Jack’s Newswatch

WASHINGTON — Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, one of America’s most popular and polarizing elected officials, shocked the U.S. political world Friday by announcing she will not seek re-election and plans to resign from office at the end of this month.

At a news conference in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, Ms. Palin was at times upbeat, rambling and defiant — taking aim at “political operatives” who she said had spent months trying to destroy her reputation, and vowing to continue fighting for American values in private life.

“We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities,” Ms. Palin said, referring to herself and her husband, Todd, a champion snow-machine racer.

Ms. Palin’s decision came as a complete surprise both to her Republican colleagues and her Democratic opponents, sparking immediate speculation about whether the former vice-presidential candidate is positioning herself for a run for the White House in 2012.

“Some are going to question the timing of this, and let me say, this decision has been in the works for quite a while,” Ms. Palin said.

She will leave office on July 26, handing over the reins of power in Alaska to Lt.-Gov. Sean Parnell.

[More]

Related:

Sarah’s Resignation Remarks

Kay: Sarah Palin’s resignation speech symbolized her vacuous approach to politics

Frum: The disastrous Sarah Palin could have become a modern-day Goldwater

Palin’s Resignation Has Many Asking, What Next?

Palin Vanity Fair Article Reignites Feud Among Former Campaign Aides

Notes:

Kay and Frum sound exactly like the pair of stuffed shirts they are.  Let the wars begin.

Barack Obama called for House passage of the cap and trade tax bill last Friday by calling it a jobs bill. The bill is designed to raise the price of energy in the U.S. so much that it will reduce the use of fossil fuels by 17% by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. Sentencing the U.S. economy to high cost energy is not a particularly good strategy for creating jobs. The Charles River Associates, a Harvard based economics consulting firm, estimates a net loss of jobs from the bill of about 2.5 million each year.

This is surely a gross underestimate of the net job losses from a bill designed to reduce the use of fossil fuels to the level in 1907. All those soccer moms better get used to riding their horses to the grocery store and back. And their husbands better get used to working the farms again, by hand, as high cost energy will chase remaining American manufacturing out of the country to India and China, which do not suffer from Al Gore’s delusions about supposed global warming.

Yet Barack Obama calls it a jobs bill. This reflects a by now well-established pattern of deceptive, misdirection rhetoric, raising broadly appealing ideals in promotion of policies that would do just the opposite. For example, Obama is also trying to sell us a new health care entitlement, larger than any of our already grossly overgrown entitlements we can’t finance, with the argument that it will actually reduce costs, even while CBO estimates that it will increase Federal spending by $1.6 trillion (woefully underestimated).

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Notes:

For a long time now I’ve been trying to warn people that “cap and trade” is nothing more than a UN sponsored wealth transfer scheme.  A scheme  which transfers money in your wallet into the wallets of first world shysters (Gore — Suzuki) and dictators in third world countries. 

Why is this happening?

In large part because third world countries dominate the UN with their votes.  They don’t want to earn their place as a first world country (G8)…they want to steal it and China is the best example I can think of. 

Watch the movie (there are more in my “Links” area) and stop to think. 

You and your vote can change this picture but only if you understand what is truly happening and see through the “hucksterism”.  If you fail to heed the warning given by many people who know because they are well qualified you are on your own and you have literally begged for everything you are about to recieve. 

It will take you an hour to learn. 

If you don’t it may well take generations to undo the damage you helped to cause  (if it ever can be).

Regarding the video in the sidebar:

I’ve changed it because I feel whatever Michael Jackson was accused of in his personal life (it was a screwed up mess in my view) he has now cast off one existance for another and it all no longer matters. 

At heart he was an entertainer and “Billie Jean” was one of his biggest hits. 

Small wonder.

It will remain until after his funeral because I feel he earned his place alongside stars like Elvis and the video is my personal tribute to the “Peter Pan” who stole the hearts of an entire world.

My view — you can’t do better than that.

MEMRAMCOOK, N.B. — Friends and colleagues of Romeo LeBlanc hailed him as an unsung hero and a champion of the Acadian people as he was laid to rest in his hometown Friday morning.

A state funeral is underway in the small farming community of Memramcook for the first Acadian to be named governor general.

His longtime friend, Senator Marc Lalonde, praised his humility.

“He was committed to those in our society who didn’t have a big voice, like fishermen. He was very much a man of the people without any ostentation,” said Lalonde who had known Mr. LeBlanc since 1950.

“I think he’ll keep on as an inspiration for younger generation to know that they have their full place in this country,” he added.

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THE multi-billion dollar global football sector has become a vehicle for money laundering and other forms of corruption, requiring an international response, a study says.

“Money laundering through the football sector is revealed to be deeper and more complex than previously understood,” said the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body formed to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Paris-based group said its analysis found in the study published today that “there is more than anecdotal evidence indicating that a variety of money flows and or financial transactions may increase the risk of money laundering through football.”

The football sector has in addition provided opportunities for other criminal activities such as trafficking in human beings and drugs, according to the FATF.

Based on responses to a questionnaire received last October from government and football authorities in 25 countries, more than 20 cases of football-related money laundering were detected, the task force said.

The cases ranged from the smuggling of large amounts of cash derived from apparently illegal transactions to more complex operations.

“Investments in football clubs can be used to integrate money of illegal origin in the financial system,” the study found.

“Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering.”

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In San Luis Obispo County, a 20-year-old drug abuser who was the sole caretaker for his seriously disabled father provided such poor care that, according to the grand jury in that county, the father frequently had bedsores, he was not properly cleaned, adult protective services had to be called in and, ultimately, he died before he was 60 years old. Incredibly, the son was being paid by the state, through the In-Home Supportive Services Program, for this substandard care.

Though this kind of abuse of taxpayer dollars is not rampant, we know it exists. So how could the Legislature in good conscience propose its latest budget fix — one that would increase taxes, cut children off our healthcare rolls, reduce funding to education and put more strain on law enforcement — without first eliminating this kind of fraud and waste?

Legislators are continuing to draft solutions to our now $26.3-billion state budget deficit. We’re close to filling the gap, but I will not sign a package that raises taxes or fails to address the entire deficit. There is a need for compromise, and I have proposed a path forward that would include ensuring that tax dollars go to citizens in need of services and not to waste, fraud or excessive compensation for those who provide those services. These reforms won’t entirely address falling revenues and rising costs, but they will help immediately, and especially in the years to come. It’s time we take action on them.

Take the CalWorks program, for example, which is designed to give low-income Californians a helping hand, temporarily, as they get back on their feet. Of the approximately 525,000 cases that currently involve cash assistance from CalWorks, only 22% are meeting the minimum program requirements. That means 78% aren’t trying to get on their feet at all. They’re not working, not looking for work, not seeking job training, not performing community service and not pursuing an education.

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Updates:

12:40 pm EDT, July 3rd, 2009 — Cash-strapped states up against budget deadlines

12:42 pm EDT, July 3rd, 2009 — Rising debt may be next crisis

Video:

 

OTTAWA — Immigration to Canada would need to more than double from current levels, surpassing 600,000 a year, to offset the drag on living standards from an ageing population — a scenario that is “unrealistic,” a prominent think-tank warns in an analysis.

As a result, policymakers need to focus on potentially controversial initiatives that would delay the normal age of retirement, from 65 to 70, and persuade Canadian families to have more children, says the C.D. Howe Institute-issued paper, released Thurday.

Further, governments must revisit the country’s lacklustre productivity growth, which has taken a backseat as legislators have crafted policies aimed at mitigating the impact of the financial crisis.

William Robson, the think-tank’s president, said the changing demographics have to be dealt with because left unchecked, growth in the workforce and economic output will slow.

Furthermore, working-age households will have more of their income tapped by governments to cover the increased costs associated with paying out pension benefits and health-care for Baby Boomers.

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GARMSIR, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines are in a “hell of a fight” as they storm into Taliban strongholds in a major assault in Afghanistan, their commanding officer said Friday.

Nearly 4,000 Marines launched the operation Thursday in parts of the southern province of Helmand, suffering their first fatality in a pivotal test of President Barack Obama’s aggressive new strategy against the Taliban.

The 1/5 Infantry Battalion met only light resistance in their push south and had already been able to meet locals at shuras [councils], Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said, speaking to a convoy with which AFP was travelling.

But “for 2/8 there is a hell of a fight going on in the southern quarter of the sector,” the top Marine said on arrival at Garmsir, a town along the Helmand River that was a key objective for the offensive.

“2/8 are going to face some challenges,” he said. The Marines were in an area called Toshtay about 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Garmsir.

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See Also:

U.S. soldier sold to Afghan militant clan, official says

Top-ranking British soldier killed in Afghanistan

HERAT, Afghanistan — Students at Afghanistan’s Herat University thought they were living in new era of openness, one in which the right to criticize authority was increasing.

Last week, however, officials at the Iranian consulate in Herat, near the Iranian border, complained to the Afghan Ministry of Culture that the student newspaper, Pegah, was inappropriately critical of Iran’s crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators.

The newspaper was closed for 10 days, the university fired the responsible journalists, and the paper was reopened with no news of the protests.

The measure, however, is likely to backfire among Afghanistan’s increasingly educated and media-savvy younger generation. Student groups denounced the newspaper’s closure and refused to hold their tongues in public.

Mohammed Faqiri, the spokesman for Herat University’s New Generation Club, admits that his group has some advanced views for young people in a traditional Muslim nation, but he’s sure his group is in the mainstream on one issue: Iran.

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Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1.

It is believed that the accident bureau will report that stormy weather was a factor but faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is likely to be asked why it had never taken action to remedy trouble that was well known with the Airbus 330 and 340 series. Nearly 1,000 of the aircraft are flying and until AF447, no passenger had been killed in one.

“EASA has a legal and moral obligation to get to the bottom of this problem now. If there is a defective system and the aircraft is unsafe then it should be grounded,” said James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law in London. The firm, which specialises in aviation, is representing the families of 20 of the victims of flight 447.

[More]

Related:

Air France flight fell intact into sea

Airbus A320 Accidents and incidents

Airbus: spate of accidents doesn’t mean planes are unsafe

Unlike Airbus, Boeing lets aviator override fly-by-wire technology

Is Flight 447’s ‘Fly-by-Wire’ Aircraft Technology Safe?

Editor’s note: Leah Ward Sears stepped down this week as Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In 1992, she became the first woman — and youngest person — appointed to Georgia’s highest court.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — After Tommy’s sudden death, we found among my brother’s personal effects a questionnaire he had completed in 2005 for a church class.

The very first question was a fill-in-the-blank that went like this: “At the end of my life, I’d love to be able to look back and know I’d done something about …..”

“Fathers,” Tommy wrote.

When asked to identify something that angered him that could be changed, Tommy wrote, “Re-establishment of equity and balance and sanity within the American family.”

My brother was born to be a father, and he grew into a good and loving one. Tommy was tall and handsome, smart, witty and fun. A graduate of the Naval Academy and a Stanford-educated lawyer, he married and fathered a little girl and boy who were the center of his life.

Tommy felt that one of the worst problems in our country today was family breakdown and fatherlessness. He railed against intentional unwed childbearing and the ease with which divorce was possible. He didn’t like that we have become a society that values the rights of adults to do their own thing over our responsibility to protect our children.

As a judge I have long held a front row seat to the wreckage left behind by our culture of disposable marriage and casual divorce that my brother so despised.

[More]

See Also:

Analysis: no longer the divorce capital of the world

The governor of California has declared a fiscal emergency in the US state to address a budget deficit of some $24.3bn (£14.5bn).

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also ordered many state offices to close for three days each month until June 2010, with staff unpaid for those days.

California has been one of the US states hardest hit by the recession.

The moves comes after state legislators missed a 1 July deadline to approve a budget for the coming financial year.

State Controller John Chiang has said the failure to meet the deadline means the state deficit will increase by up to $6.5bn by September.

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TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras  —  Honduras’ interim leader accused Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez of instigating his nation’s crisis and lawmakers tightened a curfew aimed at stemming unrest, as coup leaders showed few signs of bending to international pressure to restore the exiled president.

Roberto Micheletti, who was named by Congress to replace President Manuel Zelaya after his ouster, has fought a largely losing battle to win international support for his government. The Organization of American States has given him until Saturday to step aside before Honduras is suspended from the group. The Obama administration halted joint military operations, and France, Spain, Italy, Chile and Colombia all recalled their ambassadors Wednesday.

The fiercest criticism has come from Chavez, the socialist president of Venezuela who has called for Hondurans to rise up against the “gorilla government” and vowed to do everything possible to overthrow it and restore his leftist ally, Zelaya.

Honduras’ interim leader struck back at this foreign critics Wednesday, accusing Chavez of exacerbating Honduras’ problems.

“Chavez has had a clear and definite intervention in the situation that Honduras is currently living through,” Micheletti told reporters.

[More]

Updates:

9:18 am EDT, July 2nd, 2009 — Only foreign invasion can reinstate Zelaya, interim Honduran president says

1:56 pm EDT, July 2nd, 2009 — Defying the outside world

4:53 pm EDT, July 2nd, 2009 — Dyer: Hugo Chavez’s threats to Honduras will fade away

A two-year-old girl has been strangled to death in her bed by a pet python which escaped from its cage in the middle of the night.

The eight-foot Burmese python broke out of a terrarium and killed toddler Shaiunna Hare in her bedroom in Florida.

Charles Jason Darnell, the snake’s owner and boyfriend of the child’s mother, went to the little girl’s room when he realised the reptile was missing.

He found Shaiunna in the snake’s deadly grasp, with bite marks on her head.

Darnell stabbed at the snake until he was able to pry the child away, but the infant was dead by the time emergency services arrived.

‘The baby’s dead!’ a sobbing caller from the house screamed to an emergency all dispatcher in a recording. ‘Our stupid snake got out in the middle of the night and strangled the baby… She got out of the cage last night and got into the baby’s crib and strangled her to death.’

Authorities did not say who made the emergency call.
 
The snake was taken away alive by emergency services.

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Updated at 1:30 p.m.: A representative of Colony Capital, the private equity firm that owns Neverland Ranch, approached Santa Barbara County officials about burying Michael Jackson at the site, an attorney for the county confirmed. Officials researched the request and found that the bureaucratic hurdles on the state and local level for interment on property that wasn’t designated a cemetery were extensive.

“We have not seen [such a burial] in recent decades,” the county lawyer, Michael Ghizzoni, said. “Based on our contacts with the state, we think it would be a process of months, not weeks.”

Funeral arrangements for Michael Jackson are still in flux, but one thing is clear: The pop icon will not be buried at Neverland Ranch.

Jackson’s family wanted him interred at the Santa Barbara County estate, the site of some of the happiest and saddest times in his life, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had agreed to help clear any state bureaucratic hurdles, a source close to the situation told The Times.

But in the end, the source said, county officials could not find a way to quickly circumvent legal restrictions governing burial at a private residence.

“It’s nobody’s fault. Everybody in Santa Barbara feels bad about it,” the source said.

[More]

Related:

Jackson killed himself while trying to make himself sick, ‘insider’ claims

Jackson’s will

Updates:

3:38 pm EDT, July 2nd, 2009 — At Neverland, quiet respects amid a circus

Notes:

As all know who visit this site I’ve been trying to avoid this news story like the plague but it is not to be.  In truth I’ve never seen a circus like this in my life and one would have to be deaf and blind not to know about it.  And it’s going to go on for months.

There’s one good thing that has come out of it.

Obama has been blown right off the front pages and he’ll be awhile before he returns.

Addressing a massive Canada Day crowd, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canadians have faced a challenging year but “are a strong and resilient people.”

Harper, speaking to tens of thousands of Canadians gathered on Parliament Hill, spoke optimistically about the current recession.

“Looking around the world, Canada has fared better than most and looking to the future, Canada is poised to lead,” he said.

The prime minister also paid tribute to how far Canada has come in its first 142 years, and where it will go in future.

“We must never forget that our country, our way of life, did not come about by accident,” Harper said.

“We are a product of diverse peoples from all corners of the Earth, but committed to common values, a country that cherishes freedom, democracy and justice, a country that offers opportunity to all who seek it, a country proud of our past and confident of our future.”

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Updates:

5:46 pm EDT, July 1st, 2009 –Canada Day marked in Afghanistan with tank decor, soldiers’ festivities