Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI), believing victory is at hand, heaped burning coals on those opposed to ObamaCare

Sen. Whitehouse opened up his Senate floor speech spewing venom directed squarely at you and me!

Quoting an article, which called those of us opposing the massive government takeover of our health care system the “lunatic fringe.” He took it a step further labeling us as “birthers, right-wing militias and Aryan groups.”

With passage of ObamaCare perhaps imminent, Whitehouse feels emboldened, deciding it’s ok to demonize the opposition — the American taxpayer, you and me!

By supporting a socialized health care bill fraught with earmarks, payoffs to Senators, aggressive Medicare cuts, massive tax increases, penalties and increased insurance premiums Whitehouse and others are putting their political heads on the chopping block…

Especially considering recent polling suggests a growing majority of Americans oppose ObamaCare.

++ “Let the Fax Blizzard Commence”!

After yesterday’s message, tens of thousands of faxes were scheduled for delivery to Senate offices — each one opposing every aspect of ObamaCare and those who support it’s socialist intent.

Now in the waning hours leading to this historic vote, I’m forecasting a deluge of faxes for EVERY Senate office on Capitol Hill!

Click here right now to schedule your faxes to the Senate: grassfire.com

Let’s make sure that Whitehouse and every other Senator who supported ObamaCare knows that the “lunatic fringe”, and the right-wing militia, birthers are weighing-in and holding each one accountable for this horrific bill.

Through our Faxfire fax system, you have the potential to impact EVERY SENATOR with a personal message — prior to the final vote!

I urge you to take action right now either using our custom fax delivery system or by downloading our fax letters and numbers to fax on your own.

Whatever method you choose, take action by clicking here now:

grassfire.com

+ + Action #2: Call your two Senators

After scheduling your faxes, call your two Senators.

Locate your Senators here: congressmerge.com

When calling, consider using these talking points:

–Identify yourself and the state in which you live.
–Demand to see and read the bill before the final vote.
–Tell them you oppose ObamaCare and urge them to vote “NO”.
–Express your outrage over the earmarks, the mandates,
  the oppressive taxes in the plan and the government takeover
  of yet another industry.

Finally, take a few additional moments to contact Sen. Whitehouse’s office. I believe he would love to receive warm holiday greetings from thousands of “birthers, right-wing militia, Aryan supporters and those of us among the “lunatic fringe”.

Senator Whitehouse: (202) 224-2921

Lord Monckton Assaulted to the point of unconsciousness by EuroThug Police at Copenhagen

via: sonoranweeklyreview.com

From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley in Copenhagen

Is The European Police State Going Global? Today the gloves came off and the true purpose of the “global warming” scare became nakedly visible. Ugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela, blamed “global warming” on capitalism – and received a standing ovation from very nearly all of the delegates, lamentably including those from those of the capitalist nations of the West that are on the far Left – and that means too many of them.

Previously Robert Mugabe, dictator of Rhodesia, who had refused to leave office when he had been soundly defeated in a recent election, had also won plaudits at the conference for saying that the West ought to pay him plenty of money in reparation of our supposed “climate debt”.

Inside the conference center, “world leader” after “world leader” got up and postured about the need to Save The Planet, the imperative to do a deal, the necessity to save the small island nations from drowning, etc., etc., etc.

Outside, in the real world, it was snowing, and a foretaste of the Brave New World being cooked up by “world leaders” in their fantasy-land was already evident. Some 20,000 observers from non-governmental organizations – nearly all of them true-believing Green groups funded by taxpayers – had been accredited to the conference.

However, without warning the UN had capriciously decided that all but 300 of them were to be excluded from the conference today, and all but 90 would be excluded on the final day.

Of course, this being the inept UN, no one had bothered to notify those of the NGOs that were not true-believers in the UN’s camp. So Senator Steve Fielding of Australia and I turned up with a few dozen other delegates, to be left standing in the cold for a couple of hours while the UN laboriously worked out what to do with us.

In the end, they decided to turn us away, which they did with an ill grace and in a bad-tempered manner. As soon as the decision was final, the Danish police moved in. One of them began the now familiar technique of manhandling me, in the same fashion as one of his colleagues had done the previous day.

Once again, conscious that a police helicopter with a high-resolution camera was hovering overhead, I thrust my hands into my pockets in accordance with the St. John Ambulance crowd-control training, looked my assailant in the eye and told him, quietly but firmly, to take his hands off me.

He complied, but then decided to have another go. I told him a second time, and he let go a second time. I turned to go and, after I had turned my back, he gave me a mighty shove that flung me to the ground and knocked me out.

I came to some time later (not sure exactly how long), to find my head being cradled by my friends, some of whom were doing their best to keep the police thugs at bay while the volunteer ambulance-men attended to me.

I was picked up and dusted me off. I could not remember where I had left my telephone, which had been in my hand at the time when I was assaulted. I rather fuzzily asked where it was, and one of the police goons shouted, “He alleges he had a mobile phone.”

In fact, the phone was in my coat pocket, where my hand had been at the time of the assault. The ambulance crew led me away and laid me down under a blanket for 20 minutes to get warm, plying me with water and keeping me amused with some colorfully colloquial English that they had learned.

I thanked them for their kindness, left them a donation for their splendid service, and rejoined my friends. A very senior police officer then came up and asked if I was all right. Yes, I said, but no thanks to one of his officers, who had pushed me hard from behind when my back was turned and had sent me flying.

The police chief said that none of his officers would have done such a thing. I said that several witnesses had seen the incident, which I intended to report. I said I had hoped to receive an apology but had not received one, and would include that in my report. The policeman went off looking glum, and with good reason.

To assault an accredited representative of a conference your nation is hosting, and to do it while your own police cameramen are filming from above, and to do it without any provocation except my polite, non-threatening request that I should not be manhandled, is not a career-enhancing move, as that police chief is about to discover to his cost.

Nor does this incident, and far too many like it, reflect the slightest credit on Denmark. We must make reasonable allowance for the fact that the unspeakable security service of the UN, which is universally detested by those at this conference, was ordering the Danish police about. The tension between the alien force and the indigenous men on the ground had grown throughout the conference.

However, the Danish police were far too free with their hands when pushing us around, and that is not acceptable in a free society. But then, Europe is no longer a free society. It is, in effect, a tyranny ruled by the unelected Kommissars of the European Union. That is perhaps one reason why police forces throughout Europe, including that in the UK, have become far more brutal than was once acceptable in their treatment of the citizens they are sworn to serve.

It is exactly this species of tyranny that the UN would like to impose upon the entire planet, in the name of saving us from ourselves – or, as Ugo Chavez would put it, saving us from Western capitalist democracy.

A few weeks ago, at a major conference in New York, I spoke about this tendency towards tyranny with Dr. Vaclav Klaus, the distinguished economist and doughty fighter for freedom and democracy who is President of the Czech Republic.

While we still have one or two statesmen of his caliber, there is hope for Europe and the world. Unfortunately, he refused to come to Copenhagen, telling me that there was no point, now that the lunatics were firmly in control of the asylum.

However, I asked him whether the draft Copenhagen Treaty’s proposal for what amounted to a communistic world government reminded him of the Communism under which he and his country had suffered for so long.

He thought for a moment – as statesmen always do before answering an unusual question – and said, “Maybe it is not brutal. But in all other respects, what it proposes is far too close to Communism for comfort.”

Today, as I lay in the snow with a cut knee, a bruised back, a banged head, a ruined suit, and a written-off coat, I wondered whether the brutality of the New World Order was moving closer than President Klaus – or any of us – had realized.

ANOTHER STOOS VIEWS EXCLUSIVE: Vowing to stop speaking and downsize his house…. Gore confesses: “I am a hypocrite”

via: canadafreepress.com

By William Kevin Stoos  Friday, December 18, 2009

—Satire—

Usually the world’s most trusted name in journalism, Hugh Betcha, Chief of the World News Desk of the Stoos Views media empire in Wynstone, South Dakota—where the air is clean, the crime rate low, the folks vote red, and the centre still holds—is the go to guy when politicians want to disseminate breaking national and international news.

A man who walks with equal ease on both sides of the aisle in Washington, who moves seamlessly between the Arabs and Jews, and who has been known to get ‘faced with the President on cheap wine, Hugh has the trust of politicians, and movers and shakers of all stripes. But the call from Al Gore this week took him by surprise. 

While sitting beside his fireplace on a cold South Dakota night, reading “No, Really, It Is Global Warming….” © 2009 Al Gore Hugh was startled by a call on his cell phone.  What he heard, touched him deeply.

“I need to see you this week,” the caller pleaded. “Gotta get some things off my chest.”

“But, it is the week before Christmas,” Hugh replied, “and the connections are not good this time of year.”

“Don’t worry,” the caller said, “I will send one of my jets out there—do they have an airport at Sioux Falls?”

“Sure,” Hugh replied, “but I have four feet of global warming in my driveway and I do not know if I can make it to the road, and….”

“Not to worry,” the caller interrupted, “I can send a Hummer out to get you.”

So, as he has so many times in the past, Hugh packed a bag and prepared for the long flight to the Gore mansion. It was going to be another of those Barbara Walters things again. He could just tell. For despite Hugh’s hard nosed approach to the news, rapier wit and no nonsense style of reporting, he had a softer side and one that often brought his interviewees to tears. Like the time Obama wept like a baby in his arms one night in the White House as the President confessed that he was over his head and had no clue how to run the country; or the time Harry Reid sobbed on his shoulder when he admitted he is an inveterate #####**** who deserves to get beat in the upcoming Senatorial election in Nevada. Things like that. But Gore needed to confide in him somehow, and Hugh never refused such a request. This is what made him the most trusted name in journalism.

Arriving at the Gore Mansion, by chauffeured limousine, Hugh was ushered into the palatial Gore home which is twenty times bigger than the average American home, consumes over 200,000 kwh hours of electricity per year, and costs more than $2,000 per month to heat. Escorted into the Gore study by the butler, Hugh noticed the pictures of those memorable moments in Gore’s life. On one wall, hung pictures of his private jumbo jets which carried him to foreign lands so he could preach to them how to conserve energy and save the planet. There was The Green Machine, The Polar Bear Express, and other of his favorite personal jets. Sure, they each emitted tons of carbon each trip overseas, but it was a small price to pay for enlightening the world. There was the picture of Gore sitting at a computer keyboard on the day he invented the Internet. Or the photos of Gore cradling a baby polar bear, sobbing in vain as the bear’s mother drifted away on an ice floe that was melting rapidly. There was a prominent photo of Gore surrounded by geothermal scientists, briefing him on the fact that the earth’s core was actually hotter than the sun.  On another wall hung a picture of Gore in a hard hat, visiting his zinc mines. Hugh’s inspection of the room was interrupted by the Almost President as he walked into the room.

“Sit down please,” Gore invited, “thanks for coming.” It was obvious from his puffy eyes that the former Vice President, Almost President, and Inventor of the Internet had been sobbing.

“What’s up?” Hugh asked, concerned.

“I am feeling a little guilty I guess.” Gore began. “You know, this environmental mumbo jumbo I have been preaching.”

“Yes…”

“Well, I have decided that I am a hypocrite, and it is time to come clean.”

“Why?”

“Confession is good for the soul I guess. It occurred to me, I am living here in this huge mansion that consumes more energy that most villages in Kenya—the country of Obama’s birth—and I am feeling a little guilty about this. Then there are my jets—they drop more carbon into the atmosphere than twenty coal fired energy plants in China—where I have lectured them on cleaning up their air.  They consume enough fuel in one week to power 1,000 American automobiles for a year. I own certain zinc mining interests, and those strip mines pollute more water than a chemical plant. Then there are the speeches—I have given 3,000 speeches in the past ten years on global warming and, according to my friends at the EPA, I have exhaled enough CO2 to kill 324 polar bears. My own toxic emissions equal the combined flatus of 20 cattle per year. Put simply, it has become apparent to me that I may be the biggest single polluter on the planet. Lisa Jackson at the EPA has informed me privately that EPA tests show I am the single largest polluter per capita in the United States. In fact, the EPA has threatened to enjoin me if I do not make some changes. Put simply, I am a hypocrite and the single biggest threat to the environment in this country. I am a one man freaking Love Canal and Three Mile Island all in one.

“So, what do you intend to do about this?”

“I am going to make some lifestyle changes.”

“Such as…”

“Beginning with the new year, I am going to stop making speeches on the environment for a period of one year. This should slow the rate of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and slow the melting of the polar ice cap—which will, according to my research, melt away in 5 years—as I said recently. “

“What else?”

“I am going to stop flying on my private jets, and, if I fly anywhere, it will be commercially, and I will do something I have never done in my life.”

“And that is?”

“Travel with the common people. I might even risk it and travel coach.”

“What else?”

“I am going to stop writing books about global warming—which will at once save millions of trees which are brutally cut down in order to print this drivel, and also cut down on the misinformation about global warming. I mean they have fudged that data so much that I do not even believe my own B.S. any more.”

“And?”

“Tipper is going to start hanging our clothes outside on a clothes line, just like the common folks do. I remember that Barbara Streisand lectured Americans on Earth Day about ten years ago, that they should hang their clothes out to dry in order to save electricity. That really sounds like a great idea and I have built Tipper a clothes line right next to the double wide….”

“The double wide?” Hugh asked.

“The one we are moving into when we sell the mansion. Who needs to live like we are? I want to see how the common folk live and set an example for the rest of the world.”

By William Kevin Stoos  Friday, December 18, 2009

—Satire—

Usually the world’s most trusted name in journalism, Hugh Betcha, Chief of the World News Desk of the Stoos Views media empire in Wynstone, South Dakota—where the air is clean, the crime rate low, the folks vote red, and the centre still holds—is the go to guy when politicians want to disseminate breaking national and international news.

A man who walks with equal ease on both sides of the aisle in Washington, who moves seamlessly between the Arabs and Jews, and who has been known to get ‘faced with the President on cheap wine, Hugh has the trust of politicians, and movers and shakers of all stripes. But the call from Al Gore this week took him by surprise. 

While sitting beside his fireplace on a cold South Dakota night, reading “No, Really, It Is Global Warming….” © 2009 Al Gore Hugh was startled by a call on his cell phone.  What he heard, touched him deeply.

“I need to see you this week,” the caller pleaded. “Gotta get some things off my chest.”

“But, it is the week before Christmas,” Hugh replied, “and the connections are not good this time of year.”

“Don’t worry,” the caller said, “I will send one of my jets out there—do they have an airport at Sioux Falls?”

“Sure,” Hugh replied, “but I have four feet of global warming in my driveway and I do not know if I can make it to the road, and….”

“Not to worry,” the caller interrupted, “I can send a Hummer out to get you.”

So, as he has so many times in the past, Hugh packed a bag and prepared for the long flight to the Gore mansion. It was going to be another of those Barbara Walters things again. He could just tell. For despite Hugh’s hard nosed approach to the news, rapier wit and no nonsense style of reporting, he had a softer side and one that often brought his interviewees to tears. Like the time Obama wept like a baby in his arms one night in the White House as the President confessed that he was over his head and had no clue how to run the country; or the time Harry Reid sobbed on his shoulder when he admitted he is an inveterate #####**** who deserves to get beat in the upcoming Senatorial election in Nevada. Things like that. But Gore needed to confide in him somehow, and Hugh never refused such a request. This is what made him the most trusted name in journalism.

Arriving at the Gore Mansion, by chauffeured limousine, Hugh was ushered into the palatial Gore home which is twenty times bigger than the average American home, consumes over 200,000 kwh hours of electricity per year, and costs more than $2,000 per month to heat. Escorted into the Gore study by the butler, Hugh noticed the pictures of those memorable moments in Gore’s life. On one wall, hung pictures of his private jumbo jets which carried him to foreign lands so he could preach to them how to conserve energy and save the planet. There was The Green Machine, The Polar Bear Express, and other of his favorite personal jets. Sure, they each emitted tons of carbon each trip overseas, but it was a small price to pay for enlightening the world. There was the picture of Gore sitting at a computer keyboard on the day he invented the Internet. Or the photos of Gore cradling a baby polar bear, sobbing in vain as the bear’s mother drifted away on an ice floe that was melting rapidly. There was a prominent photo of Gore surrounded by geothermal scientists, briefing him on the fact that the earth’s core was actually hotter than the sun.  On another wall hung a picture of Gore in a hard hat, visiting his zinc mines. Hugh’s inspection of the room was interrupted by the Almost President as he walked into the room.

“Sit down please,” Gore invited, “thanks for coming.” It was obvious from his puffy eyes that the former Vice President, Almost President, and Inventor of the Internet had been sobbing.

“What’s up?” Hugh asked, concerned.

“I am feeling a little guilty I guess.” Gore began. “You know, this environmental mumbo jumbo I have been preaching.”

“Yes…”

“Well, I have decided that I am a hypocrite, and it is time to come clean.”

“Why?”

“Confession is good for the soul I guess. It occurred to me, I am living here in this huge mansion that consumes more energy that most villages in Kenya—the country of Obama’s birth—and I am feeling a little guilty about this. Then there are my jets—they drop more carbon into the atmosphere than twenty coal fired energy plants in China—where I have lectured them on cleaning up their air.  They consume enough fuel in one week to power 1,000 American automobiles for a year. I own certain zinc mining interests, and those strip mines pollute more water than a chemical plant. Then there are the speeches—I have given 3,000 speeches in the past ten years on global warming and, according to my friends at the EPA, I have exhaled enough CO2 to kill 324 polar bears. My own toxic emissions equal the combined flatus of 20 cattle per year. Put simply, it has become apparent to me that I may be the biggest single polluter on the planet. Lisa Jackson at the EPA has informed me privately that EPA tests show I am the single largest polluter per capita in the United States. In fact, the EPA has threatened to enjoin me if I do not make some changes. Put simply, I am a hypocrite and the single biggest threat to the environment in this country. I am a one man freaking Love Canal and Three Mile Island all in one.

“So, what do you intend to do about this?”

“I am going to make some lifestyle changes.”

“Such as…”

“Beginning with the new year, I am going to stop making speeches on the environment for a period of one year. This should slow the rate of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and slow the melting of the polar ice cap—which will, according to my research, melt away in 5 years—as I said recently. “

“What else?”

“I am going to stop flying on my private jets, and, if I fly anywhere, it will be commercially, and I will do something I have never done in my life.”

“And that is?”

“Travel with the common people. I might even risk it and travel coach.”

“What else?”

“I am going to stop writing books about global warming—which will at once save millions of trees which are brutally cut down in order to print this drivel, and also cut down on the misinformation about global warming. I mean they have fudged that data so much that I do not even believe my own B.S. any more.”

“And?”

“Tipper is going to start hanging our clothes outside on a clothes line, just like the common folks do. I remember that Barbara Streisand lectured Americans on Earth Day about ten years ago, that they should hang their clothes out to dry in order to save electricity. That really sounds like a great idea and I have built Tipper a clothes line right next to the double wide….”

“The double wide?” Hugh asked.

“The one we are moving into when we sell the mansion. Who needs to live like we are? I want to see how the common folk live and set an example for the rest of the world.”

William Kevin Stoos Most recent columns

The author of Stoos Views is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and attorney, whose feature and cover articles have appeared in Carmelite Digest,  Family Digest, Nature Conservancy Magazine, Liberty Magazine, Encyclopedia Britannica Online. He is a regular contributing author for The Bread of Life Magazine in Canada. His review of Shadow World, by COL. Robert Chandler, propelled that book to best seller status in the category of international politics and foreign affairs. His book, The Woodcarver (And Other Stories of Faith and Inspiration) © 2009, William Kevin Stoos (Strategic Publishing Company)—a collection of feature and cover stories on matters of faith—was just released in July of 2009. Royalties from that book go to support the Carmelites. He resides in Wynstone, South Dakota.

Kevin Jennings Suggested Reading Included Porn Books for Kids (with images of men having sex while boy scouts watch)–Media Silent

We all know how the state-run media feels about Barack Obama but still you’d there would be someone in the democrat-media complex who would be outraged over these Fistgate reports on Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings.

Or, maybe they think that handing out fisting kits (or dental dam kits) and pushing children’s books that show adult men having sex while boy scouts watch to junior high students is acceptable? Maybe that’s just how they roll? It is strange.

Yesterday we reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings was promoting a children’s book that detailed first-graders having sex. But, it didn’t stop there. As founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) Jennings approved of and promoted several filthy sex books for children. Scott Baker from Breitbart-TV.com and Co-Host of ‘The B-Cast‘ submitted a shocking report to Gateway Pundit blog back on December 4, 2009. The report detailed the reading list promoted to 7-12 grade students by Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN organization. This material has not been reported in detail at Big Government website.

Remember as you read this that Kevin Jennings is today the nation’s Safe Schools Czar.

Here is what Scott Baker had to say about this vile material being pushed on children.

Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings was the founder, and for many years, Executive Director of an organization called the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN started essentially as Jennings’ personal project and grew to become the culmination of his life’s work. And he was chosen by President Obama to be the nation’s Safe Schools Czar primarily because he had founded and led GLSEN (scroll for bio).

GLSEN’s stated mission is to empower gay youth in the schools and to stop harassment by other students. It encourages the formation of Gay Student Alliances and condemns the use of hateful words. GLSEN also strives to influence the educational curriculum to include materials which the group believes will increase tolerance of gay students and decrease bullying. To that end, GLSEN maintains a recommended reading list of books that it claims “furthers our mission to ensure safe schools for all students.” In other words, these are the books that GLSEN’s directors think all kids should be reading: gay kids should read them to raise their self-esteem, and straight kids should read them in order to become more aware and tolerant and stop bullying gay kids. Through GLSEN’s online ordering system, called “GLSEN BookLink,” featured prominently on their Web site, teachers can buy the books to use as required classroom assignments, or students can buy them to read on their own.

According to GLSEN’s own press releases from the period during which its recommended reading list was developed, the organization’s three areas of focus were creating “educational resources, public policy agenda, [and] student organizing programs”; in other words, the reading list (chief among its “educational resources”) was of prime importance in GLSEN’s efforts to influence the American educational system.

The list is divided into three main categories: books recommended for grades K-6; books recommended for grades 7-12; and books for teachers. (The books on the list span all genres: fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, even poetry.)

Out of curiosity to see exactly what kind of books Kevin Jennings and his organization think American students should be reading in school, our team chose a handful at random from the over 100 titles on GLSEN’s grades 7-12 list, and began reading through.

What we discovered shocked us. We were flabbergasted. Rendered speechless.

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air. One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.

We knew that unless we carefully documented what we were reading, the public would have a hard time accepting it. Mere descriptions on our part could not convey the emotional gut reaction one gets when seeing what Kevin Jennings wants kids to read as school assignments. So we began scanning pages from each of the books, and then made exact transcriptions of the relevant passages on each page.

For today’s report we give you another of of GLSEN’s recommended books for 7-12 graders. This one had pictures–
Revolutionary Voices – Page 103
(An illustration about the change from “boy to man,” showing two Boy Scouts pointing at and looking at two adult men engaging in anal sex.)

In Revolutionary Voices – Page 104
A work of art shows a Boy Scout giving a salute behind two men kissing passionately.

This book is promoted at the GLSEN website and can be purchased there.
Could there really be any logical reason for recommending this book to children? Is this material really suitable for children? Is this supposed to build tolerance? Does this book really belong in our schools? Kevin Jennings thinks so.

Today Jennings is Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar.

There’s more to come.

Unintended Results . . .

Energy-efficient traffic lights can’t melt snow

MILWAUKEE – Cities around the country that have installed energy-efficient traffic lights are discovering a hazardous downside: The bulbs don’t burn hot enough to melt snow and can become crusted over in a storm — a problem blamed for dozens of accidents and at least one death.

“I’ve never had to put up with this in the past,” said Duane Kassens, a driver from West Bend who got into a fender-bender recently because he couldn’t see the lights. “The police officer told me the new lights weren’t melting the snow. How is that safe?”

Many communities have switched to LED bulbs in their traffic lights because they use 90 percent less energy than the old incandescent variety, last far longer and save money. Their great advantage is also their drawback: They do not waste energy by producing heat.

Authorities in several states are testing possible solutions, including installing weather shields, adding heating elements like those used in airport runway lights, or coating the lights with water-repellent substances.

Short of some kind of technological fix, “as far as I’m aware, all that can be done is to have crews clean off the snow by hand,” said Green Bay, Wis., police Lt. Jim Runge. “It’s a bit labor-intensive.”

In St. Paul, Minn., for example, city crews use air compressors to blow snow and ice off blocked lights.

Some communities began installing cool-burning LEDs more than a decade ago, and it wasn’t long before drivers started complaining about the problem.

Illinois authorities said that during a storm in April, 34-year-old Lisa Richter could see she had a green light and began making a left turn. A driver coming from the opposite direction did not realize the stoplight was obscured by snow and plowed into Richter’s vehicle, killing her.

“Would the accident have occurred if the lights had been clear? I would be willing to bet not,” Oswego police Detective Rob Sherwood said.

Authorities said dozens of similar collisions have been reported in other cold-weather states, including Iowa and Minnesota.

Not every storm causes snow to stick to the lights, but when the wind is right and the snow is wet, drivers should beware, said Gary Fox, a traffic engineer for the city of Des Moines, Iowa.

Exactly how much a technological fix will cost is unclear, but it will surely cut into the savings and the energy efficiency many cities are enjoying.

Wisconsin, which has put LED bulbs at hundreds of intersections, saves about $750,000 per year in energy costs, said Dave Vieth of the state Transportation Department. LEDs installed seven years ago are still burning, while most incandescent bulbs have to be replaced every 12 to 18 months, he said.

“With LEDs we have energy savings in excess of 80 percent, and we don’t have to have crews replacing them as often,” Vieth said. “So it’s clear the overall savings are pretty significant.”

In Minnesota, where authorities have upgraded hundreds of traffic lights to LEDs, the Transportation Department occasionally gets reports of an obstructed light. But by the time a highway crew arrives, the wind has often knocked out the snow and ice, said traffic systems specialist Jerry Kotzenmacher. Minnesota is experimenting with weather shields.

One reason there have been so few deaths is that drivers know they should treat a traffic signal with obstructed lights as a stop sign, traffic experts say.

“It’s the same as if the power is out,” said Dave Hansen, a traffic engineer with the Green Bay Department of Public Works. “If there’s any question, you err on the side of caution.”

___

Associated Press writers Patrick Condon in Minneapolis and Melanie Welte in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS corrects figures on Minnesota lights.)

America as the last man standing

‘In a generation or two, the U.S. will ask itself: Who lost  Europe?’

Here is the speech of Geert Wilders, Chairman, Party for Freedom, the Netherlands, at the Four Seasons,  New York, introducing an Alliance of Patriots and announcing the Facing Jihad Conference in Jerusalem .

Dear friends, 

Thank you very much for inviting me.

I come to  America with a mission.  All is not well in the old world.  There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic.  We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe.  This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West.  The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe.

First I will describe the situation on the ground in  Europe.  Then, I will say a few things about Islam.  To close, I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem .

The  Europe you know is changing.

You have probably seen the landmarks.  But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world.  It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration.

All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighborhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen.  And if they are, they might regret it.  This goes for the police as well.  It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children.  Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead.  With mosques on many street corners.  The shops have signs you and I cannot read.  You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity.  These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics.  These are Muslim neighborhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across  Europe.  These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of  Europe, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.

There are now thousands of mosques throughout  Europe.  With larger congregations than there are in churches.  And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region.  Clearly, the signal is: we rule.

Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden.  In many cities, the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim.   Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods.  Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities.

In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims.

Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils.  In once-tolerant  Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims.  Non-Muslim women routinely hear ‘whore, whore’.  Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations but to stations in the country of origin.

In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of  Darwin.  The history of the Holocaust can no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity.

In  England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighborhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves.  Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in  Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan.

Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II.  French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya,  Israel.  I could go on forever with stories like this.  Stories about Islamization.

A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe.   San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now.  Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.

Now these are just numbers.  And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate.  But there are few signs of that.  The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France.  One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks.  The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favor of a worldwide caliphate.  Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’.  And this is how we give them respect.  We have Muslim official state holidays.

The Christian-Democratic attorney general is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority.  We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey .

Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behavior, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots.   Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus.  I call the perpetrators ’settlers’.  Because that is what they are.  They do not come to integrate into our societies; they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam.  Therefore, they are settlers.

Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighborhoods, their cities, their countries.  Moreover, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.

The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet.  His behavior is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized.  Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem.  But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time.  Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed.  Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza.  If it is good for Islam, it is good.  If it is bad for Islam, it is bad.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion.  Sure, it has a god, and a hereafter, and 72 virgins.  But in its essence Islam is a political ideology.  It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person.  Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life.  Islam means ’submission’.  Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia.  If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’ and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.  The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative and sees  Israel as the aggressor.  I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times.  I support  Israel.  First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz; second, because it is a democracy; and third, because Israel is our first line of defense.

This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance.   Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the  Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan ,  Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia.   Israel is simply in the way.  The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.

The war against  Israel is not a war against  Israel.  It is a war against the West.  It is jihad.   Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us.  If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest.  Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and  America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.

Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities.  But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior and accept our values.  On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam.  They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed.  The end of  Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning.  It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination.  If they can get Israel, they can get everything.  So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’.  In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II.  And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat.  Yet there is a danger greater than terrorist attacks: the scenario of America as the last man standing.  The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine.  An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America – as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs.  With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of  Rome,  Athens and Jerusalem .

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts.  My generation never had to fight for this freedom; it was offered to us on a silver platter by people who fought for it with their lives.  All throughout  Europe, American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home and whose memory we cherish.  My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians.  We can only hand over this hard-won liberty to  Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us.  We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams.  Future generations would never forgive us.  We cannot squander our liberties.  We simply do not have the right to do so

We have to take the necessary action now to stop this Islamic stupidity from destroying the free world that we know.

Please take the time to read and understand what is written here, Please send it to every free person that you know; it is so very important.

Yahoo, Verizon: Our Spy Capabilities Would ‘Shock’, ‘Confuse’ Consumers

via: wired.com

Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?

That’s the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.

Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it “to ’shame’ Yahoo! and other companies — and to ’shock’ their customers.”

“Therefore, release of Yahoo!’s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies,” the company writes.

Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release (.pdf) of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might “confuse” customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well — resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.

“Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement,” Verizon writes in its letter, “but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies.”

Other customers, upon seeing the types of surveillance law enforcement can do, might “become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer).”

Verizon does disclose a little tidbit in its letter, saying that the company receives “tens of thousands” of requests annually for customer records and information from law enforcement agencies.

Soghoian filed his records request to discover how much law enforcement agencies — and thus U.S. taxpayers — are paying for spy documents and surveillance services with the aim of trying to deduce from this how often such requests are being made. Soghoian explained his theory on his blog, Slight Paranoia:

In the summer of 2009, I decided to try and follow the money trail in order to determine how often Internet firms were disclosing their customers’ private information to the government. I theorized that if I could obtain the price lists of each ISP, detailing the price for each kind of service, and invoices paid by the various parts of the Federal government, then I might be able to reverse engineer some approximate statistics. In order to obtain these documents, I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with every part of the Department of Justice that I could think of.

The first DoJ agency to respond to his request was the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), which indicated that it had price lists available for Cox Communications, Comcast, Yahoo and Verizon. But because the companies voluntarily provided the price lists to the government, the FOIA allows the companies an opportunity to object to the disclosure of their data under various exemptions. Comcast and Cox were fine with the disclosure, Soghoian reported.

He found that Cox Communications charges $2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval. It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer’s call detail records costs $40.

Comcast’s pricing list, which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter.

But Verizon and Yahoo took offense at the request.

Yahoo objected on grounds that its pricing constituted “confidential commercial information” and cited Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act and the Trade Secrets Act.

Exemption 4 of the FOIA refers to the disclosure of commercial or financial information that could result in a competitive disadvantage to the company if it were publicly disclosed. The company claims its pricing is derived from labor rates for employees and overhead and, therefore, disclosing the information would provide clues to its operating costs — regardless of whether these same clues are already available in public records, such as those the company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also claims that since Soghoian is trying to determine the actual amounts the Marshals Service paid Yahoo for responding to requests, the price lists are irrelevant, since “there are no standard prices for these transactions.”

But equally important to Yahoo’s objections was the potential for “criticism” and ridicule. Yahoo quoted Soghoian on his blog writing that his aim was to “use this blog to shame the corporations that continue to do harm to user online privacy.”

Yahoo also objected to the disclosure of its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information saying that “release of this letter would likely cause substantial competitive harm” to the company. The company added, in a veiled threat, that if the Marshals Service were to show anyone its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information, it could “impair the government’s ability to obtain information necessary for making appropriate decisions with regard to future FOIA requests.”

If anyone out there has a copy of Verizon or Yahoo’s law enforcement pricing list and wants to share it, feel free to use our anonymous tip address.

Australia’s Parliament defeats global warming bill

via: news.yahoo.com

SYDNEY – Australia’s plans for an emissions trading system to combat global warming were scuttled Wednesday in Parliament, handing a defeat to a government that had hoped to set an example at international climate change talks next week.

The Senate, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s government does not hold a majority, rejected his administration’s proposal for Australia to become one of the first countries to install a so-called cap-and-trade system to slash the amount of heat-trapping pollution that industries pump into the air.

The 41-33 vote followed a tumultuous debate in which the conservative main opposition party at first agreed to support a version of the government’s bill, then dramatically dumped its leader and switched sides after bitter divisions erupted within the party.

The new leader, Tony Abbott, said Australia should not adopt an emissions trading system before the rest of the world.

“The right time, if ever, to have an ETS is if and when it becomes part of the international trading system and that is not going to happen prior to its adoption in America,” he told reporters after the vote.

Rudd had wanted the legislation passed before he attends next week’s U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen so he could portray Australia as a world leader on the issue. He discussed the issue with President Barack Obama this week during a visit to the White House from which he was still returning Wednesday.

The defeat of the Australian plan could influence the views of some delegates to the Copenhagen meetings, adding weight to the argument that developed nations should curb their emissions before poorer nations are required to tackle theirs, said Frank Jotzo, an Australian National University expert on international climate change negotiations.

“It’s not like the talks will stall because of the lack of an Australian emissions trading scheme in place,” he said. “But if the legislation had been passed that would have sent a very positive signal internationally and in particular to developing countries.”

Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the government would reintroduce the bill in February to give the opposition a last chance to overcome its divisions and support the plan.

If the bill is defeated again, Rudd could use that as a reason to call early elections. Elections are due by late 2010 anyway.

Australia is a small greenhouse gas polluter in global terms, but one of the worst per capita because it relies heavily for its electricity on its abundant reserves of coal. As the driest continent after Antarctica, it is also considered one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

The European Union has a carbon trading system, as do some U.S. states. Canada and New Zealand are among countries considering or in the process of implementing them.

Under the government’s plan, an annual limit would be placed on the amount of greenhouse gases allowed to be pumped into the atmosphere and permits would be issued to regulate that ceiling. The permits could be bought and sold, setting up a market system that would make reducing emissions potentially profitable for polluting companies.

Opponents of the legislation say it amounts to a huge new tax on polluting industries such as power generators, which would put a crimp on the economy and lead to higher prices for consumers.

Climate Change Minister Sen. Penny Wong accused the opposition members who voted the bill down of being climate change deniers out of step with the world.

“This is about doing our bit as part of a global agreement, this is about responding to what is a global challenge,” Wong said.

At midnight last night, the United Kingdom ceased to be a sovereign state

via: telegraph.co.uk

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaties to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state.

Yes, a European state. Take a quick dekko at the definition set out in Article One of the1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

Until yesterday, the EU qualified on grounds (a), (b) and (c). Now it has ticked the final box. Under the Lisbon Treaty, which came into force today, it acquires “legal personality”, which gives it the right to sign accords and treat with other states. Nor is this right simply theoretical: the EU now has a foreign minister, a diplomatic corps (the European External Action Service) and 160 overseas embassies.

Until yesterday, the EU could not annex additional policy areas without a new treaty, which needed to be ratified by all its constituent nations. Now, it has the so-called “passerelle” clause, or self-amending mechanism. Parliament, in other words, no longer has the final say on extensions of EU jurisdiction. The EU derives its authority, not from its 27 members, but from its own foundational texts.

Until yesterday, Britain could simply walk out of the EU by abrogating the Treaty of Rome and repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Henceforth, it will have to go through the secession procedure laid down in Lisbon. In other words – in the minds of Euro-lawyers, at any rate, if not of British constitutionalists – the EU gets to settle the terms on which its members are allowed to leave. Formal sovereignty has been shifted from the national capitals to Brussels.

It is appalling, demeaning, disgraceful that such a thing should have been done without popular consent, and in the absence of the referendum that all three parties had promised. “There’s no point in crying over spilt milk,” you might say. True. But there is every point in mopping it up.

Smuggler: Iran Preparing for War with U.S.

via: cbsnews.com

Man Pleads Guilty to Plotting to Ship Sensitive Military Technology to Iran; Says Leaders Expect War

(AP)  An Iranian man has pleaded guilty to plotting to ship sensitive military technology to Iran, and told an undercover investigator his country’s leaders think war is coming, court papers revealed Wednesday.

The documents show that Amir Ardebili gave a stark explanation for why he was trying to buy so many different weapons parts, including technology that would help protect Iran from missile attacks.

“By his own admission, Ardebili was assisting Iran in preparing for war with the United States,” prosecutor David Hall wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

Ardebili “directly threatened the security of the United States,” the prosecutor wrote. “He was a prolific acquisitions agent procuring or attempting to procure a wide range of components, for his sole customer, the government of Iran.”

The papers also said that during a 2007 meeting with an undercover agent, Ardebili said he wanted so much material in case the U.S. goes to war with Iran, so that “the government (of Iran) could defend… Because they think the war is coming.”

The case represents the latest example of what past and present U.S. officials say is an intense and ominous effort by Iran to evade export controls and acquire critical military technology amid a long-running standoff with the West over its nuclear program.

Federal authorities are set to discuss at a Delaware news conference the case against Ardebili, following a lengthy investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Court papers say he secretly pleaded guilty May 2008 to a number of charges, including violating the Iranian arms embargo.

Ardebili was arrested in 2007 following a clandestine meeting with an undercover agent in the Caucasus nation of Georgia.

His capture has already been the subject of tense back-and-forth, after the Iranians complained this year of his earlier arrest in the Caucasus nation of Georgia. The Iranians have argued to United Nations officials that Ardebili and a handful of others have been improperly seized through U.S. efforts.