him school would be delayed for two hours due to snow.  In retribution he commiaaioned his own thank you robocall to school board members and officials also at 3:30 AM. Point made.

Ten thousand baby boomers will retire every day for the next 19 years, which will double the number of those collecting SS benefits instead of paying taxes.

Yet an apparently delusional Senator Harry Reid (D) Nevada keeps claiming that Social Security is doing “just fine”.  Yet the system is bankrupt, Congress has stolen SS money since then President Lyndon Johnson.emptied its trust fund for his Great Society boondoogle.

“Over 75 years, Social Security faces a deficit of around $6 trillion. To make Social Security permanently solvent requires an extra $15 trillion,” said economist Andrew Biggs, deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration during the Bush administration.

But the first chunk of that comes in  just a couple of years when the federal government has to start paying off the $2.5 trillion it owes the Social Security Trust Fund, which is nothing but a pile of IOU’s. That’s because the federal government borrowed all that money and spent it, meaning younger taxpayers will have to make it up.”

How do we get out of this mess–higher taxes–job killing taxes.  taxes that will push US jobs to other nations.

Scientists have found cells alive inside salt crystals that formed trapping them there over 30,000 years ago when primitive Neanderthal’s roamed Europe. Exactly how or by what process they have survived is being studied.

Something of a mini-political tsunami seems headed for Texas where one of its U. S. Senators — Kay Bailey Hutchison, 68, a Republican — said she won’t seek re-election in 2012. Setting off a Texas-sized scramble. Many think KBH would have been  a much better pick for McCain’s VP.

In an open letter to constituents released by her office Thursday, Hutchison said her early announcement “should give the people of Texas ample time to consider who my successor should be.”

The disclosure made her the first senator up for re- election in 2012 to announce retirement plans. Democrats now control the Senate by a 53-47 margin, which includes two independents who usually vote with them. Ten Republicans will face voters next year, as will 21 Democrats and both independents. That makes Republicans optimistic about taking control of the Senate in 2012.

Hutchison, who mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican primary last year, had said she would resign from the Senate in 2010. She later reversed course, saying she didn’t want to hurt her state.

Limn (lim) verb tr.:1. To portray in words. 2. To draw or paint, especially in outline. ETYMOLOGY: Via French, from Latin luminare (to illuminate), from lumen (light). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leuk- (light), which is also the source of words such as lunar, lunatic, light, lightning, lucid, illuminate, illustrate, translucent, lux, lynx, and lucubrate. Earliest documented use: 1440.

The Small Business Administration, which received $730 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to increase the availability of credit to small businesses, is making claims about the number of “jobs saved” that are “unclear” and “misleading” and which cannot be verified, according to the agency’s inspector general.

“The lack of a definition for ‘jobs retained’ and the discrepancy in the forms used to collect job statistics from 7(a) borrowers and lenders has resulted in a performance metric with questionable clarity and transparency,” the inspector general said.

Under the Recovery Act, the SBA is required to report job creation and retention statistics in its monthly Recovery Act Program Performance Report, which is published on its Web site.

When they ask you, “Paper or Plastic?” just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then wait for an answer after the perplexed look desolves.. 

Tampa, Florida, has temporarily closed its runways to keep up with Earth’s magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year

An FAA spokesman said, “the Earth’s magnetic fields are constantly in flux — but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading,” he told Fox News. “To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes.”

Earth’s magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, “is thought to be generated deep inside the planet,” LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. “An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a ‘hydromagnetic dynamo.’ It’s something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet.”

Sometimes, the poles completely flip — and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago. The Sun reverses its poles like clockwork every eleven years with the next flip due in 2012 the last in 2001 which had Nostradamus freaks claiming a tie to 9-11.

A few looney-tuners will almost certainly use this Florida incident to predict Armageddon. The electrons are barely stopped being disturbed by the original announcement on Saturday when bloggers were saying the shift is the reason for the various deaths of bird flock and fish school hither thither.

Trinity County is a forested mountain county the size of the State of Rhode Island with only 14,000 people, in far Northern California. Its distinctions do not end there and include: it was one of the original 27 counties in the state; was the only county in California that Ross Perot won in the 1992 election, and is the only California county with four women out of its five Supervisors. 

Rep. Darrell Issa (R) CA., the House Republicans’ new chief investigator, is expanding his oversight committee to focus on the heart of President Barack Obama’s legislative achievements.

The California Republican, who has called Obama’s administration “corrupt,” says he will hold hundreds of hearings as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He has created two subcommittees to scrutinize policies defining Obama’s first two years in office: the $814 billion economic stimulus plan and the bailouts of banks and automakers. A third panel will oversee Obama’s healthcare overhaul.

Issa’s decisions signal that, at least initially, he wants to focus on issues that helped Republicans regain the House majority in the Nov. 2 elections, said Mark Paoletta, a lawyer who helped run investigations for the House Energy and Commerce Committee when the party was last in control before 2007.

“These will be very fertile grounds to find waste, fraud, and abuse,” said Paoletta. “It will be a gold mine” that “goes to the heart of some of Obama’s signature legislative issues.”

It will make for great political theater.

The author of a now-retracted study linking autism to childhood vaccines expected a related medical test to rack up sales of up to $43 million a year to him, a British medical journal reported Tuesday. How many children this nincompoop endagered or worse is beyond estimation. Many are calling for his prosecution for fraud.

 Prosecuting scientists for fraud  is not common, but it is also not without precedent.

 Finally, after 13 years of needless controversy, the British Medical Journal determined that Andrew Wakefield’s vaccine-autism link constituted an “elaborate fraud.”

Having already lost his medical license in the UK for unethical professional conduct, it is now time for him to be prosecuted. There  is precident, for instance:

•  Eric Poehlman, a former obesity and menopause researcher, falsified data in grant applications to the National Institutes of Health. He was convicted of scientific misconduct and sentenced to a year in prison.
•  disgraced researcher Hwang Woo-suk fabricated data in regard to the cloning of human embryos. He was tried in South Korea and convicted of embezzlement and bioethical violations, but he escaped a fraud conviction and jail time.

 In the current case, the journal says, Wakefield purposefully manipulated patient histories in order to fabricate an erroneous link between vaccines and autism. The direct result of this was the creation and perpetuation of an insidious myth that may be unparalleled in modern day medicine. Amazingly, Wakefield even established the “Thoughtful House” in Austin, Texas, from which he promoted his quackery in the United States.

It is for these reasons that many are calling for Wakefield to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of American and British law. Perhaps if he spends the next few years behind bars, people who have suffered from the impact of his actions will see that justice is being done.

 Unfortunately, Wakefield’s enthusiastic supporters including the usual assortment of gum flapping Hollywood celebrities have little use for facts. With some willing to use their celebrity to propagate this hoax, the scourge of preventable childhood diseases may be with us for years to come. Some say that the sudden rise in sometimes fatal whooping cough infections in the American West can be laid at his feet and those who have campaigned against childhood vacinations..

 Let us hope Hollywood sends us a pro-vaccine actor.

Christina Taylor Green the 9-year-old girl murdered in Tucson last week when Congresswoman Gifford was shot and where five others died has had her organs transplanted into a Boston girl.

Grover Norquest, President of Americans for Tax Reform says more than half a trillion dollars ($640,000,000,000) in new taxes, fees  and costs are hidden inside Obamacare, and will go into affect over the coming few years costing  American thousands of dollars - unless it is stopped.

Secreted in the massive new law are two dozen new or higher taxes or fees that pay for Obamacare’s expansion of government spending and interference between doctors and patients, for instance:

• Excise Tax (January 2014): anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax;

•·        Employer Mandate Tax (January 2014);

•·        Surtax on investment income;

•·        New taxes on medical equipment manufacturers;

•·        Excise tax on indoor tanning salons, and

•·        Tax on charitable hospitals unless they conform to new regulations.

This week the newly controlled Republican House of Representatives will take a swipe at repealing Obamacare and when blocked in the Senate the House will defund it setting up a major brouhaha.

Chinese President Hu Jintao will be at the White House this week. The good news is, he has no plans to foreclose. We can stay another month. - Leno

California has more risk of catastrophic storms than any other region in the country - even the Southern hurricane states, according to a new study released Thursday.

IThe study builds on a new understanding of so-called atmospheric rivers, a focusing of high-powered winds that drag a fire hose of tropical moisture across the Pacific Ocean, pointed directly at California for days on end. The state got a relatively tame taste of the phenomenon in December.

The team of experts that developed the scenario can’t say when it will happen. But they do say it has happened in the past and is virtually certain to strike again.

“This storm, with essentially the same probability as a major earthquake, is potentially four to five times more damaging,” said Lucy Jones, USGS chief scientist on the study. “That’s not something that is in the public consciousness.”

The study aims to fix that. Last  week emergency planners convened in Sacramento to discuss worst-cases and what to do about it.

California was chosen for the latest project, called ArkStorm, because the state “has the potential for the biggest rainfall events in the country.

In December, an atmospheric river threw a series of wet storms at the state, breaking rainfall records in many areas across California. One part of Los Angeles County got 17 inches of rain in three days. Disasters were declared in 11 counties.

The Central Valley and the Sacramento region are likely to suffer the worst effects because they lie within a funnel for the state’s biggest rivers.

It’s happened before over December and January, 1861-62. Rain fell on and off for 45 days. Sacramento was inundated, and Gov.-elect Leland Stanford famously took a rowboat to his inauguration.

Members of the Republican National Committee sent a clear message Friday to the rest of the GOP when they elected Reince Priebus as their new chairman: There’s at least one corner of the Republican Party that’s beyond House Speaker John Boehner’s reach.

Boehner worked hard to prop up the candidacy of longtime operative Maria Cino, a veteran campaign hand who held senior offices at the RNC and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Michael Steele withdrew his reelection bid Friday. Priebus immediately set a half billion dollar fund raising goal.