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Grenade attack on Kenya church kills 1, wounds 14
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Page 6: Politix
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10 23:46 European Conservative [6] 
3 13:15 JohnQC [3] 
5 17:00 warthogswife [3] 
14 21:09 James [7] 
5 14:17 Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division [2] 
11 23:22 DarthVader [6] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 4: Opinion
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Home Front: Politix
Doom and gloom
Posted by: tipper || 11/05/2012 20:07 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


November surprise: EPA planning major post-election anti-coal regulation
President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo.

Environmentalists at the EPA pulled this trick before in 2000 when the Clinton administration rushed out a finding that Mercury emissions from power plants were a growing public health threat pursuant to the Clean Air Act. That finding did not regulate power plants itself, but it did force the Bush administration to begin a lengthy regulatory process. The Obama EPA has estimated that this regulation alone will cost the U.S. economy $10.9 billion a year.
Posted by: Au Auric || 11/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Time to rid ourselves of this useless group. Coal miners are going to vote this useless group out.
Posted by: Dale || 11/05/2012 7:06 Comments || Top||

#2  In other words they are going to cram it though during the lame-duck session.

We need to have a ban on any new regulations or laws during the lame duck session.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/05/2012 7:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe if they release enough heating oil on the market for free they'll be able to convince everyone in the northeast that all these regulatioons are a good idea.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 11/05/2012 7:40 Comments || Top||

#4  So retaining control of the House (and the purse), why will the Trunks even fund the organization next year? If you can get away without enforcing immigration laws, why aren't these regulations anymore important?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/05/2012 8:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Environmentalists at the EPA pulled this trick before in 2000 when the Clinton administration rushed out a finding that Mercury emissions from power plants were a growing public health threat pursuant to the Clean Air Act.

Funny that such a thing would come out of the Clinton administration when you consider that China now emits more coal pollution than the US and it was Clinton who granted China most favored nation trading status in spite of their human rights violations. But the thing about pollution is that it doesn't stay in the country of origin. The way the jet stream blows we get a lot of that stuff here. Not only that but the mercury falls into the ocean and poisons the fish. But I guess it's OK to pollute if you do it in the name of socialism so maybe I should just eat tofu and shut up.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/05/2012 9:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Because we are more honest and have too much integrity to do what the Donks do?

I favor a firestorm of protest when the review period opens up.

There is a comment period for new regs, right?
Posted by: Bobby || 11/05/2012 9:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Heard Romney say, they would be going through regulations, looking for those that deter business growth and removing them. Kinda like his teams would do when they were taking over a company....

Posted by: Sherry || 11/05/2012 10:43 Comments || Top||

#8  quit being so presumptive about this...you all know that they have to pass the law first before you can see what's in it!
Posted by: Broadhead6 || 11/05/2012 12:32 Comments || Top||

#9  you also need to remove the EPA/DOJ/IS/etc. people with the Obama agenda. Strip them from their political jobs. The ones in civil service? Move them to penguin counting in the Antarctic. Burn it down
Posted by: Frank G || 11/05/2012 14:59 Comments || Top||

#10  Burn it down and use the site as a toxic waste dump.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/05/2012 17:45 Comments || Top||

#11  Defund 'em all.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/05/2012 23:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Think tank recommends big benefits cuts
[Air Force Times] A new report by a liberal-leaning think tank recommends a dramatic overhaul of military pay, retirement and health care benefits as part of a $1 trillion cut in defense spending over 10 years.
War's winding down, so we're not needed anymore.
So we'll reduce military pensions but not public employee pensions. That rather makes clear their priorities, doesn't it...
The Center for American Progress calls for capping pay raises, eliminating military health benefits for many retirees who are covered by an employer-provided plan, and reducing the value of military retired pay as well as making retirees wait until age 60 to start receiving it.

Recommendations are included in a report, Rebalancing Our National Security, released Oct. 31 by the progressive think tank and advocacy group. The report opposes across-the-board cuts in defense spending that could occur beginning in January under sequestration but still calls for major reductions in defense spending.

Capping pay raises, the report says, could save $16.5 billion over the next five years. Reducing retiree health care benefits, through a combination of restricting care and raising fees, could save $15 billion a year. Reforming military retired pay could save, in the short term, up to $13 billion a year, and over time could save up to $70 billion a year off the current plan.
Posted by: Fred || 11/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course it really is the less than 2% that serve their country, and the far lesser number who stay on until retirement.... who are the problem.

Multi-generational welfare, Child farming, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), skyrocketing social security disabiliity, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and (WIC), Pell grants, Federal Housing Assistance, UN Welfare, Foreign Aid programs, Gun Running, Foeign Military Assistance programs, paying farmers not to plant crops, Obama phones, and midnight basketball are all of lesser or no impact.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 3:09 Comments || Top||

#2  Their ballots were lost---so, there's nothing they can do about it (Obamathink).
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 11/05/2012 7:13 Comments || Top||

#3  I've an idea. How about a $1T cut in so-called 'mandatory [but unearned] entitlements' such as welfare?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/05/2012 7:24 Comments || Top||

#4  We don't have history, just memory and Desert One is now something in the Dark Ages. That contributed to another President's one term in office. Gut pay, gut training, gut maintenance is a known recipe for just another disaster waiting to happen.

Senator Nunn (D-GA) in the late 80s push through a reform to reduce the retired pay computation from 2.5 to 2 percent for each year served effectively reducing 20 year retirement from 50 to 40 percent of base pay. By the mid-90s retention of mid-grade NCOs and Officers had become a serious problem.

One of the major reforms of the post-Vietnam army was a turn around in treating the organization as a culture composed of humans rather than a machine with interchangeable parts. Bean counters always seem to reduce humans to throw away parts.

The present confusion in the civilian mind and the true military mind respecting the purposes of armies and limits of warfare is attributable to many circumstances. Among them, no doubt, is the character of military history as it has commonly been written. Ordinary citizens are lacking in the raw experience of combat, or deficient in technical knowledge, and inclined to leave the compilation of military records to “experts” in such affairs. Writers on general history have tended to neglect the broader aspects of military issues; confining themselves to accounts of campaigns and battles, handled often in a cursory fashion, they have usually written on the wars of their respective countries in order to glorify their prowess, with little or no reference to the question whether these wars were conducted in the military way of high efficiency or in the militaristic way, which wastes blood and treasure.

Even more often, in recent times, general historians have neglected military affairs and restricted their reflections to what they are pleased to call “the causes and consequences of wars”; or they have even omitted them altogether. This neglect may be ascribed to many sources. The first is, perhaps, a recognition of the brutal fact that the old descriptions of campaigns are actually of so little value civilian and military alike. Another has been the growing emphasis on economic and social fields deemed “normal” and the distaste of economic and social historians for war, which appears so disturbing to the normal course of events. Although Adam Smith included a chapter on the subject of military defense in his Wealth of Nations as a regular part of the subject, modern economists concentrate on capital, wages, interest, rent, and other features of peaceful pursuits, largely forgetting war as a phase of all economy, ancient or modern. When the mention the subject of armies and military defense, these are commonly referred to as institutions and actions which interrupt the regular balance of economic life. And the third source of indifference is the effort of pacifists and peace advocates to exclude wars and military affairs from general histories, with the view to uprooting any military or militaristic tendencies from the public mind, on the curious assumption that by ignoring realties the realties themselves will disappear.

This lack of a general fund of widely disseminated military information is perilous to the maintenance of civilian power in government. The civilian mind, presumably concerned with the maintenance of peace and the shaping of policies by the limits of efficient military defense, can derive no instruction from acrimonious disputes between militarists, limitless in their demands, and pacifists, lost in utopian visions. Where the civilians fail to comprehend and guide military policy, the true military men, distinguished from the militarists, are also imperiled. For these the executioners of civilian will, dedicated to the preparation of defense and war with the utmost regard for efficiency, are dependent upon the former.

Again, and again, the military men have seen themselves hurled into war by ambitions, passions, and blunders of civilian governments, almost wholly uninformed as to the limits of their military potentials and almost recklessly indifferent to the military requirements of the wars they let loose. Aware that they may again be thrown by civilians into an unforeseen conflict, perhaps with a foe they have not envisaged, these realistic military men find themselves unable to do anything save demand all the men, guns, and supplies they can possibly wring from the civilians, in the hope that they may be prepared or half prepared for whatever may befall them. In so doing they inevitably find themselves associated with militaristic military men who demand all they can get merely for the sake of having it without reference to ends.

Vagts, Alfred, History of Militarism, rev. 1959, Free Press, NY, pp 33-34
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/05/2012 8:29 Comments || Top||

#5  What #3 crazyfool said.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/05/2012 8:52 Comments || Top||

#6  If I really thought it would help this country and our pork loving congress would do the right thing with it, I would be happy to give it all back. But then, well, a guy can dream...
Posted by: 49 Pan || 11/05/2012 9:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Think you really need to do ALL of the above cuts and a bit more to avoid bankruptcy.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 11/05/2012 9:47 Comments || Top||

#8  ..of course that means responding to events rather than influencing events. It also means ending all those entangling alliances and pulling back to Fortress America cause you don't have the ability to support much beyond it. Could be done by turning the Army into a Swiss home guard reserve system along with downsizing the rest of the Defense establishment. Which of course means your defense starts at your shores rather than on other continents [aka they're in the wire before you act] surrendering the initiative, time and place to your foe.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/05/2012 10:03 Comments || Top||

#9  P2k, I'm afraid its an energy function.
If the walls are pulled in to Fortress America, I think we will see escalated social engagements (gangs/police, kidnappings, home invasion/home defense, drug users/drug providers, etc.) more frequently as the energy cycles within the closer walls(same amount of energy in a smaller space). This will generate more self-defending clusters(citizen patrolled neighborhoods) and eventually the mobile will migrate out of the cities to the 'lesser spaces', mostly bringing their troubles with them.
That's the next generation's problem I think as the institution of centralized government/feed trough decays.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/05/2012 10:32 Comments || Top||

#10  and eventually the mobile will migrate out of the cities to the 'lesser spaces', mostly bringing their troubles with them. Skid

..."troubles", ie, crime, drugs, tribal politics, bad debt, failed lending institutions, foreclosures, poor schools, hate filled pulpits, etc, etc. Welcome to the new neighborhood.

Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 10:44 Comments || Top||

#11  "Welcome to the new neighborhood."

Besoeker ... it's definitely coming. To be honest, I am surprised that US crime rates have stayed as low as they have. I attribute that to spiralling payments in the welfare and food stamp rpograms. At some point those programs will be seriously cut - and when that happens we will see "mean streets" return to America.
Posted by: Raider || 11/05/2012 12:28 Comments || Top||

#12  Jersey City is reportedly on lockdown following last night's break-ins. Nothing on FOX yet, except a fire.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 12:31 Comments || Top||

#13  "Center for American Progress"

Isn't that funded by Soros? Cui bono?
Posted by: Barbara || 11/05/2012 13:41 Comments || Top||

#14  And old story, unfortunately
Posted by: James || 11/05/2012 21:09 Comments || Top||


-Election 2012
Obama Campaign to Supporters: Don’t Panic Over Early Exit Polls
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/05/2012 18:35 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  snicker... snicker...
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/05/2012 18:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "There will be ample time to panic later"
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/05/2012 18:40 Comments || Top||

#3  That's good news, but don't get cocky!

Posted by: Jatch Noodleman7258 || 11/05/2012 19:09 Comments || Top||

#4  there's a purported Tim Tebow Tweet out:

"I'm predicting an early Obama lead....
til the Republicans get off work"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/05/2012 19:13 Comments || Top||

#5  I do have a beef with that. Why can't elections be on a Sunday when people have time to vote?

I don't like pictures of endless voting lines in Florida. This doesn't look good. What kind of organization is that.

It takes me 5 minutes to vote in Germany.

Posted by: European Conservative || 11/05/2012 20:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Agree, EC. Takes me about the same time here in Ozzieland where voting is held on Saturdays.
Posted by: tipper || 11/05/2012 21:41 Comments || Top||

#7  when you show up prepared with your sample ballot filled out, it takes the same 5 minutes here. It's the fools and tools that don't take it seriously and have to actually "read" in the booth
Posted by: Frank G || 11/05/2012 22:01 Comments || Top||

#8  EC, you realize that we just don't vote on candidates. Most locales have just as many 'initiatives' and new/renewal tax levies to vote on as people running for office. Many of those initiatives haven't been aired or distributed to the public prior to arriving at the booths. Often their titles are misleading requiring a voter to take time to read literally a paragraph for each issue to discern what the intent of the proposed action is.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 11/05/2012 23:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Procopius, we have that too in regional elections. Still I have never seen a line. The reason? We have a lot more polling stations, the polling stations have more voting booths, and people don't need to figure out machines or the like.

Of course if you start reading the initiatives when in the voting booth only you deserve to be shot.

And really voting should be on weekends.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/05/2012 23:44 Comments || Top||

#10  Unfortunately I believe that we won't know who has won tomorrow. I see endless litigation coming up because results are likely to be close.
Posted by: European Conservative || 11/05/2012 23:46 Comments || Top||


The Anti-American Cdr-in-Chief Tasks His Military Brass - Adina Kutnicki blog
This article and site was burried in the comments of the '500 American Warriors' posting of this morning. An interesting perspective from Israel.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 08:54 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  [buried duhhhh]
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 10:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Not new thinking, but current.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/05/2012 11:01 Comments || Top||

#3  The Clintons also had a disdain for the military. Seems to be a lefty thing.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/05/2012 13:15 Comments || Top||


500 American Warriors to Run Full-Page Ad Endorsing Mitt Romney for President
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks Men.
Posted by: newc || 11/05/2012 0:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Lipstick on a pig
Posted by: tipper || 11/05/2012 2:37 Comments || Top||

#3  I find lipstick on a pig far more preferable than the bomber jacket on the fraud president. One is acceptable, the other not.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/05/2012 8:29 Comments || Top||

#4  I don't think this will have any impact this late. It is a nice symbolic gesture.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 11/05/2012 10:33 Comments || Top||

#5  @YS - If it pushes just a couple of wavering minds in the right direction, it makes me happy. And Tipper and JQC, I love your "dolled up" girl, O not so much. In fact, not at all. And newc, I'm with you - thanks to all our guys and gals for their service as well as for this ad. And looking towards tomorrow - Go Romney Ryan !!!
Posted by: warthogswife || 11/05/2012 17:00 Comments || Top||


NAACP Takes Over Houston Polling Station, Advocates for President Obama
[Townhall]
Posted by: Fred || 11/05/2012 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The New Blank Panther's were not stopped in 2008 amd these people were not stopped. If no one gets a handle on this, our process is surely doomed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/05/2012 2:46 Comments || Top||

#2  As designed Besoeker. As designed.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/05/2012 7:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Surprisingly, the Houston Chronicle endorsed Romney!
Posted by: Kojo Wholuse5660 || 11/05/2012 12:51 Comments || Top||

#4  People who engage in vote fraud--no matter what kind, should never be allowed to vote again, hold a public job or office, or be allowed near a polling site. They should be on a list like a pedophile list or a no fly list. It should be a criminal offense with sentences and penalties enforced. If that doesn't work impalement in public as a fall back position.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/05/2012 13:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Just wait, they're eating lunch I'm sure:p

You're right. We were. Thank you for ruining it.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division || 11/05/2012 14:17 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
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Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2012-11-05
  Grenade attack on Kenya church kills 1, wounds 14
Sun 2012-11-04
  Two Suicide Bombers Attack Restaurant in Somali Capital
Sat 2012-11-03
  30 people shot dead in Nigeria, rights group says
Fri 2012-11-02
  US withdraws its support for Syrian National Council
Thu 2012-11-01
  Armed Islamists on Tunis streets after clashes
Wed 2012-10-31
  18 militants killed in Khyber, Orakzai
Tue 2012-10-30
  Israel Hit by 18 Rockets as Hamas Seeks Revenge
Mon 2012-10-29
  52 Dead in Syria Clashes, Air Raids after Eid Truce Collapses
Sun 2012-10-28
  Almost 150 Killed on First Day of Syria Truce
Sat 2012-10-27
  Indonesia foils plot to attack US missions
Fri 2012-10-26
  Afghanistan mosque suicide bomb attack kills at least 41
Thu 2012-10-25
  Israel says 79 rockets fired at it from Gaza
Wed 2012-10-24
  Libya fighters seize Bani Walid
Tue 2012-10-23
  Foreign jihadists pour into northern Mali
Mon 2012-10-22
  Men 'planned mass suicide attack'


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