Obama's Vision for Government-Run Childhood

By Terence P. Jeffrey

We used to do it ourselves. Now, convinced we have better things to do, many of us leave the job to others. Encouraging this flight from parenthood, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has proposed what he calls his "Zero to Five" plan. It is a collection of programs aimed at getting the government involved in the raising of your children from the moment they are born. "The first part of my plan focuses on providing quality affordable early childhood education to every child in America," Obama said in a November speech. "As president, I will launch a Children's First Agenda that provides care, learning and support to families with children ages zero to five."

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Obama's Global Tax Bill Coming Soon

Lee Cary

The Global Poverty Act of 2007 (S.2433) is coming up for a Senate vote sometime after the July 4 recess, according the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Once Harry Reid and the Democrat leadership put it on the calendar, we could have as little as a week to prepare for the vote.
The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Barack Obama. Read about it here.
If passed, it will cost taxpayers $845,000,000,000 over the next 13 years, in addition to our current foreign aid expenditures.

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Teaching Not Preaching In CA Bible Belt

(CBS) Modesto is known as the bible belt of California. It has deep conservative roots in farmland and a vocal Evangelical community. But increasingly, some less familiar notes are echoing through California's Central Valley, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports. Like many other places, Modesto is becoming more religiously diverse. But unlike any other place, religion is a required course in high school here.

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Cannon ousted in Republican primary

Republican voters in Utah ousted Rep. Chris Cannon in Tuesday’s GOP primary, expressing their dissatisfaction with the six-term congressman over his left-of-center positions on immigration by nominating a challenger who made crackdowns on illegal immigration a central part of his platform.Cannon was trounced by Jason Chaffetz, the former chief of staff to Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-Utah.) With all precincts reporting, Cannon lost to Chaffetz by 20 points – 60 to 40 percent.

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Obama may not be "natural born" US citizen

By Reuven Koret

It is now a certainty that the "birth certificate" claimed by the Barack Obama campaign as authentic is a photoshopped fake. An authentic Hawaiian birth certificate for another Hawaiian individual has since surfaced which, using the same official form as the presumptive Obama certificate, includes an embossed official seal and an authoritative signature, coming through from the back. Obama's alleged certificate lacks those features, and the certificate number referencing the birth year has been blacked out, making it untraceable.

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Father's Day cards banned in Scottish schools

By Simon Johnson

Thousands of primary pupils were prevented from making Father's Day cards at school for fear of embarrassing classmates who live with single mothers and lesbians.
The politically correct policy was quietly adopted at schools "in the interests of sensitivity" over the growing number of lone-parent and same-sex households.

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'Idle' Oil Field Fallacy

By RED CAVANEY

A company bids for and buys a lease because it believes there is a possibility that it may yield enough oil or natural gas to make the cost of the lease, and the costs of exploration and production, commercially viable. The U.S. government received $3.7 billion from company bids in a single lease sale in March 2008.
However, until the actual exploration is complete, a company does not know whether the lease will be productive. If, through exploration, it finds there is no oil or natural gas underneath a lease – or that there is not enough to justify the tremendous investment required to bring it to the surface .

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Energy-greedy Floridians say no to oil wells

BY FRED GRIMM
To deliver us our sacred oil, residents of the Niger Valley abide a landscape pitted with pools of toxic chemicals and a night sky perpetually lit by flames flaring from oil derrick smokestacks.
Burn-off from oil wells adds 35 million tons of carbon dioxide and 12 million tons of methane a year to the air Nigerians breath.
Income derived from the poisoned mess props up arguably the most corrupt government on Earth.
We get their oil. Nigerians, at least most of them, get nothing but misery. I wonder what folks in the Niger Valley would make of the moral outrage over the notion of drilling for oil 100 miles, even 50 miles, off the Florida coast.
Of course, Floridians can rightfully complain that a proposal to reverse the coastal drilling ban by John McCain and his vice presidential wannabe, Charlie Crist, amounts to a political gimmick.

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Energy Answers Await At Our Doorstep

By THOMAS A. SHANNON JR. AND DANIEL S. SULLIVAN

As gasoline prices continue to soar, few Americans realize that a key element for strengthening our energy security is right next door. Nearly 50% of our energy imports come from our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.
Canada is our single-largest energy supplier, providing 17% of U.S. oil imports. In 2007, Canada provided more petroleum than the two next top suppliers. Canada is also our top supplier of natural gas (16% of total supply in 2006) and a major supplier of electricity.

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What America has done for Obama

By CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER

Sen. Barack Obama is not here to bring change: He is the product of changes. In barely half a century, African Americans have gone from gallantly fighting for a seat in the front of the bus to struggling for the conquest of the Oval Office. But this way of understanding the United States also defines the true sense of the American presidency. The main function of the chief of state is not to lead the Americans in a direction chosen by him or by the leaders of his party but to perfect the institutions and facilitate the mechanisms that enable people to compete in a fair environment so the whole of society may evolve as a consequence of the decisions freely made by millions of people every day. That's what has made the United States great.

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Cold, hard facts take the heat out of some hot claims

Michael Duffy

Imagine if the American government agency responsible for temperature records had announced a fortnight ago that it had overestimated annual temperatures since the year 2000. Imagine if, at the time of correcting this error, the hottest year on record was mysteriously altered from 1998 to 1934. Imagine further that if you considered the 10 hottest years on record after these corrections, the hottest decade changed from the 1990s to the 1930s.

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Many Dutch prepare for 2012 apocalypse

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, June 23 (UPI) -- Thousands of people in the Netherlands say they expect the world to end in 2012, and many say they are taking precautions to prepare for the apocalypse.
The Dutch-language de Volkskrant newspaper said it spoke to thousands of believers in the impending end of civilization, and while theories on the supposed catastrophe varied, most tied the 2012 date to the end of the Mayan calendar, Radio Netherlands reported Monday.

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NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

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Obama calls for oil crackdown

By MIKE ALLEN

Obama wants to close a loophole in federal law that exempts some energy traders from regulations that govern other exchange-traded commodities. Democrats call this “the Enron loophole” because it benefited the Houston energy-speculation firm that collapsed in an accounting scandal.

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"Barack Obama has voted the party line for Democrats who claim the loophole is fixed. The fact that Barack Obama is attacking John McCain, despite McCain’s leadership on the issue, shows that Barack Obama is driven by the partisan attacks that Americans are tired of.”

DRILLING DOWN ON OIL

By Jay Bookman

Is the current oil crisis a natural phenomenon, the inevitable result of too much demand meeting too little supply? Or is it the consequence of market speculation or of bad government policies? To get at the answers, we decided to drill deep into government data and other sources to see what the numbers told us.

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Europe Fears Obama Might Undercut Progress With Iran

By Glenn Kessler

The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Tehran, unlike the other countries in the coalition. Obama advisers contend that U.S. willingness to engage directly with Iran would improve a process that they say is not effective in thwarting Iranian ambitions. "People say we can't give something for nothing," said Susan Rice, a key Obama foreign policy aide. "But every day that passes, the Iranians are getting something for nothing -- progress on their nuclear program."

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No-drilling energy policy no way to get out of oil crisis

By Jim Wooten

In the U.S. Senate last week, Majority Leader Harry Reid uttered the energy version of the same message to motorists who are, in the words of U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, “mad as hell” about $4 gas. “Despite what President Bush, John McCain and their friends in the oil industry claim, we cannot drill our way out of this problem,” said Reid, reading from the same script as his House counterpart, Nancy Pelosi.

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'I despise Islamism'

By Liz Hazelton

He is known for his polished prose, critically acclaimed novels -and for keeping a decidedly low profile.
But today the Booker-winning novelist Ian McEwan found himself at the centre of an uncharacteristic row.

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A Lefty Will Win White House

By RUSSELL BERMAN

WASHINGTON — While this year's presidential campaign has been marked by historic firsts, the nominations of senators McCain and Obama will renew one surprising trend: For the fifth time in the last 35 years, America will have a lefty in the White House.

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Though left-handers comprise just 10% of the population, they are dominating presidential politics.

Attorney will ask judge to dismiss flag mutilation charge

By Cassidy Friedman

A local attorney will move for a judge to dismiss the Minidoka County prosecutor’s charge that his client publicly mutilated a U.S. flag at Minico High School, calling an Idaho statute that bans flag desecration “clearly unconstitutional.“

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“This was clearly an act of free expression,” Roark said. “A political opinion was being expressed. And everybody knows that. I think the school handled this very badly. This prosecution is part of an attempt to make the school administration look better than it deserves to look.“

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control

By ALAN FRAM and EILEEN PUTMAN

WASHINGTON - Is everything spinning out of control?
Midwestern levees are bursting.

Polar bears are adrift.

Gas prices are skyrocketing.

Home values are abysmal.

Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable.

Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

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Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

Ed Pilkington

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

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"When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change

Juliette Jowit

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

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'It's disappointing and the government will be really worried,' said Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the government's Sustainable Development Commission.

Democrats call for nationalization of refineries

House Democrats responded to President's Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.
Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.
They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.

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$4 gasoline is the issue

By: Don Surber

SOME eight years ago, Vice President Al Gore proposed a 50-cent hike in gasoline taxes to raise prices to force Americans to repent and sacrifice their SUVs at the altar of environmentalism.
That's another reason why he never became president.
Gore has a King Kong-sized "carbon footprint." He uses the equivalent of 125 barrels of oil a year to provide electricity for his home in Tennessee, or about what 20 normal families use.

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When the cost of filling the tank rises from $20 to $50, people decide that maybe they really don't need that fancy $5 cup of coffee. An almost-as-fancy $1 cup does the trick.
The difference in price is equal to the price of one gallon of gasoline.

Caracas Connection

Editorial of The New York Sun

In a January 8, 2007 editorial, "Mr. Monroe, Call Your Office," we warned of what we called an Iranian strategy "to gain anti-American allies within striking distance of our shores." We wrote, "the Venezuela-Iran connection has included trade deals, numerous photo ops, and the exchange of national decorations between the two presidents." We followed up with a January 16, 2007 editorial, "Enemy in Our Back Yard," that warned, "Until recently, Mr. Chavez and his fellow Latin American leftists were an annoyance for advocates of free trade and good governance. Now that they've allied themselves with Islamic extremists, however, they've become a great deal more dangerous." We predicted, "Although economic in nature, this entente will eventually become a military one."

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California leaders say 'no way' to coastal oil drilling

By Rob Hotakainen

WASHINGTON – If President Bush and Republican Sen. John McCain are expecting any support from California's top leaders for their plan to lift a ban on offshore drilling, it could be a long wait.
"California's coastline is an international treasure," Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday. "I do not support lifting this moratorium on new oil drilling off our coast."
Ditto from the state's two Democratic senators, who are out to thwart the proposal. Sen. Barbara Boxer says all Bush wants to do is "drill, drill, drill." And Sen. Dianne Feinstein says the president has returned to "the mantra of drilling."

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Obama, his gay accuser and the lawyer in a kilt

Anne Davies

THERE are crazy days in every campaign and one of them just struck the 2008 US presidential election trail. Larry Sinclair, a gay man from Minnesota who alleges he snorted cocaine and had sex with the Democratic nominee, held a news conference.
His allegations have been sloshing around on the internet for six months, ever since he posted a YouTube video. But after he took a polygraph test and failed, he has struggled to get mainstream media interest in a story he said began in the back of a limousine in Chicago in 1999.

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Don’t miss a huge June moon illusion

By Robert Roy Britt

As the full moon rises Wednesday evening many people will be fooled into thinking it's unusually large.
The moon illusion, as it's known, is a trick in our minds that makes the moon seem bigger when it's near the horizon. The effect is most pronounced at full moon. Many people swear it's real, suggesting that perhaps Earth's atmosphere magnifies the moon.
But it really is all in our minds. The moon is not bigger at the horizon than when overhead.

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The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

CityNews.ca Staff

Colleen Leduc already had a lot going against her. The Barrie woman was holding down a job while struggling to raise her autistic 11-year-old daughter. She couldn't afford to give the child the intensive therapy she needed, and was forced to send her to a public school in the area.
So she was completely unprepared for what happened to her and the youngster, an almost unbelievable tale of red tape involving a strange claim from a teaching assistant, a bizarre decision by a school board, a visit from the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and most improbably of all, the incorrect pronouncements of a psychic.

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The Tough Guys

As President George W. Bush limps through his lame-duck year, it won't surprise you to read that he's hugely unpopular. Now a new poll taken in 20 countries by WorldPublicOpinion.org and released exclusively to NEWSWEEK confirms the world's low opinion of the president—but adds a twist. No other major world leader enjoys significantly greater trust abroad. In a sense, they're all Bushes now.

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R.I.P. to the S.U.V.

It’s hard to convince most Americans that there is a silver lining to $4-a-gallon gasoline. But General Motors provided a nugget of good news when it announced that it would shutter much of its production of pickups and sport utility vehicles — and might even get rid of the Hummer, the relative of the Abrams tank unleashed on the streets in the cheap-gas days of the 1990s.

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Obama accuser has long rap sheet

By BEN SMITH

Larry Sinclair is wanted in Colorado, but you can catch him today at the National Press Club. Sinclair is familiar to political junkies and reporters as the source of outlandish allegations about Senator Barack Obama, tales that began with sex and drugs and moved on to murder.

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Heart Attacks That Strike Out of the Blue

By MELINDA BECK

Everybody knows somebody who has had a sudden, fatal heart attack, and it's many people's secret fear. More than 300,000 Americans die of heart disease without making it to the hospital each year; most of them from sudden cardiac arrest, according to the American Heart Association. In about half of those cases, the heart attack itself is the first symptom.

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Presence of proverbs on cars may be tip-off to an angry driver

By Shankar Vedantam

Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other "territorial markers" not only get mad when someone cuts into their lane or is slow to respond to a traffic light, they also are far more likely than others to use their vehicles to express rage —by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

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It doesn't seem to matter whether the stickers are about peace and love—"Visualize World Peace" and "My Kid Is an Honor Student"—or in your face: "Don't Mess With Texas," "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student."

Will gay rights trample religious freedom?

By Marc D. Stern

In its controversial decision, the court insisted that these same-sex marriages would not "diminish any other person's constitutional rights" or "impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official or any other person." Religious liberty would be unaffected, the chief justice wrote, because no member of the clergy would be compelled to officiate at a same-sex ceremony and no church could be compelled to change its policies or practices.

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67% Support Offshore Drilling, 64% Expect it Will Lower Prices

Most voters favor the resumption of offshore drilling in the United States and expect it to lower prices at the pump, even as John McCain has announced his support for states that want to explore for oil and gas off their coasts. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey—conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue--finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

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Going For Broke

By Howie Rich

Sometimes, what’s wrong with government in America really can be “boiled down” to a delicious metaphor – one that exquisitely encapsulates the failure of our politicians to get a handle on their insatiable “appetites.”

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Take last week’s news that the U.S. Senate is finally privatizing its restaurant business after losing more than $18 million over the past fifteen years – a decision it reached after taking advantage of one last $250,000 taxpayer bailout just to make this month’s payroll, of course.

Meteorologist Says Money Behind Warming Alarmism

By Jeff Poor

A year and a half ago, James Spann questioned the money and the so-called scientific consensus pushing the idea that mankind is causing global warming. Today, he says it’s losing steam. Two imminent surveys of meteorologists may further complicate the climate debate.

“Of course, the root of this whole thing is money,” Spann said. “And, there is a vast amount of wealth being generated by this whole issue. And I always recommend to folks – if anyone speaks on the subject, get a disclosure and find out their financial interests in it.”

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ohio state judge....note photos on wall

Democracy Takes it on the Chin

Filed under: Zimbabwe

The past month or so has been a really rough one for democracy.
The month started out with an "election" in Russia in which there were no debates and no opposition candidates. A proud KGB spy guaranteed that his hand-picked successor would "win" by indicting his own former prime minister on fraud charges and striking him from the ballot, and when his successor takes over he'll remain in the government as prime minister himself -- meaning that, in fact, there won't be any transition at all.

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What Flag Day Means to Me

Paul Ibrahim

June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the flag of the United States of America. Flag Day has since been partly eclipsed by other American traditions and holidays, and although it is still celebrated by numerous families and in many parts of the country, it has been forgotten by too many.

I, however, will never forget Flag Day. On June 14, 2005, on Flag Day three years ago, I became a citizen of the United States. Standing on the grounds of George Washington’s Mount Vernon,

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Illegal Drug Use With Obama

By Center for Forfeiture Law

WASHINGTON, June 16 --Despite death threats and an organized campaign to prevent him from speaking publicly, Larry Sinclair will for the first time reveal the corroborating evidence for his claim that on November 6 + 7, 1999, Larry: (i) met Obama at a gay bar where Barack Obama arranged for the purchase of federal Schedule II drugs, (ii) which Larry and Obama thereafter ingested and (iii) then engaged in hi-risk, homosexual activities.

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Saudi King: 'We will pump more oil'

By Anne Penketh

Next month, the Saudis will be pumping an extra half-a-million barrels of oil a day compared to last month, bringing total Saudi production to 9.7 million barrels a day, their highest ever level. But the world's biggest oil exporters are coupling the increase with an appeal to western Europe to cut fuel taxes to lower the price of petrol to consumers.

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Obama tells black fathers to engage their children

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS

Barack Obama celebrated Father's Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are "missing from too many lives and too many homes," to become active in raising their children.
"They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it," the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday at a largely black church in his hometown.

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Tackling Five Modern Myths Created by Liberals

By John Hawkins

In recent years, liberals have mastered the art of lying. A lefty blog writes a story, then two dozen other blogs pick-up. Next thing you know, the libs in the mainstream media are echoing the charges that started in the blogosphere without mentioning that they're false.

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Then, a few months later, after the lies have been repeated ad nauseum, even conservatives who are uninformed may start to mistake the untrue charges for the truth

Hate speech or free speech?

By Adam Liptak

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

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Salmonella fear traps tomatoes

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

MEXICO CITY - Export-quality tomatoes labeled "Ready to Eat" in English flooded Mexico City markets on Thursday after a salmonella scare in the U.S. trapped them south of the border.

Mexican growers and government officials called the warning unjust, noting it has brought exports to a halt and could cripple Mexico's $1 billion tomato industry.

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Crackdown urged on speculation.

By Diana B. Henriques

In Washington, financial speculators have a fat target on their backs.
They are being blamed for high gasoline prices, soaring grocery bills and volatile commodity markets, and lawmakers are lashing out at market regulators for not cracking down on them more vigorously.
"You study it, but you don't act against this incredible increase in speculation," Senator Carl Levin complained to a senior official of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at a recent Senate hearing. "Unless the CFTC is going to act against speculation, we don't have a cop on the beat."

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