Government to mandate how to do laundry

Read the original here.


Sam Kazman: How Washington Ruined Your Washing Machine

By SAM KAZMAN[1]

It might not have been the most stylish, but for decades the top-loading laundry machine was the most affordable and dependable. Now it's ruined—and Americans have politics to thank.
In 1996, top-loaders were pretty much the only type of washer around, and they were uniformly high quality. When Consumer Reports tested 18 models, 13 were "excellent" and five were "very good." By 2007, though, not one was excellent and seven out of 21 were "fair" or "poor." This month came the death knell: Consumer Reports simply dismissed all conventional top-loaders as "often mediocre or worse."
How's that for progress?
The culprit is the federal government's obsession with energy efficiency. Efficiency standards for washing machines aren't as well-known as those for light bulbs, which will effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs next year. Nor are they the butt of jokes as low-flow toilets are. But in their quiet destruction of a highly affordable, perfectly satisfactory appliance, washer standards demonstrate the harmfulness of the ever-growing body of efficiency mandates.
The federal government first issued energy standards for washers in the early 1990s. When the Department of Energy ratcheted them up a decade later, it was the beginning of the end for top-loaders. Their costlier and harder-to-use rivals—front-loading washing machines—were poised to dominate.
Front-loaders meet federal standards more easily than top-loaders. Because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads, they use less hot water and therefore less energy. But, as Americans are increasingly learning, front-loaders are expensive, often have mold problems, and don't let you toss in a wayward sock after they've started.
When the Department of Energy began raising the standard, it promised that "consumers will have the same range of clothes washers as they have today," and cleaning ability wouldn't be changed. That's not how it turned out.
In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches "nearly as dirty as they were before washing." "For the first time in years," CR said, "we can't call any washer a Best Buy." Contrast that with the magazine's 1996 report that, "given warm enough water and a good detergent, any washing machine will get clothes clean." Those were the good old days.
In 2007, only one conventional top-loader was rated "very good." Front-loaders did better, as did a new type of high-efficiency top-loader that lacks a central agitator. But even though these newer types of washers cost about twice as much as conventional top-loaders, overall they didn't clean as well as the 1996 models.
The situation got so bad that the Competitive Enterprise Institute started a YouTube protest campaign, "Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary." With the click of a mouse, you could email your choice of virtual bloomers, boxers or Underoos to the Department of Energy. Several hundred Americans did so, but it wasn't enough to stop Congress from mandating even stronger standards a few months later.
Now Congress is at it once again. On March 10, the Senate Energy Committee held hearings on a bill to make efficiency standards even more stringent. The bill claims to implement "national consensus appliance agreements," but those in this consensus are the usual suspects: politicians pushing feel-good generalities, bureaucrats seeking expanded powers, environmentalists with little regard for American pocketbooks, and industries that stand to profit from a de facto ban on low-priced appliances. And there are green tax goodies for manufacturing high-efficiency models—the kind that already give so many tax credits to Whirlpool, for example, that the company will avoid paying taxes on its $619 million profit in 2010.
Amazingly, the consensus also includes so-called consumer groups such as the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union. At last week's hearing, the federation touted a survey supposedly showing overwhelming public support for higher efficiency standards. But not a single question in that survey suggested that these standards might compromise performance. Consumers Union, meanwhile, which publishes Consumer Reports, claims that new washers can't be compared to old ones—but that's belied by the very language in its articles.
We know that politics can be dirty. Who'd have guessed how literal a truth this is?
Mr. Kazman is general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

References

1. ^{^} SAM KAZMAN (online.wsj.com)

Parent Sues Preschool Over Child's Education

Stories like this make me so glad we don't live in New York.

Read the original story here.

A mad-as-heck Manhattan mom says her daughter's Ivy League dreams have been all but dashed -- and she's only 4 years old.

Nicole Imprescia is suing the $19,000-a-year York Avenue Preschool, saying her daughter, Lucia, was forced to spend too much time with lesser-minded 2- and 3-year-olds when she should have been focusing on test preparation to get into an elite elementary school.

The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, notes that "getting a child into the Ivy League starts in nursery school" and says the Upper East Side school promised Imprescia it would "prepare her daughter for the ERB, an exam required for admission into nearly all the elite private elementary schools."

But "it became obvious [those] promises were a complete fraud," the suit says. "Indeed, the school proved not to be a school at all but just one big playroom."

The miffed mom yanked her daughter after just three weeks -- but the school is refusing to refund the $19,000 she had to pay up front, said her lawyer, Mathew Paulose.

"What are they keeping the $19,000 for when the child was in school for under a month?" Paulose said. "It's ridiculous."

The school's lawyer, Bill Wachtel, said that his client was "surprised and disappointed" that Imprescia gave up her highly sought-after slot but that there is a no-refund policy.

The suit claims: "Studies have shown entry into a good nursery school guarantees more income than entry into an average school."

Imprescia's suit said the school boasted of having an age-appropriate curriculum and a "high success rate in getting its students into high-caliber Manhattan elementary schools, both public and private."

Imprescia said she soon realized she'd gotten schooled.

"Plaintiff's daughter, as well as the sons and daughters of the other parents, were dumped amongst each other, notwithstanding their age differences," the suit says.

Also, at age 4, the school was "still teaching plaintiff's daughter about shapes and colors," the suit says. "In other words, there was no 'curriculum designed for a specific age group' also as promised," the suit says.

Bullying to become a federal crime?

Department of Education would have jurisdiction?  Why not just let this happen?  Read the original article here.

If taxpayers wonder why federal budgets have ballooned over the last few decades, look no further^[3].  Riding the coattails of one of the few issues on which Barack Obama has willingly engaged, a House Democrat has proposed making school bullies a federal jurisdiction:

While the Department of Education continues its crackdown^[4] on mean-spirited taunting on Facebook, some members of Congress are joining the fight in Washington’s War on Bullying with a new bill aimed directly at kids who target students with disabilities.
Rep. Jackie Speier, California Democrat, will introduce a bill that would require schools to report incidents of bullying against children diagnosed with conditions like Down syndrome and Aspergers to the federal government. It would also mandate that any federal dollars that promote anti-bullying programs focus partially on that group.
“There is [currently] no requirement that as part of the anti-bullying curriculum, that there be made specific reference to children with special needs. That’s particularly dumb,” Speier said during a briefing on school bullying on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “What I want to do is create an environment where there is zero tolerance. I think that starts first with education and awareness. Then, when behavior is egregious, then people have to be called out on that.”

Speier’s part of the minority and will have a tough time getting her bill to a floor vote, unless of course Republicans decide to join in on expanding federal authority.  And why not?  If they do, they get to say that they’re trying to protect the defenseless against victimization.  If they don’t, then Speier and her allies in Congress and the media will paint the GOP as heartless, and perhaps secretly indebted to the all-powerfulbullying lobby.
Of course, that’s ridiculous.  Everyone knows that public-employee unions back Democrats.
Seriously, though, what part of this transaction has any federal jurisdiction at all?  Not the schools, which operate through local school boards, buried under federal mandates as they are.  Not the disabled, whose citizenship does not transcend local communities and states in the manner that military personnel and federal workers might in a legal sense.  The bullies are certainly not federally funded.  Assaults and batteries are crimes that don’t require federal intervention in other contexts.  So why would anyone in Congress propose creating an entirely new federal bureaucracy to tally and track bullies in schools who pick on the disabled, among other kids?
If public schools aren’t competent to deal with these situations, then that is a problem for the school boards, parents, and the community … and a great argument for school vouchers.  Meanwhile, Speier’s caucus couldn’t even pass a budget with a 77-seat majority last year in what was their primary jurisdiction.  Why should we trust them to take on entirely new jurisdictions?  And shouldn’t Congress be focused on budgets before looking for new vistas to expand federal powers anyway?

References

1. ^{^} look no further (news.yahoo.com)
2. ^{^} continues its crackdown (us.rd.yahoo.com)
3. ^{^} look no further (news.yahoo.com)
4. ^{^} continues its crackdown (us.rd.yahoo.com)

'World's largest paedophile ring' uncovered

Read the original story here.

International police led by a UK team say they shut down the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered.  The global forum had 70,000 followers at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports being sent to police across 30 countries. The operation has so far identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children.  Detectives say 184 people have been arrested - 121 of them were in the UK. Some 60 children have been protected in the UK. 

The three-year investigation, Operation Rescue, was led by investigators from the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop). 

Speaking at a news conference at The Hague in the Netherlands, investigators said the network hid behind a legal online forum which operated out of the country - but its members came from around the world.   Along with the Netherlands and the UK, suspects have been identified in Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand. 

The members of the network went into a private channel, boylover.net, and then used its secret systems to share films and images of abused children, said Rob Wainwright, director of European police agency Europol.  However, child abuse investigators, including a team from Ceop, had already infiltrated the network and were posing as paedophiles to gather intelligence.   In the UK, the 240 suspects include police officers, teachers and a karate teacher. One of the suspects in the UK is a woman.  The latest arrest was in Northamptonshire.

To date, 33 have been convicted, including John McMurdo, a scout leader from Plymouth. Another forum user was Stephen Palmer, 54, of Birkenhead, who shared abuse images with contacts in the US. A third man, 46-year-old Colin Hoey Brown of Bromsgrove, was jailed for making and distributing almost 1,000 images.

Peter Davies, head of Ceop, said: "The scale and success of Operation Rescue has broken new ground."   The internet has proved to be fertile territory for people with a sexual interest in children. 

Those wishing to explore their feelings or satisfy their urges can spend hours doing so without having to leave their room. Taking advantage of the anonymity modern computer technology provides, paedophiles download and exchange vile images of abuse unaware of the reality of the suffering. 

For some years, however, child protection agencies have been on their case. By pretending to be online sex offenders and by using sophisticated computer techniques, they've managed to identify offenders and locate suspect websites. So it was with Operation Rescue. 

What marks it out is its global scale. But in UK terms, it still lags behind Operation Ore - an investigation into 7,000 people from Britain whose credit cards were used to access child abuse images on a US website. 

"Not only is it one of the largest operations of its kind to date - and the biggest operation we have led - it also demonstrates the impact of international law enforcement agencies working together with one single objective, to safeguard children and bring offenders to justice. While these offenders felt anonymous in some way because they were using the internet to communicate, the technology was actually being used against them.   Everything they did online, everyone they talked to or anything they shared could and was tracked by following the digital footprint."

Operation Rescue began when Ceop and colleagues in the Australian Federal Police separately identified the site as a key online meeting place for abusers. The two forces deployed officers to infiltrate the site and to identify the members who were posing the most risk to children.  One of the early breakthroughs in the investigation was the arrest of four suspects in Thailand in 2008. Two of the men were British.

In March of the same year, Ceop identified the owner of the site and the location of its server in the Netherlands. The owner of the server is now co-operating with Dutch police. 

Rob Wainwright of Europol said the man running the server had used "advanced security techniques" which took months to break down. "If you think you can use the internet to abuse children you are wrong," he said. 

"We will not allow these offenders to carry on committing these awful crimes against young children. We will not rest until we have identified every offender that has been active in this network and others that might be operating on the internet."

---

Hillary Clinton Not on Board for Second Term

Anyone think she's going to run?

Read the original story here.

Hillary Clinton really, really, really doesn’t want to be president or vice president, or to become defense secretary or to continue serving as secretary of state if President Barack Obama is elected to a second term, she made clear in an interview Wednesday.

Clinton told a persistent Wolf Blitzer that she has absolutely no interest in any other government job after she leaves the State Department. “There isn’t anything that I can imagine doing after this that would be as demanding, as challenging or rewarding,” she told the CNN anchor during an interview in Cairo, echoing comments she’s made in several interviews in recent months.

She’s already tamped down rumors that she is interested in replacing Robert Gates as secretary of defense, and has said she will serve in the Obama administration for the next few years and not beyond that. The former 2008 presidential candidate has also made clear that she’d rather be a grandmother than be president.

But all that didn’t stop Blitzer from asking Clinton, again and again, if she has interest in any of Washington’s top jobs.

“If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?” Blitzer asked. “No,” she said.

He continued. “Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?” “No.”

“Would you like to be vice president of the United States” he prodded. “No,” she answered, again.

Finally, Blitzer asked the big question: “Would you like to be president of the United States?” “No,” she said.

She doesn’t have interest in any of those jobs “because I have the best job I could ever have,” she said. “This is a moment in history where it is almost hard to catch your breath. There are both the tragedies and disasters that we have seen from Haiti to Japan and there are the extraordinary opportunities and challenges that we see right here in Egypt and in the rest of the region.”

Clinton said she “had a wonderful experience running and I am very proud of the support I had and very grateful for the opportunity, but I’m going to be, you know, moving on.” She’s indicated that she wants more “spare time” and hopes to advocate for women and children around the world.

In January, Clinton said she had “committed to President Obama [to] stay with him this first term,” but wouldn’t say whether she’d stay on if he were reelected. “That’s not something I’m committing to or thinking about,” she said. By saying Wednesday that she doesn’t want to serve a second term of secretary of state, Clinton went a bit further.

But Blitzer was most interested in knowing whether the White House might still be in Clinton’s future. He noted that viewers who sent questions to him on Twitter wanted to know whether Clinton was open to running for president in 2016. ” A lot of folks would like to you to do that,” he said.

But, again, Clinton shrugged off the suggestion. “Well that’s very kind, but I am doing what I want to do right now and I have no intention or any idea even of running again,” she said. “I’m going to do the best I can at this job for the next two years.”

Rep. Woolsey (D-CA) accuses Gen. Petraeus of "Charlie Sheen Strategy"

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Petraeus accused of 'Charlie Sheen strategy' on Afghanistan war

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) on Wednesday sharply criticized David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and signaled agreement with an assessment from a Rolling Stone editor who likened the commander's performance to that of Charlie Sheen.
Woolsey said the Congressional Progressive Caucus Peace and Security Task Force held a briefing on Tuesday with Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone and other panelists, and on the House floor, she quoted Hastings as saying:
"General Petraeus is giving us the Charlie Sheen counter-insurgency strategy, which is to give exclusive interviews to every major network, and to keep saying 'we're winning' and hope the public actually agrees with you."
Woolsey complained specifically that while the July withdrawal date is rapidly approaching, Petraeus has offered only "bland and tone-deaf talking points" on how this might happen. Woolsey also said she does not see any sign that a massive troop redeployment is about to happen, and noted that officials appear to be walking back that timeline.

She noted that last year, Petraeus said July 2011 is the deadline for starting a process of returning control to the Afghans "at a rate to be determined by conditions at the time."

"With all respect to the general, Madam Speaker, that's an awful lot of weasel words," Woolsey said.
Petraeus was testifying in the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday morning.

American Thinker on the President's first two years

Read the original here.
Obama's First Two Years a Disaster for America

March 16, 2011 By Chad Stafko^[1]

Recall the euphoria that surrounded Barack Obama during the 2008 election season and after he was inaugurated as the 44^th President of the United States.  Life was going to be blue skies and rainbows, or at least we were told, with hope and change on the way.  The American people would be better off and so would our nation with Obama in control.  After a little more than two years as the President, those blue skies have turned gray with not the slightest hint of a rainbow.

Some professed that with Barack Obama as President, the staples of life would become affordable if not altogether free.  Surely you remember Peggy Joseph^[2] who said, at a Barack Obama campaign event in August 2008, that she would not have to worry about paying for her gas and mortgage.  Consider what has happened to those staples of life during the Obama presidency.

As of March 14, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.57/gallon.  When Obama took office in January 2009, the price was $1.81/gallon.  That represents more than a 90% increase in just over two years.
To put that in perspective, assume you have a 40 mile round trip commute to work, your car gets 20 miles per gallon and that prices remain the same going forward.  Relative to January 2009, you are paying about $18 more per week and about $72 more per month at the pump.
The pertinent question we might ask is, "What has President Obama done in the past two years to limit the rise of oil and gasoline prices, if anything?"  The answer is...nothing.  If anything, his policies have contributed towards rising prices.  Recall the moratorium he enacted on oil drilling following the BP oil spill that further limited the supply of the commodity from our own waters.  His failure to support drilling in ANWR and his overt allegiance to the anti-drilling environmental fringe has also directly contributed to less supply of oil and therefore higher oil prices.

Ms. Joseph also looked forward to Obama paying her mortgage.  Well, many Americans don't have to worry about a mortgage anymore, as they've had their houses foreclosed.  In 2009^[3], a record 2,824,674 foreclosurestook place, while 2,872,892 foreclosures occurred in 2010^[4].   In other words, 5.7 million families have lost their homes, but at least they're not up all night wondering how they will pay their mortgage.

It just wasn't supposed to be this way, at least in the eyes of the 53% of voters who cast their ballot for Barack Obama.  After all, President Obama's policies^[5] were going to reignite the economy and keep the unemploymentrate below 8% at least that is what we were told, thereby making those aforementioned mortgages affordable.  The opposite has occurred. 

In December 2008, President Bush's final full month in office, the nation's unemployment rate stood at 7.3%.  From that point until December 2010, a period in which Obama benefited from accommodative Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, the unemployment rate rose to 10.1% at one time and remained at or above 9.5% from July 2009 until November 2010. 
This resulted despite unprecedented government spending labeled as "economic stimulus."

What happened?  Instead of a surge in America's economic growth, we've seen a surge in America's deficit.  Under the direction of President Obama, the United States has seen its deficit increase^[6] by more than $3 trillion or by nearly $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.

Then there was the promise^[7] of "When there's a bill that ends up on my desk, as President, you, the public, will have five days to look online to find out what's in it before I sign it...." Again, the reality has been the complete opposite. 

Rewind to March 2010, when then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in reference to the ObamaCare bill, said^[8], "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."  Really?  I thought that 2,700 page bill would be posted on the Internet for all to view for five days.  Instead, it was rushed through and pushed down our throats, despite most Americans not in favor of it.  Again, Obama failed to deliver, as he has time after time.

We are now just after the halfway point of the Obama presidency.  Based on the facts, we are no better off as a nation than we were when Obama took office.  The average American citizen has failed to see an improvement in his or her lifestyle versus two years ago.  This is a presidency, up to this point, that has been an absolute disaster for our nation and our people.

Chad Stafko is a writer and political consultant living in the Midwest.  He can be reached atstafko@msn.com^[9]

NY Post on the President's leadership

Can't really disagree with him on this one.  Read the original here.


Barak Obama's lack of leadership--John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz

Where is the president? The world is beset. Moammar Khadafy is moving relentlessly to crush the Libyan revolt that once promised the overthrow of one of the world's most despicable regimes.

So where is the president?

Japan may be on the verge of a disaster that dwarfs any we have yet seen. A self-governing nation like the United States needs its leader to take full measure of his position at times of crises when the path forward is no longer clear.

This is not a time for leadership; this is the time for leadership.

So where is Barack Obama?

The moment demands that he rise to the challenge of showing America and the world that he is taking the reins. How leaders act in times of unanticipated crisis, in which they do not have a formulated game plan and must instead navigate in treacherous waters, defines them.

Obama is defining himself in a way that will destroy him.

It is not merely that he isn't rising to the challenge. He is avoiding the challenge. He is Bartleby the President. He would prefer not to.

He has access to a microphone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If he tells the broadcast networks in the middle of the day that he has a major address to deliver on an unprecedented world situation, they will cancel their programming for him.

And yet, since Friday and a press conference in which he managed to leave the American position on Libya more muddled than it was before, we have not heard his voice. Except in a radio address -- he talked about education legislation.

And he appeared at a fund-raiser in DC. And sat down with ESPN [1]to reveal his NCAA picks.

He cannot go on like this. Niall Ferguson, the very pessimis tic economic his torian, wrote the other day that the best we can now hope for is that Obama leaves the country in the same kind of shape that Jimmy Carter left it in.

That doesn't do Obama justice. Despite how disastrously he has handled the crises of the past two months, he can still turn his presidency around on a dime.

For Obama to save himself, he should be thinking about the example of an unlikely Republican predecessor: Richard Nixon.

The multifarious crises the president now faces are eerily similar to the kinds of calamities that greeted Richard Nixon [2]in his first term from 1969-1972. Then, as now, the world was on fire. Wars erupted between China and the Soviet Union, India and Pakistan, even El Salvador and Honduras.

Jordan was nearly taken over from within by the Palestine Liberation Organization. There were humanitarian disasters in Biafra (the result of civil war), Bangladesh (due to flooding) and Nicaragua (deadly earthquake).

There was more, much more -- including a war he inherited in Vietnam, just as Obama has the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You get the point.

Nixon in 1968, unlike Obama 2008, was elected as a minority president with only 43 percent of the vote. Yet, in 1972, he won what, in some measures, was the most lopsided election in American history with 61 percent.

Nixon achieved it, in large measure, because he appeared to be a serious man grappling in deadly earnest with the serious problems presented to him by a world careening out of control.

He demonstrated high competency when it came to matters on the world stage. He and his team (primarily Henry Kissinger) developed coherent policies and strategies for coping with the world. There was no question, to friend or foe, that he was fully engaged, paying attention, deeply involved.

Nixon was an awful president in many ways, including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.

All this had the effect of elevating Nixon during his time in office, so that when it came to running against George McGovern [3]in 1972, Nixon seemed like a Titan and McGovern a pipsqueak.

How Nixon conducted himself in office in times of crises made possible his triumphant re-election. Right now, how Obama is conducting himself in a time of crisis is having the opposite effect.

He began his presidency as a potential colossus -- but if he doesn't change, he will finish it as a pipsqueak. Pipsqueaks don't win second terms.

johnpodhoretz@gmail.com[4]

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_the_invisible_Ass40MBstf15MAr9DYAORK#ixzz1GlffHLCk

Egyptian Groups snub Sec. State Clinton

Is this why the US is being very hands off on Libya?  They only want to hang out with the winner?  This doesn't bode well for US Foreign Policy and Principle.  Read the original here.

Young Leaders of Egypt's Revolt Snub Clinton in Cairo

« Previous^[1] | Main^[2] | Next »^[3]

March 15, 2011 1:17 PM

ABC News' Kirit Radia^[4] and Alex Marquardt report:
A coalition of six youth groups that emerged from Egypt’s revolution last month has refused to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in Cairo earlier today, in protest of the United States’ strong support for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was ousted by the uprising.
“There was an invitation for members of the coalition to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton but based on her negative position from the beginning of the revolution and the position of the US administration in the Middle East, we reject this invitation,” the January 25 Revolution Youth Coalition said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
A spokesman for Clinton had no immediate response to the snub. Another State Department official, who would not speak for attribution, confirmed such a meeting had been slated for Tuesday and noted that she still plans to meet with members of civil society and transitional government officials during her visit, during which she will urge Egyptians to continue on the path towards democracy.
Mubarak was one of the United States’ strongest allies in the Middle East over successive American administrations. He enjoyed a cozy relationship with top US leaders, which courted Egypt with massive military aid packages as thanks in large part for its support for Israel.
“I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States,” Secretary Clinton told the Arab language satellite channel al Arabiya during a 2009 interview.
As the revolt strengthened in the streets of Cairo, Clinton was perceived as slow to recognize the strength of the protest movement.
“Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people,” Clinton told reporters^[5] when first asked about the unrest on January 25.
In a separate statement provided to an Egyptian newspaper the youth group said “the US administration took Egypt’s revolution lightly and supported the old regime while Egyptian blood was being spilled.”

Qaddafi continues attacking Rebels

Read the original here.

Libyan Forces Advance on Benghazi, Fight for Control of Rebel-Held Cities

By Ola Galal and Massoud A. Derhally - Mar 16, 2011 8:39 AM ET

A family fleeing the the eastern Libyan city of Ajdabiya look over at rebels filling up their gas tank at a station on the edge of town on March 15. Photographer: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi^[1] set his sights on Benghazi as government forces fought rebels for control of the cities of Ajdabiya and Misrata and prospects faded for an internationally imposed no-fly zone.
Libya’s state-run television ran an appeal to the people of Benghazi, the center of the rebellion in the east of the country, urging them to join Qaddafi’s troops. The army “is coming to secure you and to lift the injustice and horror off you and to protect your pure souls and precious blood,” said the broadcast, which has been airing since yesterday.
Pro-Qaddafi forces attacked Ajdabiya, a city 100 miles (160 kilometres) from the rebel capital, using airstrikes and artillery late yesterday although rebels remained in control, Ahmed Omar, a military spokesman for the opposition, said today by telephone. Misrata, the largest rebel stronghold in western Libya^[2], was shelled by government tanks from three directions early today, Reda Almountasser, a resident, said by phone.
Libya’s crude oil exports may be halted for “many months” because of damage to facilities and international sanctions, the International Energy Agency^[3] said yesterday. Daily supply from Africa^[4]’s third-largest producer has dropped to a “trickle” by this week from 1.58 million barrels in January, the Paris-based agency said in its monthly Oil Market Report.

Oil Markets

Oil rose from the lowest in two weeks in New York as escalating violence in Libya and Bahrain stoked concern about disruptions to Middle East crude supplies. Crude for April delivery rose as much as $1.66 to $98.84 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York^[5] Mercantile Exchange and was at $98.59 at 11:03 a.m. London time. Yesterday, prices fell to $97.18, the lowest since Feb. 28.
Libyan rebels yesterday seized a vessel carrying 25,000 metric tons of fuel that was heading to Tripoli and reversed its course to Benghazi, Mustafa Gheriani, a media coordinator for the rebels, said today by telephone from the city. The fuel would be used in power plants^[6] and other facilities in rebel-held areas, he said.
The death toll from the fighting could reach as high as 15,000, Gheriani said, adding that it’s “very difficult” to confirm given the lack of information on ongoing fighting in Misrata and other cities. Dozens were killed and hundreds wounded in air strikes on Zwara, west of Tripoli, although Qaddafi’s bombardment of such towns doesn’t necessarily mean that government forces control them, he said.
In Benghazi, three fighter jets from Qaddafi’s fleet carried out air strikes on the airport that is currently being used by the rebels as an airbase, but they missed their target after anti-aircraft missiles were fired at them, Omar said.

Troop Defection

A group of soldiers, who were fighting with Qaddafi’s forces in Ajdabiya, surrendered to opposition troops in Tobruk, a city close to the Egyptian border, Omar said.
Foreign Ministers from the Group of Eight nations failed to agree yesterday on imposing a no-fly zone. In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe of France^[7], which along with the U.K. has pressed for aggressive action against Qaddafi, said he couldn’t persuade Russia^[8] to agree to a no-fly zone as other allies, includingGermany^[9], raised objections to military intervention. Juppe hosted a meeting of his G-8 counterparts yesterday in Paris.
“One has to ask the question whether military intervention would hurt more than it helps,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle^[10] told reporters at the meeting. “We do not want to get sucked into a war in North Africa and we would not like to step on a slippery slope.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ola Galal in Cairo at ogalal@bloomberg.net^[11].
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net^[12].

References

1. ^{^} Muammar Qaddafi (topics.bloomberg.com)
2. ^{^} Libya (topics.bloomberg.com)
3. ^{^} International Energy Agency (topics.bloomberg.com)
4. ^{^} Africa (topics.bloomberg.com)
5. ^{^} New York (topics.bloomberg.com)
6. ^{^} power plants (topics.bloomberg.com)
7. ^{^} France (topics.bloomberg.com)
8. ^{^} Russia (topics.bloomberg.com)
9. ^{^} Germany (topics.bloomberg.com)
10. ^{^} Guido Westerwelle (topics.bloomberg.com)
11. ^{^} Send E-mail (www.bloomberg.com)
12. ^{^} Send E-mail (www.bloomberg.com)

Iodide Tablet demand Rises

Read the original here.

Conflicting Iodide Message | NBC Bay Area

By LORI PREUITT^[1]

Updated 6:17 PM PDT, Tue, Mar 15, 2011 | Print^[2]

The fear that a nuclear cloud could float from the shores of Japan to the shores of California has some people making a run on iodine tablets. Pharmacists across California report being flooded with requests.

State and county officials spent much of Tuesday trying to keep people^[3] calm by saying that getting the pills wasn't necessary, but then the United States surgeon general supported the idea as a worthy "precaution."

U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin was in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital^[4]. NBC Bay Area reporter Damian Trujillo asked her about the run on tablets and Dr. Benjamin said although she wasn't aware of people stocking up, she did not think that would be an overreaction. She said it was right to be prepared.

On the other side of the issue is Kelly Huston^[5] of the California Emergency Management Agency. Huston said state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and said people don't need to buy the pills.

"Even if we had a radiation release from Diablo Canyon (in San Luis Obispo County), iodide would only be issued to people living within a 10-mile radius of the plant," Huston added.

Santa Clara County^[6]'s public health officer Dr. Martin Fenstersheib^[7] told the Mercury News he also does not recommend getting the tablets, adding some people can be severely allergic to the iodine.

"There is no reason for doing it," Fenstersheib told the paper.

Either way, the pills are hard to get. eBay prices have skyrocketed.

First Published: Mar 15, 2011 1:20 PM PDT

References

1. ^{^} LORI PREUITT (www.nbcbayarea.com)
2. ^{^} Print (www.nbcbayarea.com)
3. ^{^} State and county officials spent much of Tuesday trying to keep people (www.nbcbayarea.com)
4. ^{^} was in the Bay Area touring a peninsula hospital (www.sfexaminer.com)
5. ^{^} Kelly Huston (www.nbcbayarea.com)
6. ^{^} Santa Clara County (www.nbcbayarea.com)
7. ^{^} Martin Fenstersheib (www.nbcbayarea.com)

Is Obama Like Ike? - WSJ.com

Read the original article here.

By JAMES TARANTO^[1]

The New York Times's idea of a conservative is a guy who loves to puff Barack Obama. "I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant," David Brooks told The New Republic^[2] two years ago, reminiscing about an encounter from 2005, when Obama was a newly elected U.S. senator. "And I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."

How's that working out? Pretty well, to go by Brooks's column today^[3]. Obama is the dynamic young John F. Kennedy and the wise old Dwight Eisenhower all rolled into one: "The campaign of 2008 was marked by soaring calls for transformation. Now the administration spends much of its time reacting to events and counseling restraint." Here is an anecdote that, to Brooks's mind, captures Obama's Ikelikeness:

On Friday, President Obama gave a press conference that perfectly captured his current phase. He acknowledged rising gas prices but had no new energy policy to announce. On Libya, he emphasized the need to deliberate carefully our steps ahead but had no road map to propose. On the federal budget fight, he spoke passionately about the need to reach a compromise. But when given the chance to talk about what it might look like, he rose above the fray and vaguely counseled balance and moderation.

"Prudence is always a nice trait in a leader, especially in the face of a thorny problem like Libya," Brooks writes. But is it really prudent to stand idly while a vicious dictator reasserts power--especially when the president blustered just a week and a half ago that Moammar Gadhafi "must go^[4]"?

Far from likening his prudence to Ike's, we'd say Obama's passivity is a worrying flaw. Actually, we'd put it a lot more strongly than that. We just borrowed the language in this paragraph's topic sentence from Brooks's column--from the penultimate sentence, meaning only people who didn't get bored by Brooks's cheerleading (or who get paid to read this stuff, as we do) go to it.

Actually, though, "passivity" doesn't quite tell the whole story. Obama is passive about the big things that really matter: the Middle East crisis, the ballooning national debt. He was manically active--JFK-like, in Brooks's taxonomy--when he had a Democratic Congress that was willing to pass ruinous left-wing legislation. Now that voters have placed a check on his power, he still has his manic side, but it's devoted to comparatively trivial matters:

On Saturday, the day after his no-news conference on Libya, he delivered an address to the nation^[5] in which, according to the White House website, he "pays homage to former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, commends the great strides that have been made to create a more equal American society, and reaffirms his resolve to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act."

On Sunday he penned an op-ed piece for Tucson's Arizona Daily Star^[6] calling for "at least . . . the beginning of a new discussion on how we can keep America safe for all our people"--which is Obamaspeak for stricter gun-control laws.

Today, notes National Review's Jim Geraghty^[7], quoting Politico's Mike Allen, he "will tape interviews from the Map Room with KOAT Albuquerque, KDKA Pittsburgh and WVEC Hampton Roads on education reform and the need to fix No Child Left Behind." He also "is taping his NCAA [basketball] picks today, and they'll be revealed tomorrow on ESPN."

Forbes^[8] reports that this weekend, amid crises in the Middle East and Japan, Obama will travel overseas--to Brazil.

And this past Saturday, ABC News^[9] reported, "for the second week in a row, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the White House to hit the golf course."

Maybe Brooks is on to something. After all, Eisenhower was a golfer too.

How many breaks should you take?

Read the original article here.

Just Warm Enough for Golf, Obama Back on the Course

March 12, 2011 2:38 PM

ABC News' Tahman Bradley reports:

President Obama just could not wait for spring weather to arrive.
For the second week in a row, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the White House to hit the golf course.

Even as his administration and the U.S. military help Japan recover from a devastating earthquake, and as the world worries about Fukushima's nuclear reactor, the president could not resist taking advantage of the 48-degree weather in the Washington, D.C., area.

The president left the White House Saturday afternoon for a short trip to Joint Andrews Base in Camp Springs, Md.

With cloudy skies, it's not the best weather for golf, but Obama loves to spend his Saturdays on the greens. Last fall, Obama went golfing darn near every weekend.

These are never quick "work on your swing" trips; usually the president plays 18 holes, as he did last week.

-- Tahman Bradley