I don’t feel quite so badly about having to hold my nose now that Hugo has spoken
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist and fierce U.S. critic, warned on Tuesday that relations with Washington could worsen if Republican candidate John McCain wins this year’s presidential election.
Pissing off Hugo AND the leftosphere? Where do I sign up?
Oops, I misspoke there. I meant to say that you get convicted for collecting money for terrorists.
The questionable associations and actions by many of its leaders cast serious doubt on CAIR’s claims of moderation and restraint. Some have committed criminal acts themselves; others have ties to organizations with connections to Islamic extremism.
Those convicted of direct criminal activity include Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas; Randall (Ismail) Royer, once a communications specialist for the national group, and Bassam Khafagi, the organization’s one-time director of community relations.
May I please be the one who points their prayer arrows to the south?
And just another link here real quickly on a soon to be convicted terrorist sympathizer
An Iraqi-American from Michigan who worked for a Southfield charity has been accused of working as a spy for the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein, according to a federal indictment unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Detroit
Muthanna Al-Hanooti was charged with several counts, including conspiracy to work on behalf of a foreign government and making false statements to the FBI. Al-Hanooti used to work for Life for Relief and Development, a Muslim charity based in Southfield that works in Iraq and other countries. That charity was raided by federal agents in Sept. 2006.
According to the indictment, Al-Hanooti would travel to Iraq and meet with conspirators of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The indictment says that Al-Hanooti was rewarded with 2 million barrels of oil for his work.
The indictment also alleges that Iraqi intelligence officials used an intermediary in Michigan to help fund a trip to Iraq taken by U.S. members of Congress in 2002.
See the post below for more on that trip.
Both links found @ LGF
We call him “Baghdad Jim” McDermott
Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency secretly financed a trip to Iraq for three U.S. lawmakers during the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The three anti-war Democrats made the trip in October 2002, while the Bush administration was trying to persuade Congress to authorize military action against Iraq. While traveling, they called for a diplomatic solution.
Prosecutors say that trip was arranged by Muthanna Al-Hanooti, a Michigan charity official, who was charged Wednesday with setting up the junket at the behest of Saddam’s regime. Iraqi intelligence officials allegedly paid for the trip through an intermediary and rewarded Al-Hanooti with 2 million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The lawmakers are not named in the indictment but the dates correspond to a trip by Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, David Bonior of Michigan and Mike Thompson of California. None was charged and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said investigators “have no information whatsoever” any of them knew the trip was underwritten by Saddam.
So they want to “follow the money/oil/Halliburton” when it comes to Iraq 2003-2008, but didn’t seem to care about doing so for Iraq 2002?
I have the same question as Rob at the SayAnything blog
If Saddam paid for McDermott to go to Iraq in 2002, why didn’t McDermott check on the status of the WMD’s? Why didn’t Saddam invite him to inspect his military facilities?
Seems like if Saddam wanted to stave off war with the US he could have just opened up his country to inspection to prove that he wasn’t a threat.
The ball is in McDermott’s court now.
I read this report that said nearly half of American’s are in some way mentally ill.
I thought they were just talking about people who vote Democrat.
Seems that they have the same “dependency disease†happening in the UK. This family has a truly bad case of it.
Meet the families where no one’s worked for three generations – and they don’t care
Known as the “Shameless” family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens “boast” three generations of adults who are not working.All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around ï½£32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.
Matriarch is grandmother Sue McFadden, 54. “Our neighbours are so snobby – they call us the “Shameless” family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?
“The only problem is,” she says without a hint of irony, “that we’re living in a three-bedroom council house, which is ridiculous.
“I’m asking the council for a ten-bedroom home for all of us. We need more space. It’s awful sometimes when all the children are squabbling. Still, we do have a big TV with Sky, but we need some relaxation.”
These folks would have fit right in with the pre-Katrina NOLA residents, don’t you think? About the only thing I can think of on the bright side is that at least we’re not paying for these ones.
If you think your resistance to tossing a brick at your monitor is high enough, hit the link for more.
Found at Right Thinking
It is the only reason I can think of that the pro-terrorist leftosphere would be ignoring items such as this
Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al-Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al-Qaeda’s stated goals and objectives.
Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al-Qaeda — as long as that organization’s near-term goals supported Saddam’s long-term vision.
Not really a lot of big words in there. Must be willful ignorance then?
So, once again
Yesterday’s post asking why folks took the oath was fruitful, with over a people filling the comments with their answers.
You should click here and read them.
If you missed yesterday you put yours there or here. Same offer applies: Post it and I’ll link it. I’ll keep this going as long as new tales are filed.
Speaking of which, Robb Allen of Sharp as a Marble blogged his here, and the MadRocketScientist blogged his here.
Spread the word.
Because you know which word the dKos is spreading.
OK. Apparently, she is serious.
It’s a device that has killed a Winnipeg teen and led a man to lose an eye, all within one month’s time.
Yet it is still sold with few mandatory restrictions.In the wake of a recent death and a separate serious injury, our treatment of the pellet gun is due for a change.
It’s time to treat these guns meant for target practice like the weapons they can become in criminal or inexperienced hands.
Presently, the devices can be bought for $30 to $300 each, most without a licence.
The main difference between pellet and so-called “real” guns is the pellet version doesn’t contain real bullets.
But firing at speeds of up to 138 metres per second, they do reach velocities perilously close to those defined as real firearms by Canadian law. The minimum speed to warrant that distinction is 152 metres per second.
Meanwhile, evidence of the need for stricter control of these guns keeps adding up.
A kid and his buddy stole a pellet gun from a neighbor’s garage and the buddy put one through his eye and into his skull fast enough to kill him.
I say into his skull and not into his brain because the kid doesn’t seem to have had any.
And it seems that Ms. Pursaga doesn’t either because none of the measures she proposes would have stopped the theft or the discharge.
Next she’ll be advocating the licensing of skateboards.
Found at Gun Pundit
But since about a million or so people did exactly that, I’m going do so here.
After San Diego ear, nose and throat physician Ted Mazer recently billed the state’s medical insurance program for the poor for a tonsillectomy, he got a check for $168, too little to cover surgical costs. The balance came out of his pocket.
Now legislators have cut the rates even further, leaving Mazer resolved to shut his doors to new Medi-Cal patients. Almost every other specialist in his field countywide has already done the same, he said.
When you make something “freeâ€, it has a tendency to get very expensive. Continuing.
Half the state’s doctors were refusing Medi-Cal patients eight years ago, just after rates were last increased. Refusal rates were sharply higher among certain specialists. Medical costs have risen since then, but state officials have stopped assessing whether enough doctors are participating in the program.
Reimbursement rates, doctors say, already are so low that a patient office visit nets only $24. Some clinics say the numbers simply don’t work anymore. The result: Thousands of patients guaranteed healthcare under state law can’t get in to a doctor’s office, so they don’t go or they sit for hours in an emergency room.
Experts warn that things may get much worse.
Chris Perrone, an analyst who tracks Medi-Cal issues for the California Healthcare Foundation, said Medi-Cal risks are becoming so unattractive to doctors that the program could soon “fall off the edge.”
When lawmakers began to address the state’s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, Medi-Cal was the first program to be targeted with major cuts because of its size.
Funded jointly by the state and federal government, Medi-Cal is California’s second-biggest expenditure after education. It is projected to cost $38 billion next year, with about $15 billion drawn from the state’s general fund. The program serves 6.7 million poor, elderly and disabled people.
After doing the math, the State of California taxpayers are paying $5671.64 per person, per year on healthcare. Not a bad number, until you look at private healthcare costs.
We’ll use mine for example: With my payments, plus that of my employer, we gave $1973.40 to our provider last year.
So far, according to the extensive amount of paper my insurance company sends me every time I use their services, from March 07 to March 08 they have had to pay for four office visits, x-rays on two different occasions, a recent CT scan, 3 three different prescriptions and 14 physical therapy appointments for a total of $3116.36. Add in $680 worth of co-pays out of my wallet and the grand total is $3796.36.
Just what are they covering here? I’ve got a dislocated AC joint and probable Sarcoidosis. Even adding up the money I sent them and my expenditures, the total cost is $5769.76.
But that is not the way the math should be done. Not counting any of the money they made off investments from the payments my employer and I sent them, which what with the amount of cash they take in on just a weekly basis could be a significant amount, I cost them $1142.96.
I’m thinking that, just like in all things government, there needs to be some administrative thinning. Supposedly, if you listen to pro-government health care folks, private insurance companies have large numbers of people sitting around thinking of creative ways to deny coverage. They must be paying those people in cheap Canuck Meds or something if they can keep costs lower than the Great State of California
There is something about a Republican that you can only stand him just so long; and on the other hand, there is something about a Democrat that you can’t stand him quite that long
And since I screwed up yesterday’s QotD, scroll on down and hit the link to see what I was yakking about.
But he’s also a local legend and news such as this is still pretty big
A parachute that could belong to famous hijacker D.B. Cooper has been found and is being analyzed by the FBI in Seattle.The Cooper case has been surrounded by mystery since 1971, when he jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 with a bag of money containing $200,000 ransom.
The parachute, which the FBI said is the same type that was used by Cooper, was found between the Clark County towns of Ariel and Amboy, near the center of the original jump zone, according to KOIN News 6.
I am of the minority of locals who is positive that “D.B. Cooper†died that dark November night. My reasoning for this is that there are multiple reports about the type and make of his chute, it was simply not rated for a man with 600 pound testicles.
