This is doggone good

.......leave it to Beagle!

“Palin Thwarts The Gas Cartel” Investors Business Daily

* Iran resurrected its idea of a "gas cartel" to control gas markets like oil. But even if it succeeds, the U.S. won't be vulnerable. If you wonder why, look to the governor of Alaska. *** That's right, Gov. Sarah Palin took a powerful preemptive step in August to shield the U.S. from a coming gas cartel. Palin's effort to create the Trans-Canada Alaska gas line — which would provide a vast new trove of natural gas each day to the U.S. — effectively nullifies the emerging gas cartel's potential impact on America. *** If OPEC strikes you as a bad group, the new cartel for natural gas, led by Russia and Iran, will be even worse. *** Russia has made standoffish statements about the plan, but won't repudiate it. "A gas OPEC is an interesting idea," then-President Vladimir Putin declared last year. Based on Russia's moves since, the Heritage Foundation's Ariel Cohen believes it's a stealth move from the Kremlin to keep buyers unperturbed as the cartel slowly forms. *** He's right. This week in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quietly drew up the organization's charter and will take it to Moscow next week. *** One reason for the West's complacency is the difficulty in founding a gas cartel. The natural gas market isn't like the oil market, which trades at one price all over the world and can ship its product almost anywhere. *** Most natural gas sales, by contrast, depend on pipelines and 20- or 30-year delivery contracts for pricing, both of which make price manipulation difficult. *** Almost entirely off the news radar, Palin mowed down 30 years of legislative squabbling in the Alaska statehouse and then triumphantly signed off on the pipeline in August, stating her aim was energy independence. *

“US communists say their time has come”

* NEW YORK — A rare bird in the political world, the US Communist Party is feeling rather smug in these days of capitalist turmoil. At the party's New York headquarters on 23rd Street in Manhattan, regional party chairman Libero Della Piana, 36, laid out why he thinks Marxist-Leninism's time has finally come. *** American communists think that the collapse of Wall Street and huge disillusionment among the public with the economy has put them on a roll. *** There is no communist running for the White House and the Communist Party does not endorse Democrat Barack Obama. *** Yet many staff here wore his picture on lapel buttons, while Republican John McCain was relegated to a box of tissues -- the tissues being pulled through his mouth. – AFP *

The next story comes out of Canada...

Maybe a better question would be should the scandal hurt democrat chances in this election cycle? When the Mark Foley scandal broke democrats on the Hill were outraged that Republican leaders hadn't done anything substantive about the behavior. Hourly new reports lasted for weeks. The election hung in the balance...let's see what happens when a Democrat is caught in scandal. Will the media excuse the behavior or ignore it?

“Political scandals slip under radar with attention focused on election,” by Lucy Bannerman

* With the eyes of the media fixed firmly on the race to the White House, the scandal of the Democratic congressman, his mistress and the $121,000 (£70,000) allegedly paid to keep her quiet has slipped off the radar of most US news channels. *** When the politician in question is Tim Mahoney, the South Florida representative who promised to “clean up Washington” after sexual peccadilloes forced his predecessor, Mark Foley, out of office and his party into disrepute, it was only a matter of time before his Republican rivals ramped up their cries of liberal media bias. *** Mr Mahoney, who denies paying hush money to a former mistress, did not address the alleged affair with Patricia Allen, 50, directly in a statement but said that he had “not misused campaign funds”. *** Combined with the financial dealings of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is now in prison, the news that Mr Foley had sent lurid internet messages to teenage boys in Capitol Hill in 2006 affected the Republicans in the midterm elections. *** While the Foley affair dominated the news, less airtime has been given to Democrats such as William Jefferson, who is campaigning in Louisiana despite bribery and corruption charges. *

Yes...there is a pattern of double standard coverage....

* A 23-year-old man accused of submitting forged voter registration forms to the Jackson city clerk was arraigned today on felony forgery charges. Antonio Johnson is accused of filling out, signing and submitting six applications using Jackson residents' names without their permission, according to a the Michigan Attorney General's Office. Johnson worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN – Jackson City Patriot (MI) *

* Gov. Sarah Palin met with a group of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former supporters Tuesday evening at a special fund-raising reception organized for them on behalf of the Republican ticket. The reception, which organizers said brought in more than $500,000, was part of an extended evening of fund-raising for Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign at the Grand Hyatt in New York that officials estimated raised more than $8 million. – New York Times *

We hear in the press and from many democrats that the US has lost it's esteem and influence in the world, that not liked (hated?) in Europe. Speeches are made about how we must elect a democrat to restore America's reputaion and good name. It's a lie...a very politically convenient lie.

Please read the transcript of remarks made yesterday by PM Berlusconi of Italy:

* PRIME MINISTER BERLUSCONI: (As translated.) Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you for this extraordinary invitation. My presence in Washington today is also the tribute of a friendship, personal friendship which binds me to President Bush, as well as the friendship between our two peoples. *** And the fact that I'm here on your special celebration of the Columbus Day gives me opportunity of paying homage not only to America, but also to Italian Americans. It is also a thanks to that America which has welcomed and made them part of this country, which offered them the opportunity to enjoy wealth, and offered them the opportunity to give a contribution, which I think has been an important one. Many of the Italian Americans now are leading the country. They sit in Congress and the Supreme Court, in the state government buildings, and key roles of this administration, the administration of the biggest democracy in the world. *

Here is a list of phrases for future comments on this disaster-to-be.

High-speed train vocabulary of words, terms and phrases
for writing one page flyers and brochures:

•Boondoggle
•Gravy train
•Luxury Express•Disneyland Express
•Pork barrel politics
•Scam
•Smoke and mirrors
•Snake oil
•Misrepresentations
•Underestimated costs
•Exaggerated claims
•Overstated results

I highly recommend an article posted at the American Thinker, “Why Obama's socialism matters,” by Bookworm.

The following is an excerpt but do read the entire piece. It will clarify the terms we toss around with such abandon and it will provide a clearer basis for conversation regarding the candidates in this election.

* If it were up to me to attach labels to modern political ideologies, I would choose the terms "Individualism" and "Statism." "Individualism" would reflect the Founder's ideology, which sought to repose as much power as possible in individual citizens, with as little power as possible in the State, especially the federal state. The Founder's had emerged from a long traditional of monarchal and parliamentary statism, and they concluded that, whenever power is concentrated in the government, the individual suffers. *** And what of Statism? Well, there's already a name for that ideology, and it's a name that should now be firmly attached to Sen. Obama: Socialism. *** Although one can trace socialist ideas back to the French Revolution (and even before), socialism's true naissance is the 19th Century, when various utopian dreamers envisioned a class-free society in which everyone shared equally in what the socialist utopians firmly believed was a finite economic pie. That is, they did not conceive of the possibility of economic growth. Instead, they believed that, forever and ever, there would only be so many riches and resources to go around. *** The original utopians did not yet look to the state for help establishing a world of perfect equality. Instead, they relied on each enlightened individual's moral sense, and they set up myriad high-minded communes to achieve this end. All of them failed. (For many of us, the most famous would be the Transcendentalist experiment in Concord, Massachusetts, which almost saw poor Louisa May Alcott starve to death as a child. *

Visit Bookworm on his blog, Bookworm Room

“Obama's Kenya ghosts,” by Mark Hyman – Washington Times

* About 50 parishioners were locked into the Assemblies of God church before it was set ablaze. They were mostly women and children. Those who tried to flee were hacked to death by machete-wielding members of a mob numbering 2,000.
The 2008 New Year Day atrocity in the Kenyan village Eldoret, about 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, had all the markings of the Rwanda genocide of a decade earlier.
By mid-February 2008, more than 1,500 Kenyans were killed. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians. *** The violence was led by supporters of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who lost the Dec. 27, 2007, presidential election by more than 230,000 votes. ***