The ‘Urgent’ … ‘Stimulus’ Bill, It’s Vital, It’s Crucial…But It Can Wait Until After I Take A 3-Day Vacation…

President Obama says we need to pass the "stimulus" bill before our economy collapses---but delays the signing until after he has a 3-day vacation.

“URGENT” $TIMULUS ON HOLD FOR OBAMA’S WEEKEND OFF

Stimulus, Shimulus...What's an extra 3 days? Besides I got to keep the little woman happy.

From the New York Post

Cool it Baby We Got Plenty of Time…

After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.

Obama arrived at his home in Chicago on Friday, and treated wife Michelle to a Valentine’s Day dinner downtown last night. The couple was spotted leaving upscale Table Fifty-Two, which specializes in Southern cuisine, with the first lady toting what appeared to be a doggie bag.

The president plans to spend the Presidents’ Day weekend in the Windy City, and is not expected to sign the bill until Tuesday, when he travels to Denver to discuss his economic plan.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill Friday night.

The push to get the bill through before the holiday weekend was so frantic, members of Congress didn’t have a chance to read all 1,071 pages of the document before they could vote.

“In a perfect world it would have been nice to have had more time to process it,” said Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

Meanwhile, Gov. Paterson called yesterday for fiscal restraint with the massive influx of federal aid. His budget office estimated that New York will receive $24.6 billion over the next two years, $4 billion more than first believed.

B.S. Report– “In a perfect world it would have been nice to have more time to process it,” said Ilan Kayatsky, a spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).  How about a “sane” world as opposed to an insane world Mr. Kayatsky?  Process it?  How about simply read it–and allow the American people to do the same?

The bill was vital, it was crucial–our economic way of life depended on this bill.  We are teetering on the brink of an economic collapse the likes we haven’t seen since the Depression itself!  In fact, unfortunately, we haven’t even the time to allow this august body a chance to read the bill–but you must, if you’re a true American, you must go ahead and support it.

What? It passed?  Good work folks, I’ll see you Tuesday to sign the bill.  You mean, Mr. President, you’re not going to stick around to sign the bill today?  Nah, heck, most of the spending in the bill doesn’t even take place until 2010.  It’ll keep–see ya’ around.

Now that’s silver-tongued rhetoric at its best.  This was just classic political gamesmanship on the part of our illustrious new El Presidente.  What a sham!  Politcal pandering at its best…or worst.

You can read a great column by Thomas Sowell talking about this very subject right here.

“Religion of Peace” Strikes Again…NY Muslim Accused of Beheading Wife

From the Buffalo News

Prominent Orchard Park man charged with beheading his wife

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband — an influential member of the local Muslim community — reported her death to police Thursday.

Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder.

“He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead,” Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning.

Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers went to that location and discovered her body.

When a Muslim man loses his head there's a fair chance his wife will lose hers also.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

The killing apparently occurred some time late Thursday afternoon. Detectives still are looking for the murder weapon.

“Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible,” Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband.

“She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February],” Benz said.

Muzzammil Hassan was arraigned before Village Justice Deborah Chimes and sent to the Erie County Holding Center.

B.S. Report–Lets just keep allowing barbarians into our country. Of course, I know that most Muslims are fine, peace-loving people, blah, blah, blah.  But guess what?  Many of them aren’t!  This is our country and we are allowed to select the kind of immigrants that will best suit our nation.  The “Religion of Pieces” has not shown themselves to be a terrific fit with a western nation whenever they get significant numbers.

Freedom Quote Of The Day

“We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude.  Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation.  It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute.”

–Thomas Paine

Because of this story I will eat even more hamburgers!

Hamburgers Are The Hummers Of Food

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That’s because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Pelletier is one of a growing number of scientists studying the environmental costs of food from field to plate.

By looking at everything from how much grain a cow eats before it is ready for slaughter to the emissions released by manure, they are getting a clearer idea of the true costs of food.

The livestock sector is estimated to account for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and beef is the biggest culprit.

Even though beef only accounts for 30 percent of meat consumption in the developed world it’s responsible for 78 percent of the emissions, Pelletier said Sunday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

That’s because a single kilogram of beef produces 16 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent emissions: four times higher than pork and more than ten times as much as a kilogram of poultry, Pelletier said.

Mmmm! Tasty hummer.

If people were to simply switch from beef to chicken, emissions would be cut by 70 percent, Pelletier said.

Another part of the problem is people are eating far more meat than they need to.

“Meat once was a luxury in our diet,” Pelletier said. “We used to eat it once a week. Now we eat it every day.”

If meat consumption in the developed world was cut from the current level of about 90 kilograms a year to the recommended level of 53 kilograms a year, livestock related emissions would fall by 44 percent.

“Given the projected doubling of (global) meat production by 2050, we’re going to have to cut our emissions by half just to maintain current levels,” Pelletier said.

“Technical improvements are not going to get us there.” (Read more.)

B.S. Report–I am so tired of these man-made global warming cheerleaders.  I so look forward to the day that they finally give it up and have to eat crow, er, tofu.

Now, even space suffers from over-population…European Space Agency will monitor “space junk”

European Space Agency Hopes To Clean Up “Space Junk”

DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) – Wary of the multitude of satellites in earth’s orbit, the European Space Agency has begun a program to monitor space debris and set up uniform standards to prevent future collisions far above the planet, an official said Monday.The euro50 million ($64 million) program—dubbed Space Situational Awareness—aims to increase information for scientists on the ground about the estimated 13,000 satellites and other man-made bodies orbiting the planet, ESA space debris expert Jean-Francois Kaufeler told reporters.

The program was launched in January. On Feb. 10, the collision of two satellites generated space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years.

"Hey mac, watch where you're going."

“What the last accident showed us is that we need to do much more. We need to be receiving much more precise data in order to prevent further collisions,” Kaufeler said of the collision.

The smashup happened 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia and involved a derelict Russian spacecraft designed for military communications and a working satellite owned by U.S.-based Iridium, which served commercial customers as well as the U.S. Defense Department.

A key element of the program is to increase the amount of information shared worldwide between the various space agencies, including NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos, Kaufeler said.

Kaufeler also said that another aspect that must be examined is establishing international standards on how debris is described, tracked and, if needed, moved so as to prevent any collisions. (Read more.)

B.S. Report–What slobs! We’ve already littered space! I thought space was endless–can’t we knock the old satellites out of their orbit and send them on their way to oblivion?  I guess we need a space-age version of “Merry-Maids” or some cosmic cleaning crew to clean up after us.

Nevada Casinos Warned About iPod Card-Counting Program

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Nevada gambling regulators have warned casinos in the state about a card-counting program that works on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and iPod Touch that illegally helps players beat the house in blackjack.

Card counting itself is not illegal under Nevada gambling laws, but it is considered a felony to use devices to help count cards.

Hmmm, what does my ipod tell me to do?

The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent a memo to casinos last week warning them of the program.

In blackjack, certain card counting techniques help players determine when they are likely to win a hand and adjust their bets accordingly.

Nevada learned of the program from gambling regulators in California, where officials at an Indian casino found customers using it and tipped state authorities.

Brazilian woman claims to be attacked by skinheads in Zurich…Looks like she attacked herself…

Hey lady, that's kind of an odd attack...there's not very much damage--except to your credibility.

ZURICH (AP) – The Brazilian woman who claimed to lose her unborn twins in a Swiss skinhead attack was not pregnant and probably carved the initials of Switzerland’s main right-wing party into her own skin, investigators said Friday.

Police said in a statement that 26-year-old Paula Oliveira was not three months pregnant Monday, when she claimed an attack by three skinheads, one with a Nazi symbol tattooed on the back of his head, caused her to have a miscarriage.

Zurich University forensic medicine chief Walter Baer said “any experienced forensic doctor would not hesitate to assume that this was a case of self-infliction.”

All of the wounds were reachable by hand, and none were severe, he said. Areas particularly sensitive for women — breasts, navel and outer genitals — were not injured, he said.

He added, however, that investigations were still ongoing.

Police said Oliveira claimed she was attacked outside a Zurich train station, and that the assailants cut her stomach and legs with the initials of Switzerland’s main right-wing party.

Pictures of her scarred body have appeared in media and Brazil’s Foreign Ministry had raised the idea that it was an anti-foreigner attack.

But some Swiss news organizations and politicians had suggested the woman’s story might have been made up, as has happened in other European countries.

B.S. Report–This kind of stuff happens fairly frequently now.  We’ve seen it numerous times out here in California, especially on college campuses where we see all sorts of phony racial shenanigans and accusations take place.

The people that claim this stuff always get found out–largely because they’re stupid and mixed up.  I have a vague recollection of someone claiming to have been attacked in a men’s room but he carved his little attack in the mirror and did it backwards.  I think it was the late shock-host, Morton Downey Jr., but I’m not sure.

Anyway, I hope they prosecute her for making a false complaint…and force her into some badly needed therapy.  She also claimed to be pregnant, and apparently that isn’t true either.  What do they say to her in that instance:  “Lady, you’re not pregnant, you’re just fat?”

McCain says Obama needs to work on bipartisanship… McCain still doesn’t get it…Stand for something and stop trying to cut a deal!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senator John McCain said on Friday that President Barack Obama should include Republicans in his plans sooner if he really wants their support after the bitter debate over the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

Should host new version of "Lets Make A Deal"

McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, and other Republicans complained they had been left out of negotiations on the legislation by Democrats who hold majorities in both houses of Congress.

McCain said the bill was filled with non-emergency spending paid for with borrowed money that future generations will have to pay back.

“I think that the majority of people understand that this was generational theft,” McCain told Reuters.

The Arizona senator said many other issues coming up will require a bipartisan effort that he said has been lacking so far from Obama and the Democrats.

“I hope they’ve learned a lesson,” he said. “I hope that they will reverse course, and sit down, negotiate from the beginning, so you’re in on the takeoff, so you can be in on the landing.”

McCain met Obama two weeks after the November 4 election and agreed that “Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington” to solve urgent challenges.

Obama initially hoped for an overwhelming majority for passage of the stimulus bill, but the debate quickly dissolved into the traditional argument in which Democrats backed a package more weighted to spending programs and Republicans advocated tax cuts.  (Read more.)

B.S. Report–Does McCain know yet that he lost the election?  And he lost the election largely because a substantial percentage of conservative Republicans couldn’t stand his bipartisanship.  Outside of his understandably strong support for the military, it’s hard to come up with a position that McCain won’t water down with bipartisanship deal-making.

Now McCain says Obama should include Republicans in sooner if he wants their support on the “stimulus” and other projects.  He wants everyone to be as bipartisan as he is-but not everyone is as wishy-washy as McCain.

Say what you will about Obama, he’s not watering down his agenda.  He knows he doesn’t need Republican support–except from a few RINO’s that he can count on swaying.  Obama’s a radical leftist and that’s where he’s heading:  further and further left.

Not a popular guy…Australia Names Arsonist Who Set Wildfires that killed 190 people

MELBOURNE, Australia – A court lifted the ban Monday on identifying the only arson suspect so far in Australia‘s recent deadly wildfires, and authorities urged people not to target him in their rage over the disaster’s almost 190 deaths.

The case of Brendan Sokaluk, a 39-year-old man accused of lighting one of hundreds of fires that swept southern Victoria state on Feb. 7, went before a court packed with media and onlookers Monday, but he chose to stay in police protective custody rather than attend.

Sokaluk was arrested Friday and charged with one count of arson causing death and one of lighting a wildfire in connection to a blaze known as the Churchill fire. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years on the first charge, and 15 years on the second. He was also charged with possessing child pornography, which carries a 5-year maximum sentence.

B.S. Report–I always wonder how they manage to catch arsonists.  It seems like such an easy crime to get away with.  I guess it’s because these guys (and girls, too) just have to come back and admire their handiwork.

It’s not going to be an easy task keeping this guy alive long enough for his trial.  But it’s also nice to know that if an insane jury finds him not guilty of setting the fires (hardly a chance in hell), they will at least have him “dead to rights” on the child porn charge.

Nevada to allow lion hunts to help deer population rebound…animal advocates object to plan…duh

RENO, Nev. (AP) — State wildlife officials have announced a plan to kill more mountain lions to help increase the deer population, a move criticized by animal advocates who say drought and development are more important factors in the decrease of deer numbers.

Wants a fat, juicy deer...

The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners told agency staff last week to employ the help of sport hunters and contract employees from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Wildlife Services for the state wildlife department’s new “program of intensive, sustained predator reduction.”

Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said his agency would use science to figure out the number of lions to be killed in areas where the predators have been found to adversely affect deer numbers.

“It’s not an effort to exterminate mountain lions,” Mayer said. “It’s an effort to better manage lions with the prey base. Some hunters think the solution to the deer problem is to kill a lot of lions and the deer will come back.”

The state’s deer population fell from 240,000 in 1988 to 108,000 in 2008, while its current lion population ranges from 1,500 to 2,400, according to the wildlife department.

Nevada already allows lion hunts, each year issuing a quota of lion tags that a hunter can obtain. Commissioners set the quota at 306 tags for the year beginning March 1 and increased the number of tags allowed each hunter from two to three.

Lion advocates compared the new policy to the “Sarah Palin method of wildlife management,” which wildlife biologist D.J. Schubert described as removing “animals with big teeth in order to promote the animals hunters like to shoot.”

Animal rights advocates master plan: turn mountain lions into vegetarians!

“It’s an archaic form of wildlife management,” said Schubert, of the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute. “Unfortunately, they’re making the mountain lion a scapegoat, despite the importance of the mountain lion as a top-line predator in any ecosystem.”

Palin, Alaska’s governor, supports a predator control program that allows private citizens with permits to shoot wolves from the air in an effort to reverse a decline in moose and caribou numbers.

Don Molde, a former board member of the Defenders of Wildlife and a member of the Humane Society of the United States, called the plans “nonsense.”  (Read more.)