#4
Having Ralf Loren design those uniforms was a bad idea in the first place. It's even worse to suggest that they should be burned. The fact that they were made in China is reality. If you don't like it, you know what you should do about it: Vote someone in who will bring manufacturing back to the US.
#6
Mr. Lauren has designed the uniforms for a number of recent Olympics, and presumably they were sewn in China in the past as well. The sweatshops aren't coming back to American shores until our wages match those of China and Vietnam -- even Pakistan can't keep those jobs, though the issues there are frequent blackouts and security.
#11
I was trying to figure out what the awkward part is, maybe it is the headpiece. Perhaps the pompish models.
I didn't really consider the manufacturer. I know nearly everything is made in or from China...except every piece of clothing I am wearing (shirt from CA, jeans from TN, socks from WI, ok hat says made in china but is sporting a P-51 with overlord stripes quite different than the cheberet).
I believe it was none other than Harry "The Poet" Reid who brought this up...yet strangely silent on the Maotin Luther King Jr. statue, el prez's Maple Wagon, Brazilian Oil Purchasing and Combat Aircraft, Bammy's Dingleberry is made in Malaysia.
So if Romney is the...uhhhh..(scanning for teleprompter line at 10:00, some olde line as from two months ago but forgot it this time around)...outsourcer in chief; riddle me that.
The Olympics were also the pet project of Obama, necessitating numberous trips overseas for emergency bartering but this aspect escaped him so how does he handle real policy Mr. Reid.
This alleged massive outsourcing of jobs happened during the Clinton administration, is that right?
#14
The sweatshops aren't coming back to American shores until our wages match those of China and Vietnam
True.
So here is what the minimum wage tells Americans: Better to sit on your fat ass, watch TV and stay on welfare than to get a job. Forget the job. We don't want you to work.
The unions say the same. They'd rather price themselves out of the market and become unemployed than to compete against the Asians.
Instead of dancing around his record at Bain, Romney should use Obama's outsourcing attacks as an opportunity to begin a national discussion about the reasons for outsourcing. Let's get down to the real nitty gritty. Why do we need to have everything made in China? Can we get real about it or do we keep trying to sweep it under the rug?
Can we face the fact that not all of our citizens are college material? That we're not all going to become stock brokers or government bureaucrats? That all of us cannot afford that nice, single family home in the suburbs with the green lawn and white picket fence?
Or how about this one: Can we really trust the Chinese to make our computers for us?
I have a letter on my desk from the Romney campaign soliciting a contribution. I'd be far more inclined to respond favorably if I heard him asking some of these questions.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/15/2012 16:46 Comments ||
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#15
Re: computers, no. That's why the IEEE has been focused on hardware-level security for a few years now, and why Intel bought McAfee.
Health officials in Afghanistan's southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province said the incidence of cholera and malaria is on the rise.
Head of the provincial health department Yar Mohammad Naseri said that with the onset of more dry and increasingly hot weather, the number of cases of serious diarrhoea has also risen. He said that the residents are not taking enough precautionary hygiene measures.
He also emphasised that to protect people from malaria infections, the health department has distributed mosquito nets for the residents in the past few years, despite suggestions that the government had not done enough to prevent the disease.
The real answer is DDT to wipe out the malaria-bearing mosquito, but some people think birds are more important.
"We accept that these diseases have increased. We had distributed anti mosquito nets for the residents of Helmand which works for five years but the people thought it was only for a year," Naseri told TOLOnews Thursday.
As the summer temperatures rise, particularly in southern provinces of the country, Naseri said people should consider taking more steps in terms of hygiene.
#2
With all due respect, the "People care more about birds" line doesn't work.
The wholesale use of DDT in the 60s killed off the pollinators as well as the birds. In a farming area, this is devastating. No pollinators=no grain, no fruit, no vegetables. Starvation is not an improvement over malaria.
I don't know about Helmand, but in parts of Africa smaller doses of DDT has been approved for use in homes, away from the food crops. Enough to get rid of the mosquitoes without poisoning the food and the pollinators.
#3
mom, back when he was into fertilizers and pesticides, my father invented a co-factor (not the correct word, but I am not a chemist) that made DDT as effective at 1/10th the dose. He made pots of money until Rachel Carson's Silent Spring came out... a year later.
But DDT also needn't be sprayed wholesale during pollinating season, but targeted to breeding areas and building walls where female osquitos hang out while waiting to go for that blood meal. We now know a lot more about mosquitos than we did in the '60s, surely.
[Al Ahram] The committee set up by Mohamed Morsi to look into the status of political detainees claims 2,165 prisoners' files are being studied while over 9,000 have been released
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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[Tripoli Post] Provisional final election results after last Saturday's election for Libya's National Congress that will be tasked with overseeing the drafting of a new constitution and picking an interim prime minister and Cabinet are expected Saturday, while a certified result is bound to be announced next week.
However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... particularly when it comes to the parties, it is now a forgone conclusion that the centrist National Forces Alliance, NFA, has taken the lion's share of the 80 seats reserved for parties in the 200-seat National Congress.
The NFA, a coalition of about 60 parties led by Mahmoud Jibril, who served as a planning minister to Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability was an inspiration to dictators everywhere, but whose end couldn't possibly happen to them... but broke immediately with the regime when the rebellion started, is best placed for success and seems to have attained a landslide victory, while the Moslem Brüderbund's Justice and Construction Party who had not expected defeat amid a trend of Moslem Brüderbund success in neighbouring countries, faces defeat.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... it is also a known fact that the political leanings of the winners of the other 120 seats reserved for individual candidates will be unclear for days, if not weeks. All parties packed the individual candidate lists, and the Moslem Brüderbund's with the Justice and Construction Party, JCP, still hoping that it has managed to lure most of the candidates as it was more adept than others.
But again, the signs are, that candidates with more local focus than national political affiliations have won the bulk of the seats.
With almost 98 per cent of the votes counted by Friday, the NFA has reportedly won 16 of the 20 constituencies reserved for the party lists, with the Justice and Construction Party gaining just one.
The overall results have turned out to be on the mark after earlier projections soon after the end of voting had put the NFA well in the lead.
In the eastern part of the capital, Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , that include Tajoura, Garabouli, and Souq al Jumaa, the NFA gained over 70,000 votes. The Originality and Renewal Party got just over 15,000, and the JCP over 12,000.
In central Tripoli, the NFA managed over 43,000 votes against the JCP's 4,000.
Such figures follow on the lines of the July 11 victory in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya's second largest, and capital of the rich easter province of Cyrenaica where NFA managed a sound majority with over 95,000 votes as against the JCP's 16,000.
The NFA however did poorly in Libya's third largest city, Misrata where it only received 6,561 votes compared to the Union for the Homeland's 20,696, and the JCP's 17,165. The National Front Party got 11,537.
The NFA did well in Janzour, 15kms from Tripoli, and in the cities of Zliten and Tarhouna, but failed to do as well in Ubari where it only managed fourth place with only 2,071 votes. Most votes, with over 6,000 went to the local party.
The number of political entities that seem to have gained any votes in all the constituencies range from between 30 to 49.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pound, Zebulon finally found just the friend he'd been looking for... after early reports that the JCP would be prepared to accept Jibril's call for a unity government, Moslem Brüderbund leader Mohammed Sawan now appears to be rejecting the idea of a deal with Jibril, and in an interview he branded Mahmoud Jibril as a former ally of ousted dictator Muammar Qadaffy, and of being the electoral choice of old Qadaffy loyalists.
Jibril and his allies is now expected to seek to shape a working majority in the National Congress. But it will depend on the ability of political parties. The aim would be to combine the party seats with the other 120 to be occupied by the individual candidates.
Those who have also been strongly defeated in these elections are the small groups that had been calling fro federalism in Eastern Libya and caused a lot of noise in the media during the last few months specifically when they also called for the boycott of the elections. The electorate has however not heeded the call and almost whole-heartedly participated in the historic election.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... on Saturday denied it was about to lift sanctions against Zim-bob-we President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... as part of a current policy review by the bloc on the southern African nation.
"The EU is reflecting on policy towards Zim-bob-we," said a front man for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
"But there is no question of lifting sanctions (an asset freeze and travel ban) against Mugabe or anyone involved in continued abuses of human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... , incitement to violence, etc -- that is simply not up for discussion," said Michael Mann.
The denial was prompted by reports in the British press of an imminent lifting of the EU's 2002 sanctions against Mugabe.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
I hae and have framed a TEN MILLION DOLLAR bill, loft sanctions, hell NO.
Yjr bill's worthless and so are they.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/15/2012 7:06 Comments ||
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#2
Just give another 32 years comrades, we can overcome these colonial sanctions and put a Mercedes in every garage.
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since 1981. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide... yesterday alleged that the BNP-led opposition is hatching conspiracies to destroy democracy in the country in an apparent bid to foil the war crimes trial.
"They [opposition] don't want the trial of war criminals and that is why they are involved in various conspiracies to destroy democracy," the Awami League president said while addressing the sixth national council of the party's youth wing Awami Jubo League ... the youth wing of the Bangla Awami League... at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital.
"Democracy was hampered again and again, and we had to restore it by sacrificing blood. So, you have to remain alert so that no one can play with the fate of people, no one can distort the history of the country's Liberation War, and no one can play any new game," she said.
Hasina directed Jubo League men to remain vigilant in villages, unions and upazilas, and strengthen the organization down to grassroots level to safeguard democracy.
"It's not possible to materialise any ideology or implement anything without building a strong organization. You must strengthen Jubo League because youths are the main force of a nation," said the AL president.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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As Jose de Jesus Grijalva of Partido de Revolucion Democratica (PRD) pressed his case to overturn the 2012 presidential election, and Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) president elect Enrique Pena Nieto selects his transition team, Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) leaders began the slow transition to their new status as an opposition party after 12 years of rule.
President elect Pena Nieto's announcement of his transition team came midweek and included a central figure in his government while he was governor of Mexico state.
The team members are: Louis Videgaray Caso, Jesus Murillo Karam and Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.
Murillo Karam served as PRI general secretary under PRI president Beatriz Parades Rangel, 2007 to 2011. During that time PRI made tremendous gains in statehouses in the 2010 election, securing 11 of 14 that year.
Osorio Chong served as governor of Hidalgo state 2005 to 2011.
But Videgaray Caso is the most significant appointment of Pena Nieto, having served as his finance minister the first four years of Pena Nieto's term as governor of Mexico state. He left government to become PRI's Mexico state general secretary, and was out of government by 2009. The most significant iissue is that if Pena Nieto moved public funds for political use, Videgaray Caso probably knew about it.
Meanwhile Zambrano Grijalva went on the electronic interview circuits to press his case for a trial in front of the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federacion (TEPJF), and juridicial arm of the Institutio Federal Electoral (IFE), the independent government body that manages national elections in Mexico.
The PRD is an aggrieved party in the matter, and according to several Mexican news articles, PAN is not, having coming in third place in both the presidential and Chamber of Deputies and Senate races.
In an interview with Mexican CNN Mexico journalist Carmen Aristagui, Zambrano Grijalva said that a PRD complaint filed in late April had put PRI campaign spending at almost three times the campaign limits. Putting the total at MX $1.8 billion (USD $135,402,480.00), he said the spending does not include the Soriana gift card scandal, which emerged just after the polls closed in Mexico July 1st. That scandal is said to involve amounts totalling at least MX $100 million (USD $7,522,360.00).
Zambrano Grijalva also said that PRD's case was submitted to the TEPJF last Thursday. According to other Mexican news accounts, the case won't be decided until September.
For his part, PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz told Mexican press last week that PAN would not be involved in pressing to have the election results thrown out since PAN polled so poorly nationwide. PAN has other matters on its plate.
Last Monday, former presidential candidate Santiago Creel told El Universal's redpolitica.mx, that PAN had suffered internal divisions for years before the 2012 election, and that those divisions will need to be sorted out before PAN moves into its new role as the loyal opposition.
Having entered writing about Mexican politics this writer can only guess what the issues were, except amongst them were probably moving PAN further to the right in basic issues such as national security and in federalism.
One very good example of those problem politics was a tweet Madero made early in the presidential campaign talking about PAN's Josefina Vazquez Mota, when he quoted California US Senator Diane Feinstein about women working twice as hard to be considered half as good, adding "fortunately, that isn't very hard."
That tweet probably made for great guffaws but in a nation with a culture such as Mexico's, divided amongst conservative Catholics, radical statists and native mystics, the sentiment could not have resulted in very many votes for PAN.
Creel in his interview also said another of the problems for PAN is structural: There are simply not enough PAN politicians to help in a presidential campaign and to have enough personnel for government. Many PAN politicians, such as Madero, are independently wealthy. Left unsaid in the interview was PAN now owning only four statehouses, and faring as badly everywhere else in the critical municipal governments, where PRI is the strongest.
Still, having top PAN campaign advisors leave the campaign for personal reasons looked bad.
But nothing highlighted PAN's problems in the election more than the betrayal of former Mexico president Vicente Fox, when he endorsed Pena Nieto three weeks before the election.
What made this betrayal so egregious for PAN was that Fox had told Mexican press early in the campaign season that he considered Vazquez Mota a weak candidate. A week later Fox came to Nuevo Leon state and posed for a photo of him kissing Vazquez Mota in a presumed sign of endorsement, cordiality and redemption.
At about the same time Fox finally endorsed Pena Nieto, a press account came out about a poll that placed PRD only four points behind Pena Nieto. It is unclear if that report prompted Fox to make his endorsement. Fox since 2010 had made a number of outrageous comments to the press, one of them endorsing the leglization of marijuana in Mexico. It is unclear if his endorsement of Pena Nieto was out of fear of a PRD win or if he really felt Pena Nieto was a better candidate or president.
In his remarks, Fox said that a return of the PRI would not be such a bad thing, since reforms passed during 12 years of PAN rule severely restricted what PRI could legally do.
Nevertheless, Vazquez Mota campaign coordinator Roberto Gil Zuarth demanded Fox be expelled from the party, which is a process that Madero announced last Monday he would begin.
PAN has a long road ahead to rebuild its political fortunes, As editor of El Diario de Coahuila news daily, Javier Garza put it last week, PAN could emerge as a power broker in the Chamber of Deputies in moving forward reforms that PRI had sought to stop in the last three years.
But PAN's structural problems remain. PAN is weak at the municipal level, and little hope exists that that problem will be resolved anytime soon.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
As he campaigns for reelection, President Obama has embraced soaring political rhetoric, pledging to harness the ingenuity of America "to bring manufacturing back." In beat-up factory towns across the land, he has promoted a vision to rebuild manufacturing after decades of shuttered plants and vanishing middle class jobs. Only some manufacturing, though. Nobody's yet called for reindustrializing the nation.
Obama had witnessed the devastation of lost factory jobs from his earliest days as a community activist in Chicago and felt in his gut that there must be some way to help, but the president, a policy wonk and onetime professor, also wanted to know what the research showed. Aside from letting free enterprise flourish, of course.
"There's a narrative that countries have to make things to be successful," Obama said to his economic advisers. "What's the evidence?" The U.S.A. Germany. Japan. Korea. Taiwan. Britain in its heyday.
His economists, top academics from schools like Harvard and MIT, There's his first mistake...
replied that there wasn't much evidence. In fact, they argued, manufacturing represented relatively few jobs in the nation's economy. The locomotive takes up relatively little space on the train.
And governments had terrible records of investing in specific industries, anyway. Except for Green Jobs, of course. Oh, and those where folks gave him a lot of money. Seems they started from the premise that the government would be doing the investing.
Today, Obama has settled that conflict in favor of manufacturing, a decision explained by politics, economics and the president's trust in his own instincts. He's infallible, y'know.
Now Obama is a man on a mission, pursuing major tax breaks for manufacturers, loans to help sell manufactured goods overseas, tougher trade enforcement to protect U.S. industries from foreign competition, investments in clean energy, high-tech manufacturing clusters and a range of other policies. How about just getting out of the way? Naw. That'd never work.
Obama has rallied in part because of pressure from his own party to find good-paying jobs for millions of factory workers, who sense that their economic future is slipping, or has slipped, away. Factory workers, or union dues-paying members? One and the same to a Democrat... One of the problems built in: it's hard to start a manufacturing enterprise from scratch if y'gotta pay union wages and benefits. And indulge union working conditions.
Global, decades-long forces haven take a massive toll on American manufacturing, and there are few signs they will abate. And the nation's strained finances -- and paralyzed politics - limit what government can do to help. Wasted the first trillion-dollar stimulus? Not entirely, someone got rich... The purpose of political office is to let contracts.
But there's a deeper problem here. Manufacturing started to die when people started complaining about the "soullessness" of working on assembly lines, referring to factories as "sweat shops," and saying flat out that they didn't want their kids to grow up working in factories. If you raise your kids to think in terms of being too good to work in a factory when they grow up they're not even going to think of getting a job there, even if they don't go to college. The dearth of applicants drives up wages, along with the unions.
The solution, as I've mentioned before, is automation. There are fewer people available to work the jobs, therefore y'gotta cut the number of people needed for the jobs. The way to outproduce the Chinese and whoever else is to pay really good wages to far fewer people while producing quantitatively and qualitatively more.
We have the technology, as the teevee show said back in the days when we didn't really have it. But we've got to start at very basic levels, like the Japanese did post-WWII. If you go to Home Depot and buy a box of screws you'll likely find "Made in China" on the box. Buy a box of knobs and it'll be "Made in China."Go elsewhere and buy cheap furniture and it'll be made in the same place. Buy tee shirts and they'll likely be made in the same place. Yet even a dumbass like me, no engineer, can think of how to automate the production of each. I could even program it and roughly design the specialized machinery.
The president's embrace of manufacturing comes during a campaign in which his rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, has also pledged to rebuild the sector. Obama's strategists see political gain in the relentless focus on manufacturing, drawing a contrast with Romney's background as someone who financially invested in industrial companies but never ran one, and his criticism of the auto bailout. And of course the Dems can point to Obama's deep experience in running a business...
Romney and Republicans and Rantburgers say there is already an example of Obama's manufacturing policy at work -- the "green jobs" program that benefited political donors and lobbyists, such as the backers of the failed solar energy company Solyndra. To name only one. I trust Mitt has the complete list?
Manufacturing, long a source of high wage jobs, has been shrinking as a portion of the economy for 45 years, from representing more than a quarter of economic activity to just 12 percent today, a decline that helps explain the nation's anxiety about the future of the middle class. In other countries the "middle class" is shopkeepers and merchants. It has been the singular accomplishment of the U.S. that the "middle class" includes people working in manufacturing jobs. Where I grew up quarry workers were home owners, and it was a youth's ambition to get a job with Hershey Chocolate.
The slide is the result of many factors, including dwindling union membership and automated factory technology, but largely reflects the rise of low-wage jobs overseas. Unions fought against automation from the first because it meant there would be fewer jobs. The result was to kill industries, the net result being no jobs. Brilliant.
In the past decade, fueled in large part by open trade with China, factories have shed millions of jobs. Before there was open trade with China there was open trade with the Japanese, which was what happened to Admiral and Emerson and RCA and Sylvania. There was open trade with Malaysia, which was what happened to the North Carolina furniture industry.
The policies of presidents of both parties have over the years been shaped by the widely held view among economists that manufacturing's decline -- like agriculture before it -- was inevitable and even beneficial for American consumers, who snapped up inexpensive products made overseas. So 80% of citizens save money, and the other 20% look for the good old days. Low prices are beneficial for consumers, which is where the "Buy American" thing falls down. Prices being equal they'll buy "Made in U.S.A." If Chinese is more affordable they'll buy that. If U.S.A. prices are lower they won't even think about Chinese unless Grampaw was born in Olde Chunking.
As someone who began his career organizing jobless factory workers, Obama came to office with a view that more should be done to protect these buggywhip factories communities, but he wasn't sure exactly what was possible. "I cannot wish away the sometimes competing demands of economic security and competitiveness," he wrote as a senator. So instead he appointed a czar... One wonders whatcha organize jobless factory workers to do. And how long do you remain a "jobless factory worker" before finding something else to do.
Faced with an economic crisis, he deployed federal stimulus money to jolt a domestic clean energy industry to life. A domestic clean energy industry that's been eating public money since 1973 without burping up anything of general use. Last year Gloria and I were groaning and uttering bad words with $300-400 a month summer electric bills. I looked into installing solar to cut the cost. The conversion cost was prohibitive and the technology Rube Goldbergian. Instead, the old heat pump cooperatively went up, we got a new one, and our bills are 20 percent of what they were -- the product of incremental improvements in existing technology.
And months later, Obama pumped tens of billions of dollars into General Motors and Chrysler to save them. Not to mention GMAC, the UAW, and indulgent union pension plans. And just look at how well GM is doing today... It was the second time Chrysler's been saved. No one mentioned breaking the car companies up, either. Jeep could do pretty well on its own, I think. Probably Plymouth could, too.
Prestowitz recalled telling Obama, "one of the problems is we're losing jobs we're good at." That caught Obama's attention. Prestowitz described how Intel was on the verge of opening its first high-tech semiconductor fabrication plant in China. Intel wasn't looking for cheap labor, he said, but was pressured by Chinese leaders, who tended to offer free land, low taxes and other incentives. Incentives? Not more regulation and higher taxes? What are they thinking? Free enterprise? So they didn't exactly go to school on the Chinese, did they. Where's Tom Friedman when you need him?
"What do you think we should do?" Obama asked. "We need to match the incentives and the urgency," Prestowitz said. So we need more regulations, right? "How much did they contribute?"
After the meeting drifted to other speakers and topics, Obama brought it back with a staccato of questions: "Why can't we make batteries in America? Why can't we make fast trains? Why we can't make windmills?" We can't make batteries in America because of all the dangerous materials that go into them. Old fashioned lead-acid batteries are chock full of lead and sulfuric acid. Better that nameless Asians should run the risk of working with them. More modern batteries, with things like lithium in them are even worse. All those elements ending in "um" are potential nuclear explosives.
The reason we can't make fast trains is that we can't make even the relatively slow trains that people rode in the heady days of my youth. If we can't make the relatively simple price competitive we can't make the complex price competitive.
The same applies to the windmills. The thrifty Dutch have had them for years and years, and Don Quixote would occasionally tilt at them. If they're not price competitive with natural gas or oil-fired power plants they're not worth building. New technology isn't necessarily better than old technology.
Prestowitz recalled being struck by the fierceness of the president's questions but also wondering why more was not being done to answer them. As an outsider, his guess was that Obama's economic advisers hadn't made it a priority. Who's gonna tell him it's the EPA, IRS, and government strangling jobs? Not me, man! But maybe Mittens could.
A year ago, Obama and Bloom sat in the presidential limo winding south toward a manufacturing event in Alexandria. On that ride, Obama made clear that he wanted an ambitious manufacturing strategy. He "wanted this change in administration focus to be real," Bloom said. And thus was reborn the idea of "industrial policy."
In the limo, Obama looked at Bloom and asked, "Why is Germany so successful at running a high-wage manufacturing sector?" This from the smartest man in the whole wide world?
The country's culture, Bloom responded. It has a long tradition of job training programs integrated into the fabric of German society. And the country's banks have made a top priority of financing manufacturers. And beer. German workers drink beer.
"Why can't we do this?" the president demanded. Boggle.
Bloom said there are things the United States could do: subsidize research and development, build stronger relationships between universities and companies, better enforce trade laws. The president could use the bully pulpit more, too. And regulations. Don't forget regulations. And no more power plants, just solar power. There's nothing in there about making manufacturing easier. I knew several men who got off the boat from Italy, worked in what are today considered menial factory jobs, saved their money, bought houses, and started small "sweat shop" manufacturing operations. (They really were sweatshops. This was back in the days before widespread use of air conditioning.) My mother occasionally worked in two of them. I drove by one of them a few weeks ago and it's still in operation, probably run by a grandson. I'll bet it could have turned out an order for USA Olympics uniforms, too.
"I bet on American manufacturing," the president said in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday. Yeah. He's on a roll.
"What's happening in the auto industry can happen in other industries, and I'm running to make sure it does. I want high-tech manufacturing to take root in places like Cedar Rapids and Newton and Des Moines." High tech industries require heavy capital investment. Low-tech industries are the base on which other industries are built.
And not just in those places, according to his stump speeches. Obama has said manufacturing can come charging back across Ohio -- in Youngstown, Cleveland and Columbus. There's great promise, too, in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Baltimore. And across this land, from Richmond and Charlotte to Chicago and Denver -- all places where he's said manufacturing should see a renaissance. Change! Not the old change. New change. Good change! But keep the old unions and work rules, of course. And change some regulations, then add some new ones. More government oversight! All the places he cited are places he needs to have vote for him in November. After that it won't matter... Youngstown and Pittsburgh were steel cities. The unions killed steel with demands for high wages, unsustainable benefits, and intricate work rules at the same time other places were making steel with none of the above and dumping it at below production prices.
Detroit used to be Motor City before it became a center of municipal corruption and the UAW began killing off U.S. car companies while Japan and Korea and Germany out-qualitied and under-priced them.
Cleveland used to be touted as the "best location in the nation" until Dennis Kucinich drove it into the first municipal bankruptcy since the Great Depression. I understand it's recovered and that it's not a bad place to do business now, though not a manufacturing powerhouse.
Richmond was the home of the Tredegar Iron Works, but that was 150 years ago. It had the first electric streetcar system in the country, but that's long gone. And it used to be the home of "America's Black Wall Street." But all that was years ago. Today it's still the capital of Virginia and I believe it's fairly prosperous.
I'm not too sure why Columbus is on that list. In 2009, BusinessWeek named Columbus as the best place in the country to raise a family. Forbes Magazine in 2008 ranked it as the no. 1 up-and-coming tech city in the nation, and the city was ranked a top ten city by Relocate America in 2010. Maybe it's died in the past two years.
Baltimore's a port city, but the U.S. shipping industry's been killed off by the usual suspects and by Congressional regulation. We still get lots of ships, but the stevedores are all gone, replaced by cranes and containerized shipping. Young Baltimoreans don't go to sea anymore -- the crews are Filipinos, Indians, and other adventurous races. But we have Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Zurich Insurance and a variety of other companies, though we don't manufacture much of anything anymore. The Inner Harbor no longer has shiploads of bananas and bales of cotton and tobacco unloaded. It's full of restaurants and trendy shoppes. The city's infamous Block, which used to be full of strip clubs and other seedy dives designed to separate sailors from their money, has shrunk and morphed into overpriced joints that are just as seedy but not nearly as much fun. We have the the usual controversies about city taxes and regulations running business out of town, but the city's actually not in bad shape.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/15/2012 07:48 ||
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#1
Actually, he is well on the way to returning manufacturing to America by destroying the multilateral trading system based on free convertibility of currencies.
#6
Romney and Republicans and Rantburgers say there is already an example of Obama's manufacturing policy at work -- the "green jobs" program that benefited political donors and lobbyists, such as the backers of the failed solar energy company Solyndra. To name only one. I trust Mitt has the complete list?
So far I haven't seen a lot of desire on Romney's part to go after these sweet spots. Either he is holding his fire, or is reluctant to wrestle with a pig. Either way, he appears weak in this areana, and I am afraid that is going to show in November.
#7
Watching Champ -- who does not have the mental machinery required to profitably operate a sidewalk lemonade stand-- pushing and pulling on the levers of the American economy is like watching a bear cub trying to disarm a nuclear bomb. It's by times both amusing and terrifying.
Champ, I'm telling you: there are Americans out there who actually know how to do this kind of thing. They are not doing it because they see no point in building a business only to see you regulate and tax it to death to support your idiotic redistributionist agenda. Stick to signing important-looking documents like the menu for the next state dinner and watch the country prosper.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/15/2012 12:47 Comments ||
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#8
Oh, now he is on a mission?
Insourcing. Words created or saved.
I have never watched him before but ther was I guess a re-run yesterday of a show hosted by a guy named Stossel. Everything on that show was spot on, last time I was standing and cheering for a show like I was, was Act of Valor.
Except for the guy who was selling the idea that all money is governments first and foremost. It is what Obama is stating. It makes for a shakey, uncertain future where businesses do not know if they will be saddled with health insurance costs, higher minimum wage, and likely some rule that the current wage cannot be diminished to compensate health insurance costs.
Underemployed, you bet. $10/hour to change sweep and change lightbulbs, I'll find the time myself else I price out.
#9
You're just now figuring this out?
What a Foofus, he NEVER had that power, Just dreamed he had.
(And fooled you Into thinking he had)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/15/2012 13:15 Comments ||
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#10
CLEVER CATHOLICS ...
SAINT NANCY PELOSI
Last Saturday afternoon, in Washington, D.C. , an aide to the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Bishop of the Catholic cathedral in D.C.. He told the Cardinal that Nancy Pelosi would be attending the next day's Mass, and he asked if the Cardinal would kindly point out Pelosi to the congregation and say a few words that would include calling Pelosi a saint.
The Cardinal replied, "No. I don't really like the woman, and there are issues of conflict with the Catholic Church over certain of Pelosi's views." Pelosi's aide then said, "Look, I'll write a check here and now for a donation of $100,000 to your church if you'll just tell the congregation you see Pelosi as a saint."
The Cardinal thought about it and said, "Well, the church can use the money, so I'll work your request into tomorrow's sermon."
As Pelosi's aide promised, Nancy Pelosi appeared for the Sunday worship and seated herself prominently at the forward left side of the center aisle.
As promised, at the start of his sermon, the Cardinal pointed out that Nancy Pelosi was present. The Cardinal went on to explain to the congregation, "While Nancy Pelosi's presence is probably an honor to some, the woman is not numbered among my personal favorite personages. Some of her most egregious views are contrary to tenets of the Church, and she tends to flip-flop on many other issues. Nancy Pelosi is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite, a thumb sucker, and a nit-wit. Nancy Pelosi is also a serial liar, a cheat, and a thief.
"I must say, Nancy Pelosi is the worst example of a Catholic I have ever personally witnessed. She married for money and is using her wealth to lie to the American people. She also has a reputation for shirking her Representative obligations both in Washington, and in California.
The woman is simply not to be trusted." The Cardinal concluded, "But, when compared with President Obama, Nancy Pelosi is a saint."
#11
Picked up by HotAir.com from The One's delivery on Friday night a Roanoke Fire Station #1, Roanoke, Virginia.
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didnt -- look, if youve been successful, you didnt get there on your own. You didnt get there on your own. Im always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If youve got a business -- you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didnt get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
Sometimes, he just can't help himself --- If I had the money, I would run ads 24 hours a day of nothing but that statement If youve got a business -- you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen repeated over and over.
His entire ideology wrapped up in that one statement.
#12
Sherry: now he's channeling Elizabeth Warren...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/15/2012 14:13 Comments ||
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#13
Ingsoc collectivism Progressive, statist Obamanism will free us from oppression, not the individual!
Ingsoc (Newspeak for "English Socialism") is the political ideology of the totalitarian government of Oceania in George Orwell's dystopian science fiction novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
It's not a matter of Juche. It's a matter of repairing bad decisions, bad societal trends, and their consequences. Britain's made many of the same bad decisions or worse, plus a different set that we haven't yet made. (We've also made a different set of mistakes the Brits haven't yet made; the overlap's not identical.)
Countries that make things are strong. If the world economy falls out from under them they've still got their own resources.
American (and British) shipping used to go everywhere and weused to produce mighty sea-farin' men. When we do now they're in the Navy, not merchant captains.
The same applies to very basic things like making your own nails and screws and hinges. I could set up a brass smelting operation in my tiny back yard. If I did I've have the county, state, and federal governments on my back in no time, not to mention the community association. Renting or even buying a building would leave me with the same problems, less the community association plus the zoning board and the fire marshal.
We used to pride ourselves on being entrepreneurs. Americans could do anything. Now we can sign up for food stamps and we're too good to stand on an assembly line. If there is an assembly line there's a line of bureaucrats to tell the guys who built it how to run it.
It's not a matter of 100 percent self-sufficiency. It's a matter of producing your basics and importing your luxury goods.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 14:35 Comments ||
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#15
I suppose intelligence, patriotism, and bravery are also wrong alongside self-sufficiency because I'm sure they've been praised in North Korean propaganda.
#18
Back to Fred: I'm not as wound up on producing basics. We can buy fasteners, and when I'm building something in the shop I prefer inexpensive ones made by Chung or Jose compared to expensive ones made by Missy or Tyrone.
The key (I suggest) is that we fit our population to what we can make and make well. Right now 'Made in the USA' does stand for something in the world: usually high end stuff that's well made. We do well at that. But we don't do the low-end because we can't compete with countries that will pay someone $10 a day to assemble iPhones, and we won't lower ourselves to pay people in Detroit or Newark $10 a day (or $20) to assemble those phones.
So if we were making the high end stuff, the good stuff, and we had our population busy as bees in those highly automated plants maintaining the numerical control machines, the servers, the tools, etc., we'd be just fine.
But we don't, because our education system from K-16 has deteriorated badly. Teachers aren't teaching well, schools aren't working well, a basic sense of discipline (not corporal) and self-motivation is lacking in people, and too many people want a handout.
That's why the story about Champ looking to bring back manufacturing is such a laugher: the man who's never run so much as the proverbial lemonade stand this week waived the welfare-to-work rules. It's now smarter for a single mom with two kids to take welfare in California than it is to go to work everyday to a $55K a year job.
Manufacturing isn't the problem, it's a symptom. We're losing our way, our morals, our discipline, and our vision of what the future should be.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/15/2012 15:27 Comments ||
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#19
It's quite hard to read an entire paragraph in this cursive font. I tried, but gave up after a couple of sentences.
#20
I've tried to use some of those Chinese nails but it's awfully frustrating when they all bend as soon as you put a hammer to them. I'm not the greatest carpenter but I can't believe it was all my fault. Please, gimme American nails.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/15/2012 17:06 Comments ||
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#25
Hear that Abu, screws and bits are aweful as well.
I've been calling it the Rollingjoke speech.
If youve got a business -- you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen
Tell it to Bill Gates. Because Wal-Marts bloomed on the high plains during the great glacier melt and bison migration.
Also mentioned his opponent as Mr. Romney, leaving out an earned title. Perhaps Obama should be referred to as Freshman Senator, or did he even earn that title? I guess getting your compitition eliminated took some work.
#28
gromky, that's not cursive font - it looks like Ariel or something similer.
I can't make it show up here, but if you want to see what a cursive font looks like, go to your Word program and select Brush Script or Kunstler Script. There are others, too.
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/15/2012 20:08 Comments ||
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#29
Or maybe I should have said it's not cursive on IE. I didn't realize font could look different in different browsers. :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
07/15/2012 20:14 Comments ||
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#30
Okay. I'll change the cursive to Courier.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 21:00 Comments ||
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#31
It's a cursive Google Font. It looks pretty but it's indeed hard to read, which is a shame because the comments are very educating.
I'd actually suggest not to use too many different fonts. They are distracting from the content.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/15/2012 21:03 Comments ||
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#32
Fred - the comments are the value
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/15/2012 21:32 Comments ||
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#33
What you all said was pertinent. We lose Education, we lose the future. No holds and no fakes.
When there are skills that may be paid for, they propagate and progress, when we cannot educate people to those skills anymore because we no longer pay for them, we lose an edge.
You would be out of business if you only ran American, and our debt would not be paid either.
We must tighten up our K-12 (Or 16) Immediately or its over anyways. Also, we must make it easier to create business here - less expensive and intrusive and a grind.
Will you trust me that government is the problem in this regard?
"If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If youve got a business -- you didnt build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didnt get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."
The infamy is that all this is not wrong. But he forgot the obvious: All this would come to nothing if YOU, the individual, didn't do more than you were expected to, if YOU didn't try to excel.
And that's why Obama cherishes socialism.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/15/2012 22:08 Comments ||
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#35
he's trying to take credit for any entrepreneurial success by his base. He has no other connection to success. Look at all his "green investments" that have gone belly-up, costing us $. He's an economic idiot advised by socialist zealots and ivory-tower fools
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/15/2012 22:36 Comments ||
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#36
"for his base", not "by"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/15/2012 22:53 Comments ||
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#37
It sounds weird but with all the help Obama had he should have been able to achieve more than being a very very mediocre president.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
07/15/2012 23:01 Comments ||
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#38
he should have been able to achieve more than being a very very mediocre president.
Based on hope and hype, you would think so. But as somebody said, all Obama's "new ideas" have been tried and failed on three continents. The man is basically an empty suit. One hundred years ago, he would have been a well-dressed grifter selling snake oil to the rubes.
[BBC] The big growth in oil extracted from shale rock means the US will not need to import any crude within two decades, the former boss of BP has said.
Lord Browne told a conference in Oxford the US would be "completely independent of imported oil, probably by 2030".
He also said the amount of shale gas in the US was "effectively infinite".
Shale oil and gas is extracted using a method called fracking, but the process has been controversial because of the environmental risks associated with it.
Lord Browne is a director of fracking firm Cuadrilla.
He told the Resource 2012 forum on water, food and energy scarcity that the development of shale oil and gas was "quite extraordinary", and that the world was now entering the "latest age of primary energy".
Earthquakes Under the process of fracking, oil or gas is extracted from shale rock by pumping a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into the rock at high pressure.
In April this year, a panel of experts appointed by the UK government ruled that test fracking could continue, but under strict conditions. The report came after a Cuadrilla site in Lancashire had to stop test fracking in 2011 after two small earthquakes were felt at the surface.
There are also concerns that fracking - which is banned in La Belle France and Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... - risks polluting water supplies. However, women are made to be loved, not understood... the practice is now widespread in the US.
Lord Browne said the sector needed stronger government regulation to prevent any bad practice.
He said: "Shale gas has a very bad reputation, as a result of the weak players cutting corners.
"Regulation tightening would be welcome."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#2
In 2005 the cost of making a penny was .97 of a cent. Today after the Stim and multiple quantitative easings [printing money without backing] it costs 2.41 cents to make a penny. Using 'penny' rather than 'cent' as the unit of measure, that means your dollar is now really worth about 42 pennies. The cost of that gas isn't going to drop dramatically because your dollar isn't worth what it once was seven years ago. Call it the Krugman Effect.
[Al Ahram] Ministers approve $80 billion austerity package that will cut public sector wages and unemployment benefits
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Cyprus has just requested 5 billion Euros from Russia. They will get it. Russia has deep pockets but not nearly enough to save Spain. The Spanish youth and those who can are going to Norway and Brazil to work. That would help Spain because money is sent back home in the hopes they can come back one day. Not all but many people will do that.
[Dawn] A man nominated in a murder case was rubbed out by his opponent inside Beautiful Downtown Peshawar judicial complex where he had come for a pre-arrest bail on Friday.
Later, 14 coppers, including two sub-inspectors, responsible for security of the complex were cooled for a few years Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! on the orders of Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan when he took notice of the incident. The chief justice also directed the concerned police to produce report as to how the accused managed to take weapon to the court premises despite security arrangements.
An official of East Cantonment police said that one Tufail of Badbher -- nominated in a double murder case registered with Badbher cop shoppe -- had come to the court of additional sessions judge Ahmed Sultan Tareen inside the judicial complex for pre-arrest bail. He said that a teenager Sabz Ali, son of Mirza Ali, of the same village appeared and opened fire on Mr Tufail, who soon died on way to nearby Lady Reading Hospital.
The official said that Mr Tufail was facing charges of killing parents of Sabz Ali a few weeks ago in a grenade attack on their residence.
Another source said that Sabz Ali had been cooled for a few years Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! and during initial interrogation he admitted that a policeman of Badbher cop shoppe, who is his relative, had cooperated in provision of pistol to him inside the judicial complex. The police, he said, were trying to arrest the policeman.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] As intense lobbying continues behind the scenes over who should become the new Archbishop of Canterbury -- the spiritual leader of the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion -- churches in Africa have expressed their concerns over the process.
Last Sunday, Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt warned that many of the estimated 55 million Anglicans across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australasia and the Americas felt they had "no say" in the process of selecting a successor to Dr Rowan Williams. ... sometimes known as the Archdruid of Canterbury, an indifferent theologian and a poor communicator, so obtuse as to occasionally be mistaken for brilliant but chock full of bland New Agey Feel-Goodisms ... African clergy, in particular, have expressed their concern at a 'whispering' campaign to ensure that the candidate likely to be most favoured by Anglicans across Africa, Dr John Sentamu, the current Archbishop of York and a former asylum seeker from Uganda under the regime of Idi Amin, is not chosen.
"But my dear, he b'lieves in God and Jesus Christ! Can't have that at the top, it sets a bad example for the pews."
Of particular concern to the Africans is the composition of the selection committee, which is dominated by liberal-leaning British church leaders, and would be unlikely to represent the traditionalist views of most Anglicans overseas, particularly those living in Africa.
Already pressure is being brought to bear on representatives of the 16-member Crown Nominations Commission who will make the decision to recommend to UK Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... who should become the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury.
The only person on the CNC representing the non-English members of the Anglican Communion is the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, who is known for his liberal stance on issues of sexuality.
Dr Anis told Britannia's Daily Telegraph newspaper that while he "loves and respects" Dr Morgan, his nationality was relevant. "Sadly, this gives the impression that the voice of the Anglican Communion outside England is not counted as being important," he said.
Dr Anis, who is the Primate of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, went on: "It is giving the impression that we don't own it at all -- it is all something somehow run from England. It would be acceptable in the 19th Century but not now ... It is a colonial approach."
The head of Nigerian Anglican Church Nicholas Okoh said that Dr Williams, who steps down from his post in December, had divided a once happy family.
"He is leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarised, bitterly factionalised, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness."
St Paul's University vice chancellor Prof Joseph Galgalo, an Anglican priest, feels that Dr Sentamu stands a good chance of taking over.
"He has very balanced views especially on the issues that divide the church," Prof Galgalo told the Sunday Nation.
Supporters of John Sentamu, the Ugandan-born holy man, who was the early favourite to become Archbishop of Canterbury, have also said his campaign is being undermined by racist critics.
A series of reports in the UK press quoted a senior bishop criticising Dr Sentamu as "quite tribal and the African chief thing comes through".
Dr Sentamu, who is currently Archbishop of York, has five main rivals for the new position.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
You will quickly recognize where Sentamu is coming from.
[An Nahar] A Caliphornia jury has ordered BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to pay $147.2 million in damages for infringing on a patent for remote management of wireless devices, RIM announced Saturday.
"RIM is disappointed by the outcome and is evaluating all legal options," the Canadian company said in a statement.
Edison, New Jersey-based software firm Mformation sued RIM in 2008 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming it had disclosed details of its technology to RIM during licensing discussions.
After choosing not to buy a license, RIM modified its software to include Mformation's patented systems allowing companies to manage workers' mobile devices from an enterprise server, Mformation said in its complaint.
RIM denied any wrongdoing and said the patents were invalid.
"RIM has worked hard for many years to independently develop its leading-edge BlackBerry technology and industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, and RIM does not believe that the Mformation patent in question is valid," it said.
In its verdict released late Friday, the jury directed RIM to pay an $8 royalty for every mobile device in the United States connected to a BlackBerry enterprise server. The verdict does not cover foreign damages.
RIM noted that the trial judge has yet to decide "certain legal issues that might impact the verdict." The company said it will await those rulings before deciding whether to appeal the payout.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/15/2012 00:00 ||
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"RIM is disappointed by the outcome and is evaluating all legal options,"
Yup, you're screwed.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/15/2012 0:49 Comments ||
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#2
Blackberry is the pager of the present day. Fitting that obooboo's fawning press made such a big deal about how his BB is surgically attached to his hand...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/15/2012 8:05 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The 
[Bangla Daily Star] Prime Minister 
As he campaigns for reelection, President Obama has embraced soaring political rhetoric, pledging to harness the ingenuity of America "to bring manufacturing back." In beat-up factory towns across the land, he has promoted a vision to rebuild manufacturing after decades of shuttered plants and vanishing middle class jobs.
The big growth in oil extracted from shale rock means the US will not need to import any crude within two decades, the former boss of BP has said.
Under the process of fracking, oil or gas is extracted from shale rock by pumping a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into the rock at high pressure.
There is a reason their cellular switches were 100X cheaper than Motorola's and Lucent's!
[Dawn] A man nominated in a murder case was 
Rowan Williams.
David Cameron
