A leading General Motors executive has called for government loans of up to $50bn to help American car markers build more fuel-efficient cars. Bob Lutz, GM's vice-chairman, warned that major US car manufacturers need the money to re-tool their factories and are unlikely to be able to raise enough capital alone due to tight credit markets. Mr Lutz's comments come against background of ongoing talks between leading US car makers and politicians in recent weeks over enhanced government backing to enable a shift to greener production. The three major US car manufacturers, GM, Ford and Chrysler, are working with the...
The French see the Socialist party as hopelessly divided and on the verge of meltdown, according to a poll released on Friday, just as the battle to lead France's main opposition group heats up. With almost all the Socialist party's big guns attending a summer university this weekend along with thousands of activists, almost two thirds of the French see the party as mortally riven by internal rivalries. The Socialists "are perpetuating their own discredit", according to the head of ViaVoice, which conducted the poll. The public no longer "understands" why the party cannot forget its "egocentric preoccupations" and "pay...
Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has signalled that it will formally seek to merge with Russia. This move would amount to Russia’s annexation of an area of another state and the redrawing of the map of a corner of Europe. South Ossetia, with a largely Russian population of only 70,000, has no viable future as an independent state and observers believe that its only realistic option is to join its giant neighbour. President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia discussed this option with his South Ossetian counterpart, Eduard Kokoity, earlier this week during a meeting in Moscow. Znaur Gassiyev, the Speaker...
Republicans dropped a news bomb on Friday morning, shattering the mile-high reverie of Barack Obama's Thursday night speech with news that John McCain has picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The first thing you may notice about Palin is that she is a woman, the first female governor of Alaska and, at 44, its youngest. This is big news on a presidential stage: It makes her only the second major-party woman vice-presidential candidate in American history, the first in GOP history, and presents this forehead-smacking reality: Come January 2009, this country will have either a black...
TORONTO - Air Canada's regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel. Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Thursday that government regulations set by Transport Canada allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 nautical miles of shore.
The secretive selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice president is a small masterpiece of tactical and strategic triangulation intended to drive a deeper wedge between Hilary and Obama supporters. With both parties now offering historic campaigns of change, Obama loses exclusive use of that emotional real estate, and Republicans may gain a new edge with swing voters by offering both change and more of the same. The downside for Republicans is that Palin’s selection will undermine their attacks on Barack Obama’s youth and inexperience. Governor Palin was first elected governor in 2006 – and before that...
Britain is in the grip of its worst economic crisis for 60 years, Alistair Darling has admitted. The Chancellor of the Exchequer warns that the slump is going to be "more profound and long-lasting than people thought". In an astonishingly frank interview, Mr Darling admits that voters are "p***** off" with Labour and says the party must recover the "zeal" which won it three successive general elections. Since taking up the post, Mr Darling is said to have faced a crisis "every week", including the collapse of Northern Rock and the loss of millions of people's personal details from HM...
Republican Sen. John McCain played the gender card like an ace Friday with his surprise choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. In one stroke, McCain stole the spotlight from Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's rousing acceptance speech Thursday night and electrified Republicans, whose biggest challenge in this campaign has been the lack of enthusiasm among their own voters. The question now is whether the women McCain is trying to woo will care enough about breaking a gender barrier to elect him president. "As a woman who is a champion of women's equality, I find (the...
My fellow Americans, it is an honor to address the Democratic National Convention at this defining moment in history. We stand at a crossroads at a pivot point, near a fork in the road on the edge of a precipice in the midst of the most consequential election since last year’s “American Idol.” One path before us leads to the past, and the extinction of the human race. The other path leads to the future, when we will all be dead. We must choose wisely. We must close the book on the bleeding wounds of the old politics of division...
The implosion of MSNBC's DNC coverage is ironic since the narrative being sold by the media going into the convention was whether the Democrats could achieve party unity. Since the Clintons resoundingly stifled that storyline, the question now is, will Olbermann, Matthews and Scarborough unite to save MSNBC? Jon Stewart called the infighting, "Lord of the Flies on the NBC roof!" If you've been enjoying the convention on C-SPAN or one of the other networks, this clip from The Daily Show will get you up to speed. Kudos to them, satirizing the surreal is a difficult task.
Memo To Team Obama Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at 1:24 PM Please keep talking about Sarah Palin's inexperince in foreign affairs. By reason of just her work with Canada, she's light years ahead of Obama.
Senator John McCain spent the summer arguing that a 40-something candidate with four years in statewide office and no significant foreign policy experience was not ready to be president. Skip to next paragraph Blog The Caucus The latest political news from around the nation. Join the discussion. Election Guide | More Politics News And then on Friday he picked as his running mate a 40-something candidate with two years in statewide office and no significant foreign policy experience. The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska proved quintessentially McCain — daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message. He demonstrated that he would...
<p>A SEARCH team believes it has found the grave of the last remaining Australian digger unaccounted for after the Vietnam War.</p> <p>Special Air Services Regiment (SASR) soldier Private David Fisher fell from a rope suspended by a helicopter over thick jungle in southern Vietnam in 1969.</p>
Media Bias: The biggest surprise of the Democratic convention? The spectacle of journalists applauding Barack Obama's acceptance speech. OK, maybe not the biggest surprise. But certainly one of the biggest disgraces.Andy Barr reported on The Hill's blog that "several members of the media were seen cheering and clapping for" Obama as he accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday. "Dozens of men and women wearing green media floor passes chanted along with the crowd," Barr also noted, adding that "two members of the foreign press exchanged opportunities to take each other's picture while wearing an Obama hat and waving a flag" while...
Calif. Ponders Gay Marriage For Inmates SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29, 2008(AP) Now that same-sex couples can get married in California, state prison officials are trying to figure out what that means for gay inmates. No prisoners so far have sought to arrange weddings with same-sex partners since the state Supreme Court granted same-sex couples the right to wed as of mid-June, according to Michele Kane, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Nonetheless, department lawyers are drafting guidelines to bring the state's 33 adult prisons into compliance with the court's ruling that same-sex couples must be treated the...
A US court in Dayton, Ohio, has convicted a mother of murdering her one-month-old daughter by burning her to death in a microwave oven. China Arnold, 28, showed no emotion when the jury announced its guilty verdict, only lowering her head. The prosecution said that Arnold had killed her daughter, Paris Talley, in 2005 after a fight with her boyfriend. The jury will reassemble next Tuesday to decide if Arnold, convicted of aggravated murder, should face death.
Three years ago this morning, Hurricane Katrina roared ashore at the Mississippi-Louisiana line. It left a swath of devastation no mountain of statistics can describe fully: 1,836 dead; hundreds of thousands homeless; upward of $150 billion in property damage. That Katrina was the costliest natural disaster, by a factor of nearly four, in U.S. history only begins to tell the story. Katrina was "the storm," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin would say later, "that most of us have long feared." For decades, scientists had predicted his city would slip beneath the waves in the 21st century from the combination of...
Councils are recruiting 'citizen snoopers' to report litter louts, dog foulers and even people who fail to sort out their rubbish properly. The 'environment volunteers' will also be responsible for encouraging neighbours to cut down on waste. The move comes as local authorities dish out £100 fines to householders who leave out too much rubbish or fail to follow recycling rules. Spy on your neighbours: Councils are recruiting spotters to report litter louts, dog foulers and bad recyclers It will fuel fears that Britain is lurching towards a Big Brother society, following the revelation this week that the Home Office...
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As many of you know by now, McCain's Veep choice, Sara Palin is the proud mother of five and recently chose to have a baby, despite warnings that it might have Down's Syndrome. As many of you also know, Barack Hussein Obama is pro-abortion, even for his own daughters--his own grandchildren--and supports partial-birth abortion and other extreme measures, which are basically murder of an already partially born fetus. He said he did not want his daughters "punished with a baby."
The July firing of Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan by Gov. Sarah Palin, who was announced as John McCain's running mate on Friday, has unearthed a stream of soap-opera-like details about Palin, her husband, her family and top state appointees. The controversy has also cut against Palin's reputation for holding an ethical line and standing up to colleagues in the Republican Party over matters of principle. Monegan, 57, a respected former chief of the Anchorage Police Department, said in an interview with The Washington Post's James V. Grimaldi on Friday that the governor repeatedly brought up the topic of...
The positive reaction to presidential candidate John McCain picking pro-life Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been overwhelming. Pro-life groups and leaders of all stripes are delighted by the selection and below is a sampling of the comments LifeNews.com has received: Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission: "Governor Palin is a vice-presidential selection which shows that John McCain at the age of 72 today is still able to think outside the box. Governor Palin will delight the Republican base. She is pro-life. It appears that Senator Obama played it safe in picking Senator...
Something behind the scenes footage I don't expect the MSM to show.
On the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, a “truther” organization called We Are Change sponsored the convention’s “9/11 Truth March.” I didn’t expect more than a few dozen people to show up, but was surprised and a little disturbed at how large it actually turned out to be — the crowd numbered in the hundreds, not the dozens. PHOTOS at link....
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) issued the following statement Friday on Sen. John McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate: "The selection of a vice presidential candidate is one of the most significant and telling decisions a presidential candidate can make. John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin raises serious questions about his judgment. Why, when the country is fighting two wars, facing an uncertain economy and an energy crisis, did Senator McCain make the choice that he did?
PITTSBURGH, PA -- Obama reacted to his rival's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate and walked back a statement put out by his campaign that called the governor inexperienced. "I haven't met her before. She seems like a compelling person, obviously a terrific story, personal story. And you know, I'm sure that she will help make the case for the Republicans," "I congratulate her and look forward to a vigorous debate," he said. Obama and Biden released a joint written statement earlier congratulating Palin, saying she was "an admirable person and will add a compelling new...
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Most Americans heard the name Sarah Palin for the first time on Friday as Senator John McCain named her as his running mate. They're getting a glimpse of the fact that the Alaska governor is pro-life on abortion, but what they may not know is she takes a unique approach to her position.Palin is a member of Feminists for Life of America -- a venerable but little known pro-life group that focuses on the pro-woman reasons for opposing abortion.The organization is considered an expert on understand how abortion hurts women and the complications abortion involves...
RUSH: This is Sarah Palin and her accomplishments. Obama cannot make a speech like this. PALIN: In serving as the team mom and coaching some basketball on the side, I got involved in the PTA and then was elected to the city council and then elected mayor of my hometown where my agenda was to stop wasteful spending and cut property taxes and put the people first! (cheers and applause) I was then appointed ethics commissioner and chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. And when I found corruption there, I fought it hard and I held the...
LifeNews.com Note: Ken Connor is a pro-life attorney who was intimately involved in the fight to save Terri Schiavo and is the former president of the Family Research Council. He is now the chairman of the Center for a Just Society. "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live..." (Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV) The poison peddled by the euthanasia movement here in the United States continues to take its toll. Assisted suicide was...
Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) -- On the last day of the Democratic convention, Michelle Obama, the wife of the pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack, made a comment that received little notice. Yet, it could come back to haunt Obama as voters remember his off-putting comments about his daughters and abortion. During a speech at the Women’s Caucus on Thursday, Michelle Obama said her husband would be a “steadfast supporter of women’s right to choose" abortion. “He’ll protect a woman’s freedom of choice, because government should have no say in whether or when a woman embraces the sacred responsibility of parenthood," she added....
USH: Now, this bite from the Obama speech last night. It's a montage of The Messiah talking about himself. This runs a minute 17 seconds. None of these I's -- I, I, I -- is repeated. OBAMA: I accept your nomination. I thank you. I am grateful... I love you. I am so proud... I stood before... That's why I stand here......... Tonight I say... I don't know about you... I'm not ready... I quote... Americans I know... I don't believe... I just think... I am standing here... I see... I think... I listen... I remember... I stood... I hear......
RUSH: Senator McCain just took the podium with raucous music, raucous crowd energy. The place is going nuts there in Dayton, Ohio. Let's join it in progress and listen. (cheers and applause) The senator is looking genuinely happy today. (cheers and applause) MCCAIN: Thank you. RUSH: Well, I'm just describing this for you all who can't see it, his wife is hugging him. MCCAIN: Thank you. CROWD: John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! MCCAIN: Thanks for reminding me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. CROWD: John McCain! John McCain! John McCain! John...
FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — During a recent air assault operation in the Diyala province, the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division medical team once again demonstrated its excellence. The group, which consisted of one physician, three physician assistants, one mental health provider, a preventive medicine officer and numerous skilled combat medics, delivered seamless and exceptional medical care, despite harsh conditions. Several of the team members flew by helicopter, carrying everything needed to set up a rapid aid station with them. A rapid aid station is able to provide immediate treatment for any injuries sustained during the early phase of an...
On Today’s Show... Pearl of Wisdom: "Here's the way to look at McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Hillary Clinton has been replaced by the other woman...again." Governor Sarah Palin's story and experience dwarf Barack Obama's. She's run a state and a town. Obama's never run anything. That's why nobody ever comes forward to talk about his time in Harvard, or his early life. (Rush 24/7 Members: Listen Here) Pearl of Wisdom: "Our vice presidential choice is more qualified to be president of the United States than Barack Obama! Listen to her story. Obama can't list his...
The main recurrent motif in Arab cartoons concerning Israel is "the devilish Jew." This image conveys the idea that Jews behave like Nazis, kill children and love blood. The similarity with themes promulgated by the Nazis is evident. Many Arab cartoons praise suicide bombing or call for murder. The collective image of the Jews thus projected lays the groundwork for a possible genocide. A caricature may have as much influence on public opinion as an editorial. Palestinian cartoonists often place emphasis on the anti-Semitic accusation of "ritual murder" of children. This is underscored by their claim that Israelis target Palestinian...
Can a nationalist found an empire? The United States of George W. Bush invaded Iraq in the name of democracy, though any representative Iraqi government would have to oppose a foreign occupation. Russia under Vladimir Putin tries to impose its will on Ukraine in the name of national self-determination, denying that Ukrainians are a separate people. The Chinese regime modernizes Tibet while expressing its own sense of national superiority. All of these are imperial policies by essentially nationalist regimes, and all of them spread nationalism around the world. Ukrainian national identity is ever more distinct. Tibetan protests spread from towns...
Of all the criticisms an apparently panicky Dem party has heaped on Sarah Palin in the hours since her selection was announced, Keith Boykin [bio] has come up with perhaps the unseemliest. The former aide to President Clinton has accused Palin of being an "affirmative action" pick. Boykin, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard Law, was debating the selection with Republican Joe Watkins at the end of MSNBC's 4 PM EDT hour. After some preliminary jousting, Boykin dropped his bomb. KEITH BOYKIN Let me just say something about this choice. The reason why she doesn't help, quite frankly, is because...
Earlier this year Dr. Jim Dobson, President of Focus on the Family made news when he announced on “The Dennis Prager Show” that he “cannot and will not vote for Senator John McCain.” Today, on The Dennis Prager Show, the conservative leader changed course and announced his enthusiastic support on the heels of the announcement by Senator McCain of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Dennis Prager: I have a guest here who’s extremely significant in American life, whether you call it American political, certainly American religious life, one of the best known Christians in America—...
McCain has reached for the stars and grabbed one. On a recent cruise to Alaska, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Sarah Palin. She is brilliant and articulate and, in Alaska politics, is a breath of fresh air as an alternative to their corruption epitomized by Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens. Now Obama, who has spent two years preventing a woman from being president, will spend two months preventing one from becoming vice president – and hopes to do so with women votes. The entire premise of the Democratic convention was the fungibility of Bush and McCain....
(Sarah Palin has emerged as John McCain's vice-presidential running mate. Palin talked to Newsmax magazine for its upcoming September 2008 issue about Alaskan oil, global warming, and John McCain.) Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is a God-fearing, gun-toting former beauty queen who could just become America’s next vice president. In Alaska, the right to bear arms means staying on top of the food chain. Palin, a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, hunts, shoots, and fishes. Husband Todd holds a commercial fishing license for salmon. In the mid-1990s, when Todd got a job working on Alaska’s North Slope, Palin decided...
An Italian museum has defied Pope Benedict by refusing to remove a statue of a crucified green frog clutching a beer mug and an egg. The Vatican had condemned the modern art sculpture as blasphemous. The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano voted it was a work of art, however. The board decreed it would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition. The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 metre 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in...
The wisdom or error in selecting Palin will be determined later, when the public gets to know her, hears her speak and debate, and the mad-dog, in-the-tank press goes after every detail in her bio. She will have a very thin margin of error as far as gaffes go, in as much as the Quayle syndrome will be quickly invoked at the slightest slip. But in political terms today, right now, one can appreciate the political brilliance of her appointment, which — given Obama's doctrinaire liberal laundry-list speech — turns the attention to the McCain camp and will hinder the...
 Dr. James Dobson: McCain’s Choice of Palin 'Outstanding'  Focus Action founder cites 'bravery and integrity' of Alaska governor Colorado Springs, Colo. – Focus on the Family Action founder and chairman James C. Dobson, Ph.D., issued the following statement today after learning that Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, had selected Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate:“Sen. McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is an outstanding choice that should be extremely reassuring to the conservative base of his party. She is a strong executive who hates corruption and puts principle above politics. After floating the...
Joe Biden has exhibited neither knowledge nor understanding of the immigration issue - not even of the most basic facts. This was on display throughout the course of the Democratic primary debates where he failed to possess basic facts about a vast socio-economic- political phenomenon transforming the United States. In an NPR radio debate he made a spectacle of himself with his arrogant, unshakeable insistence that the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens - some 60% - are non-Spanish speaking. When Steven Inskeep of NPR tried gently correcting him by citing data from the Pew Hispanic Center showing the vast majority...
I really don't care about our nation's top leader's workouts. In fact, those are usually a source of annoyance to me. I'm tired of seeing Bush on a bike, hated seeing Clinton jogging, and was annoyed by Jimmy Carter's aggressive management of the White House tennis court schedule, while he let America fall apart. Most annoying to me we're all the ceaseless, braggadocious stories about Condi Clueless and her hard workout. Look at me, I workout. So what? She's a terrible Secretary of State. That's the fitness I care about. Still, with this election, in which the press constantly contrasts...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2008 – Improvements in the security situation south of Baghdad have enabled economic and political progress, and the continued development of the Iraqi security forces will advance those gains, a U.S. commander said yesterday. Progress across those multiple fronts is interconnected, Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, deputy commanding general for operations for Multinational Division Center, explained during a call with military bloggers. “If this were an organism, it would be a symbiotic effect that we have through these different factors operating in concert with each other to achieve an overall more positive effect,” Buchanan said. The general...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2008 – Starting a business requires cold, hard cash and moral support, both of which are now available to military spouses through a Virginia-based organization. “Military Spouse Business Association will help military spouses with the tangibles of financial and business resources and the intangibles of motivation, encouragement, support and recognition,” said Lanette Lepper, a co-founder of the organization, and a military spouse who owns her own business. The other co-founders, Joanna Williamson and Rebecca Poynter, share the same backgrounds as military spouses and small-business owners. Their idea to create the Military Spouse Business Association stemmed from...
Republicans won't flock to see Stealing America: Vote by Vote — but the story it uncovers is no partisan witch hunt. ------------------------ Many Democrats still haven’t gotten over the 2000 presidential election, and a smaller subset believe the 2004 election was similarly swiped out of their mitts. The new documentary Stealing America: Vote by Vote will make those folks all but tear their hair out in anger. Even some Republicans might scratch their head over some of the material dredged up in this circumstantially based call to arms.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29, 2008 – Though Iraq’s military medical system has gained significant capability over the past five years, recruiting qualified physicians remains a challenge, the coalition’s top advisor to the Iraqi surgeon general said. Only 160 out of 800 available positions for physicians in the Iraqi military medical system have been filled, U.S. Army Col. (Dr.) John Powell, director of health affairs for Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, told bloggers and online journalists in a teleconference Aug. 26. “The biggest piece right now,” Powell said, “is personnel … who have medical capabilities, who can do what’s necessary to diagnose...
GALESBURG, Ill., Aug. 29, 2008 – A tour in Vietnam, flood duty in 1993 and 2001, a tour in Iraq from 2005 to 2006, and flood duty in 2008. That is only part of the highlight reel for a 58-year-old Oquawka, Ill., man who is about to hang up his combat boots after a military career that has spanned nearly 40 years. Army Staff Sgt. Norris Crooks prepares to fire a final ceremonial howitzer round while Battery C, 2nd Battalion, 123rd Field Artillery, performs annual training at Fort McCoy, Wis., in July 2008. Photo courtesy of Army Sgt. 1st...
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