After the Big Bang

Supposedly this represents the remains of a fireball from 13.7 billion years ago.

But don't forget: "Experts" and self-appointed climatologists tell us we've got only a few years left to save the planet. Click the image to enlarge and go to the link for another view.

This is the oldest light in the Universe.

This incredible image shows the remains of the fireball out of which our Universe sprang into existence 13.7 billion years ago.

It provides scientists with new insight into the way stars and galaxies form but also tells us how the Universe itself came to life after the Big Bang.

It was produced by a European space telescope called Planck and is the mission's first 'all-sky' image which took six months to create.

While the Milky Way shows us what the local Universe looks like now, the microwaves in the background of this image show us what the Universe probably looked like close to its time of creation, before there were stars or galaxies.

'This is the moment that Planck was conceived for,' says ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood.

'We’re not giving the answer. We are opening the door to an Eldorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper understanding of how our Universe came to be and how it works now.

'The image itself and its remarkable quality is a tribute to the engineers who built and have operated Planck. Now the scientific harvest must begin.'

From the closest portions of the Milky Way to the furthest reaches of space and time, the new all-sky Planck image is an extraordinary treasure chest of new data for astronomers.

The main disc of our Galaxy runs across the centre of the image. Immediately striking are the streamers of cold dust reaching above and below the Milky Way.

This galactic web is where new stars are being formed, and Planck has found many locations where individual stars are edging toward birth or just beginning their cycle of development.

Stunner: East German Communists 'Funded' British Miner Strike

I'm astonished to discover communists have been working hand in hand with leftist union leaders. Next thing you know we'll find out the unions in this country are helping run the Democratic Party

East German communists helped fund the British miners' strike in the 1980s, historians claim.

Newly discovered documents showed substantial sums of money in hard currency were secretly transferred to the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) during the major industrial action.

They also stated that the former German Democratic Republic offered free holidays to the country for striking miners and their families in 1984 and 1985.

Food parcels and clothing were also shipped to those taking part in the strike, which ended in a historic defeat for the miners.

Professor Stefan Berger, from the University of Manchester, and Dr Norman LaPorte, from the University of Glamorgan, detail the documents in their new book, Friendly Enemies: Britain And The GDR 1949 to 1990.

Prof Berger, who is based at Manchester's School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, said: ''My research finds that the NUM and the East European communists wanted to keep the affair secret and had some consequential problems getting the money to the NUM.

''The documents talk about the possibility of using a 'go-between' from the French communist union CGT who would deliver the money straight from Eastern Europe to representatives of the NUM.

''They also allege that the East German FDGB union (Free German Trade Union Federation) helped the miners by providing free holidays for the families and children of British miners in the German Democratic Republic.

''The FDGB, the documents say, also co-ordinated the shipping of food parcels, clothing and so on to British miners.''

He added: ''The communists perceived the NUM as an ally in the international class struggle against capitalism - hence the close interest in the strike.

The Return of Horse Boy

Looks like the mysterious Horse Boy has found himself a filly.

The original Horse Boy, a man in a purple jumper and a rubber horse's head mask, was spotted on Google Street View on Hardgate in Aberdeen. He has appeared separately, now in a green jumper and with a human-headed schoolgirl companion, on Hazlemere Road in the same city.

The first, purple-jumpered image was taken down by Google for a while, but has now been restored. No explanation was given either for the disappearance or subsequent restoration.

While no-one knows who Horse Boy is or what the point of him is, there are theories. Some bloggers think he will turn out to have been part of a corporate publicity stunt. Others point out that buying a plastic horse mask is not beyond the wit of man. A commenter on the BBC website said: "Horse boy isn't a person, it's a cheap mask - for example I saw at least three people wearing similar heads at this year's Download Festival in Donington."

Nonetheless he has become an international phenomenon. Stefan Kleen from Germany said he met horse-boy at a festival: "He only spoke English so we didn't really talk a lot to him." He has also apparently been spotted in Norwich and Cardiff.

Good News: Justice Kennedy Has No Current Plans to Retire

Of course this is portrayed by the NY Daily News as bad news for Obama because it's all about The O. Poor guy likely won't get another chance during this term to appoint anther unqualified rubber-stamp clone of himself to the Supreme Court.

President Obama may get liberal Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, but conservative swing-voter Anthony Kennedy says he's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Justice Kennedy, who turns 74 this month, has told relatives and friends he plans to stay on the high court for at least three more years - through the end of Obama's first term, sources said.

That means Kennedy will be around to provide a fifth vote for the court's conservative bloc through the 2012 presidential election. If Obama loses, Kennedy could retire and expect a Republican President to choose a conservative justice.

Kennedy, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, has been on the court 22 years. He has become a bit of a political nemesis at the White House for his increasing tendency to side with the court's four rock-ribbed conservative justices.

Without naming Kennedy, Obama was unusually critical of his majority opinion in the Citizens United case, handed down last January. That 5-4 decision struck down limits on contributions to political campaigns as an abridgement of free speech.

Obama called the ruling "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power ... in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

He was so angry that he took the unusual step of blasting the decision in his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, with Kennedy and five other justices looking on.

Naturally if Kennedy were to side with the four leftists on the court he'd be hailed as a man of principle and honor.

It's Official: Janeane Garofalo Completely Loses Her Mind

The disheveled moonbat has long been a crank, but she really needs to put the bong down. The pseudo-intellectual dimwit evens introduces a new word to the language: Debilitorizing.

Little known fact from the fever swamps of her mind: Conservatives own the media!

Via Breitbart.

Libya Looking to Bail Out BP?

Looks like we were on to something when we noted the connections between Libya and BP. Seems to Libyans are looking to invest heavily in the trouble British oil giant.

Share in BP rose 3.5pc to 333.3p in London, following weekend speculation that the company had been in contact with sovereign wealth funds about them buying stakes.

Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation, told a newswire that: "BP is interesting now with the price lower by half and I still have trust in BP. I will recommend it to the Libyan Investment Authority."

He later added: "I think that BP shares are good value for bargain hunters,"

BP denied that it was planning to issue any new equity, but a weighty shareholder buying up stock on the open market could still help provide a floor on the company's plummeting share price. It declined to comment on any talks with sovereign wealth funds.

The oil giant has lost half of its market value since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank on April 20, triggering a catastrophic leak. Qatar, Abu Dhabi and the Kuwait Investment Authority, which already holds 1.8pc of BP, have also been linked to the company as possible investors.

One City analyst with a buy rating on BP said any formal deal with Libya would "most likely alienate the US even further" and potentially annoy big shareholders if the deal was done as a placing that dilutes the stock.

The US lifted trade sanctions against Libya in 2004, but still has a fractious attitude over the country's links to the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people on a US Pan Am jet.

It would come at a time when BP is trying to rebuild its relationship with Capitol Hill, since the oil spill eroded trust in the company's safety record.

More here.

AP Authors Love Note to St. Charlie

It's not possible you could have a more sympathetic portrayal of a greedy political hack if Charlie Rangel's office wrote this themselves.

A 43-paragraph hagiography ending with this gem.

"When the venom is out of the air, Charlie will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary political leaders in the history of this country."

Good luck with that.

American Flag 'Graffiti' Reappears in Bay Area

American patriots mark Independence Day by undoing a monumental case of the stupids.

The flag is still there. Or, rather, it's back.

After an absence of a few days, a mural of an American flag has returned to a hillside above Interstate 680 in Sunol — just in time for the Fourth of July.

Caltrans had obliterated the previous mural, but thanks to two patriots, the colors of Old Glory are once again visible.

On Saturday, the two men climbed the steep hill above the highway near the Sunol Grade and painted a bold new red, white and blue flag to replace the mural that a Caltrans crew painted over earlier in the week, news reports said.

"I thought it was kind of rude for them to cover it a couple days before Fourth of July," Steve Giordano told a CBS 5 reporter.

Giordano and another man, Jim Gallagher, decided to restore the flag mural Caltrans painted over, proving that good, old-fashioned American ingenuity and the can-do spirit are not dead.

News of Caltrans' action touched off a furor nationwide and prompted an apology Friday from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

East Bay residents R.J. Waldron, Eric Noda and Thomas Hanley painted the 35-foot mural on Sept. 24, 2001, to honor those who died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The giant flag, which covered a giant concrete siding, was on state property.

Caltrans spokesman Allyn Amsk told Bay Area News Group Wednesday that it had recently come to his department's attention that the flag was on state land without permission.

"We don't allow graffiti on state property," Amsk said. "No matter what kind of graffiti it is, we don't show favoritism."

Motorists along 680 weren't as offended as Amsk.

Regular 680 commuters said they were upset.

"I don't know why they would consider it graffiti. We live in America. It should be a patriotic symbol that everybody should enjoy," said Joseph Gross of Tri-Valley Towing.

Sandy Kraft said, "I drive this every day and to not see it up there waving at me, even though it doesn't wave, it's still waving at you."

H/T Jedi.

'Death Is Very Hard For Me To Take'

How very touching yet sad.

The 91-year-old widow lived by herself in a tumbledown house on a desolate country road. But she wasn't alone, not really, not as long as she could visit her husband and twin sister.

No matter they were already dead. Jean Stevens simply had their embalmed corpses dug up and stored them at her house — in the case of her late husband, for more than a decade — tending to the remains as best she could until police were finally tipped off last month.

Much to her dismay.

"Death is very hard for me to take," Stevens told an interviewer.

As state police finish their investigation into a singularly macabre case — no charges have been filed — Stevens wishes she could be reunited with James Stevens, her husband of nearly 60 years who died in 1999, and June Stevens, the twin who died last October. But their bodies are with the Bradford County coroner now, off-limits to the woman who loved them best.

From time to time, stories of exhumed bodies are reported, but rarely do those involved offer an explanation. Jean Stevens, seeming more grandmother than ghoul, holds little back as she describes what happened outside this small town in northern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains.

She knows what people must think of her. But she had her reasons, and they are complicated, a bit sad, and in their own peculiar way, sweet.

Dressed smartly in a light blue shirt and khaki skirt, silver hoops in her ears, her white hair swept back and her brown eyes clear and sharp, she offers a visitor a slice of pie, then casts a knowing look when it's declined. "You're afraid I'll poison you," she says.

On a highboy in the corner of the dining room rests a handsome, black-and-white portrait of Jean, then a stunner in her early 20s, and James, clad in his Army uniform. It was taken after their 1942 marriage but before his service in World War II, in which he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, James worked at a General Electric Corp. plant in Liverpool, N.Y., then as an auto mechanic. He succumbed to Parkinson's disease on May 21, 1999.

Next to that photo there is a smaller color snapshot of Jean and June, taken when they were in their late 80s.

In many ways, Jean shared a closer bond with her twin than her husband.

Though June lived more than 200 miles away in West Hartford, Conn., they talked by phone several times a week, and June wrote often. The twins — who, as it happened, married brothers — were honored guests at the 70th reunion of the Camptown High School Class of 1937.

Then, last year, June was diagnosed with cancer. She was in a lot of pain when Jean came to visit. The sisters shared a bed, and Jean rubbed her back. "I'm real glad you're here," June said.

On Oct. 3, June died. She was buried in her sister's backyard — but not for long.

"I think when you put them in the (ground), that's goodbye, goodbye," Stevens said. "In this way I could touch her and look at her and talk to her."

She kept her sister, who was dressed in her "best housecoat," on an old couch in a spare room off the bedroom. Jean sprayed her with expensive perfume that was June's favorite.

"I'd go in, and I'd talk, and I'd forget," Stevens said. "I put glasses on her. When I put the glasses on, it made all the difference in the world. I would fix her up. I'd fix her face up all the time."

She offered a similar rationale for keeping her husband on a couch in the detached garage. James, who had been laid to rest in a nearby cemetery, wore a dark suit, white shirt and blue knitted tie.

"I could see him, I could look at him, I could touch him. Now, some people have a terrible feeling, they say, 'Why do you want to look at a dead person? Oh my gracious,'" she said.

"Well, I felt differently about death."

Dutch Agency: Our Climate Report is Riddled With Errors, But Global Warming Exists Anyway

If these clowns worked in the private sector they'd be laughed out of business. But since they're living off the government dime they still get to promote this hoax even though their work has been thoroughly discredited since they're aided and abetted by an uncritical media.

A leading Dutch environment agency reported Monday that the seminal 2007 U.N. scientific report on climate change is too generalized and has even more errors than discovered so far — including one contributed by the agency itself.

But the review by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency claimed the errors had no effect on the fundamental conclusion by U.N. panel of scientists: that global warming caused by humans already is happening.

Glaring mistakes discovered in the 3,000-page report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year fed into an atmosphere of skepticism over the reliability of climate scientists who have been warning for many years that human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases could have catastrophic consequences, including rising sea levels, drought and the extinction of nearly one-third of the Earth's species.

The errors put scientists on the defensive just as a major conference on climate change in Copenhagen, attended by some 120 world leaders, met with limited success to agree on how to limit carbon emissions and contain the worst effects of global warming.

The Dutch agency acknowledged responsibility for one mistake by the IPCC when it reported in 2005 that 55 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level, when only 26 percent is. The report should have said 55 percent is prone to flooding, including river flooding.

"The incorrect wording in the IPCC report does not affect the message of the conclusion," that the Netherlands is highly susceptible to sea level rise, it said. "The lesson to be learned for an assessment agency such as ours is that quality control is needed at the primary level."

The second previously reported error claimed the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, which the Dutch agency partly traced to a report on the likely shrinking of glaciers by the year 2350.

The review, which lasted six months, also found several other errors in the IPCC report on regional impacts of climate change — one of four separate IPCC reports in 2007 — although it said they were inconsequential.

The original report said global warming will put 75 million to 250 million Africans at risk of severe water shortages in the next 10 years, but a recalculation showed that range should be 90 million to 220 million, the agency said.

Another error it found involved the effect of wind turbulence on anchovy fisheries on Africa's west coast.

The Dutch agency said it examined 32 conclusions in the summary that the IPCC produced as a guideline for policy makers on the impact of climate change in eight regions.

Some conclusions were based on "insufficiently founded generalizations," and it found instances where the scientific references were unclear.

Iranians Give Blessing to Approved Islamic Haircuts

We figure the punishment for an improper haircut likely is the complete loss of your head.

IRAN'S culture ministry has given its blessing to a number of "Islamic" haircuts for men, with ponytails failing to make the list.

Iran's ILNA news agency and other agencies carried pictures of mostly clean-shaven male models sporting short hair, some styled with gel, in a "journal of Iranian hairstyles approved by the ministry of [culture and Islamic] guidance."

"The proposed styles are inspired by Iranians' complexion, culture and religion and Islamic law," said Jaleh Khodayar, who is in charge of a "Modesty and Veil Festival" later this month where they are to be promoted.

"We are happy that the Islamic republic of Iran's government has backed us in designing these hairstyles," she said.

Iranian police carry out regular morality crackdowns, arresting and warning women in figure-hugging short coats and flimsy headscarves as well as men sporting spiky hair and tight, low-slung jeans.

The Islamic veil is mandatory in Iran, which sought to keep defiant urban youths properly covered since the establishment of the Islamic republic over 30 years ago.

Several barber shops were reportedly shut down and penalized in recent years for offering "decadent Western cuts."

Terrorist Given Three Months to Live Now Will Probably Last Ten Years

Seems everyone knew the gig was up after those first three months came and went about eight months ago. Now it appears this creature will never die.

The doctor who predicted the Lockerbie bomber would die within three months of his release from prison faced calls to apologise to victims' families last night.

There was outrage after it emerged Professor Karol Sikora had admitted Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi could live for another ten years or more despite diagnosing him with terminal cancer.

Campaigners reacted with fury to his comments which they said raised new questions about the decision to send him back to Libya.

Tory MP Ben Wallace, a former member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, said: 'The doctor that carried out this diagnosis owes his regret to the families of the victims.

'He should apologise to the victims for contributing to the release of a mass murderer, who is clearly alive and well in Libya.

'Throughout this whole sorry affair the victim has been put last behind trade deals, Scotish Nationalist posturing and dubious medical diagnosis.'

Megrahi's release from his Scottish prison cell last August - on the orders of Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill - was mired in controversy.

Some relatives of victims of the 1988 bombing claimed Megrahi was never as sick as he claimed to be, and criticised the release on so-called 'compassionate grounds' as an unforgiveable mistake.

The Scottish Government claimed there was a 'firm consensus' among medical experts that he would die within twelve weeks.

But there was widespread speculation the move was in fact part of an Anglo-Libyan trade deal - and unrelated to his terminal prostate cancer - after it emerged UK government ministers had pushed for his release.

I guess this might not be a good time to remind folks of this, is it?

Tony Blair has been accused of agreeing a 'blood money' deal involving the Lockerbie bomber with Colonel Gaddafi just hours before BP unveiled a £500million oil contract.

The then Prime Minister laid the foundations for the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi during a meeting with the Libyan leader in a desert tent two years ago.

The pair thrashed out a controversial prisoner transfer deal just before BP chairman Peter Sutherland announced the firm was investing $900million - about £545million - to search for oil in Libya. If the firm strikes rich, it could be worth £13billion.

The Scottish Government confirmed that its justice secretary Kenny MacAskill would announce Megrahi's fate at 1pm today.

It is widely expected that the terminally-ill 57-year-old, the only person convicted of the December 1988 bombing, will be freed on compassionate grounds.

Let's hope BP struck it rich there. They'll need the money.

Heartbreak: America's Newest Sweetheart Fears Deportation

In the spirit of openness and forgiveness, I'll volunteer to host our guest if it's decided she's allowed to stay here in America. I promise to keep an eye on her at all times.

The Russian diplomat's daughter accused of being a spy is "embarrassed" by photos of her that have turned up in media reports and fears she will be deported, her lawyer said.

Attorney Robert Baum told The Associated Press that he showed Anna Chapman, 28, some of the tabloid newspaper stories that have branded the redhead as a femme fatale and feature photographs from her Facebook page, showing the smiling Russian enjoying Manhattan's nightlife scene, posing in front of the Statue of Liberty and mixing with businessmen at a conference.

"She was embarrassed by some of the photos that were obviously taken from her Facebook pages," the lawyer said. "The truth is she probably no different than your typical single 28-year-old woman in New York City. She runs a successful business, goes out at night. She dates men, enjoys a social life."

Chapman is charged with conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, which carries a potential penalty of five years in prison. She was the first of 10 spy suspects arrested over the weekend in the United States to be denied bail.

Baum said Chapman's father told her to go to police with a fake passport an undercover FBI agent had given to her, leading to her arrest and solitary confinement. He said he may use that information to appeal the bail decision.

At a bail hearing Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Farbiarz said only that investigators on June 27 intercepted phone calls in which Chapman was "talking to a man who is advising her, who is telling her essentially ... to make up a story, to say that she's being intimidated, that this might be some other criminal activity, and who advises her to get out of the country and to go to the police."

Baum said he believed the phone calls cited by prosecutors were conversations between Chapman and her father, whom Baum described as a low-level embassy employee whose family was middle class.

Baum said Chapman told him she reached out to her father, Vasily Kushchenko, a day after an FBI agent posing as a Russian consulate employee asked her to deliver a fraudulent passport to another woman working as a spy.

"She spoke to her father, and her father said, 'Go turn the passport in,'" Baum said. "Her father said, 'You've got this passport. It's forged. Go turn it into the police,' and that's exactly what she did."

Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors in Manhattan, declined to comment on Baum's comments.

Baum discounted published reports Friday quoting Chapman's ex-husband as saying her father is a spy.

"I won't go into the circumstances of divorce, but he may be somewhat bitter about it," Baum said.

Baum said he has spent several hours with his client over two nights this week, finding her "very frightened."

He said she was kept isolated in a cell in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He said she is allowed one hour a day of exercise, the only time she is allowed to be with another inmate.

Otherwise, she is given no access to phones, television or newspapers, Baum said.

"I can't tell you why, whether it's because of the nature of the charges or whether she's in some type of protective custody," he said. "In some respects, it's a good thing that she's alone because she's frightened about being with other inmates."

Meanwhile, more enticing details about the femme fatale emerge.

"I found her Russian accent such a turn-on," News of the World quoted Alex as saying.

"The sex was great and she had this incredible body. It was more about lust at first. I hadn't met anybody like her before," he added.

The 30-year-old also revealed that the raunchy Russian liked posing for pictures and loved trying out sex toys.

"I took one of her topless first thing in the morning," he said.

"I said to Anna 'go on get them out!' and I took the picture of her with only a bit of the duvet over her. She laughed about it.

"We were having so much fun. We also experimented with sex toys.

"It was great fun although Anna was covering her face with a hat when I took the pictures," he added.

Alex also said that Anna was never apprehensive about experimenting different places.

"When we were on the plane we came up with a plan to join the mile high club. I went to the toilet first and told her to follow later and knock," he said.

"Anna was wearing a denim dress so I hitched it up and we just went for it. It was fantastic because of the thrill of doing it on a plane. We were in the toilet for about 15 minutes and then one of the cabin crew knocked on the door. I said Anna had been sick and I was helping her," he added.

Looks like she also fixed her gaze upon the royals in Britain.

MI5 chiefs are probing an extraordinary link between glamorous Russian spy Anna Chapman and the royals.

Beautiful redhead Anna was fixated with Princes William and Harry and schemed her way into their social circle, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.

She frequented Boujis, the nightclub haunt of the two young princes - where repeated concerns have been raised about their safety - with the explicit intention of meeting them.

Now officials at MI5 are urgently investigating whether a security risk was posed by Anna, 28, one of 10 alleged Kremlin spies arrested in the US. The Russian diplomat's daughter was one of a crowd of designer-clothes wearing women who went to the exclusive West London nightclub to try to meet the princes, a close friend of hers told us.

And amid the club's hedonistic "break every rule" parties, it will be virtually impossible for MI5 to rule out Chapman having met one or both of them, however fleetingly. "Any possibility that a Russian spy may have been in the company of princes Harry and William is extremely worrying," said a security source.

"Keeping the princes fully protected in that kind of alcohol-fuelled, closed-in environment has always been a major headache."

So with all this, are we taking the whole spy thing too lightly? Some think so.

Aside from the general shock that alleged Russian covert agents were lurking in American suburbs, one of the more notable aspects of the case is the reaction it generated in circles high and low.

Pundits quoted cartoon characters Boris and Natasha. Bloggers suggested the spies get their own reality show. Redheaded Anna Chapman — a Manhattan socialite charged as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was glorified in the tabloids, and almost no coverage escaped without at least one reference to a movie, book or Mad magazine.

Never it seems has the spy business been taken so lightly. It is a situation experts say is understandable, given that the suspects seemed to pose little threat to national security, at least based on the evidence prosecutors have released so far.

Fourth of July 2010

Click to enlarge

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:


For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Beginning with John Hancock, President of Congress, fifty-six patriots signed the document, sending America on its path to become the boldest, most successful experiment in self-governance ever devised.

Happy Birthday America!

Like a Rainbow

Must be an Obama voter looking for unicorns.

Via Tim Blair, by way of Jimmy Kimmel.

Confirmed: Quarter of the Population Really Stupid

Believe it or not there are people this weekend who may be celebrating our independence from China.

As grills across America fire up this weekend some Americans may want to crack open a history book instead of a cold beer.

A Marist poll finds that 26 percent of Americans don’t know whom the United States declared its independence from.

The 26 percent includes 6 percent that are unsure that the United States fought any war of independence at all. Other respondents gave a range of countries that included France, China, Mexico, Spain and Japan, according to the pollsters at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

For the record, it was Great Britain we broke away from.

Media Suddenly Embracing Nixon

For nearly four decades Richard Nixon has been portrayed by the media as evil incarnate, the most despicable man to every occupy the White House. Well, until George W. Bush came along.

Now all of a sudden Nixon has suddenly being embraced by the fourth estate since it appears his administration had latched on to one of their pet causes way back when.

Documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show members of President Richard Nixon's inner circle discussing the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago.

Adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the administration, urged the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the public's attention.

There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo.

"This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit," he wrote. "This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter."

Moynihan was Nixon's counselor for urban affairs from January 1969 — when Nixon began his presidency — to December 1970. He later served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations before New York voters elected him to the Senate.

Moynihan received a response in a January 26, 1970 memo from Hubert Heffner, deputy director of the administration's Office of Science and Technology. Heffner acknowledged that atmospheric temperature rise was an issue that should be looked at.

"The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between," he wrote. "One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise."

Heffner wrote that he would ask the Environmental Science Services Administration to look further into the issue.

Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and had an interest in the environment. In one memo, Moynihan noted his approval of the first Earth Day, to be held April 22, 1970.

"Clearly this is an opportunity to get the President usefully and positively involved with a large student movement," he wrote to John Ehrlichman, Nixon's adviser on domestic affairs.

A lot of good all that pandering did him.

Famed Idiot Arrested at World Cup

I figure she was there banging the Brazilian team.

Paris Hilton has been arrested for allegedly possessing cannabis after watching a World Cup game in South Africa.

The socialite was in the VIP suite at the Nelson Mandela Stadium.

According to reports she was arrested leaving the Brazil v Netherlands match in Port Elizabeth.

Officers allegedly found a substance in her handbag.

She had flown in to the country in a private jet to watch the quarter final.

"Had so much fun at the game today. What a match! I love South Africa," she said on her Twitter page.

Update: Our short national nightmare is over.

Things You Learn Reading Business Week

Bet you didn't kinow there was a black market for Handy Humpers, huh?

Interactive Life Forms LLC, the maker of devices such as Fleshlight and Sex-in-a-Can, filed patent-infringement complaints against 25 companies to stop sales of knockoff sex toys in the U.S. that use its technology.

Imports of the Handy Humper and Travel Honeypot brands should be banned because they are among products that violate two Interactive Life patents, the company said in a complaint yesterday with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington. Closely held Interactive Life also filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Austin, Texas, where it’s based.

The patents were issued in 1998 on a device shaped as a flashlight or thermos with elastomeric gel inside.

The complaint names seven manufacturers, 11 distributors and seven retailers that Interactive Life claims are selling the knockoffs, including California Exotic Novelties Inc. in Chino, California, and Nanma Manufacturing Co. in Hong Kong.

The companies aren’t licensed to use the elastomeric gel invention and aren’t paying royalties, according to the complaint.

Sex in a can? I don't want to know.

'She Knows Positions I Had Never Imagined'

She gave it all for Mother Russia.

A GEEKY-looking student bedded by the flame-haired babe held as a Russian spy told last night how she wore no knickers - and said: "She was red hot."

Shocked Charlie Hutchinson, 31, said after seeing Anna Chapman's picture in The Sun: "While we had sex she was talking and moaning in Russian.

"It lasted for 2½ hours and was so sexy. She was incredible."

The bespectacled law student told how the temptress - arrested by the FBI - was on a night out in Southampton when she jumped into his cab as he headed back to the university's halls of residence.

He had earlier got talking to her as he boozed with chums at a student pub - called the White House.

Charlie, who is still studying in Southampton three years on, said: "Both of us were drunk. When we got into my room she began doing a striptease while I sat on the bed.

"She has a stunning figure - and had no underwear on. She really knew what she was doing."

A week later they met up again for a romantic meal at an Italian restaurant - followed by more romps. He said: "She was wild in bed - a 14 out of ten. She knows positions I had never imagined."

Charlie was smitten - but she then dumped him by repeatedly hanging up when he phoned, then changing her number. He said: "When I saw her picture in The Sun I could not believe my eyes. Who would ever think they would bed a Russian spy?" He had no idea the Russian diplomat's daughter - real name Anna Kuschenko - was leading a double life.

What's In a Name?

Well, I don't feel so bad for having an odd moniker now.

Potty parents nationwide must have either been bonkers or just plain cruel according to his findings.

His new book lists 3,000 of the most unfortunate titles including Ben Dover, Anna Sassin, Pete Sake, Rusty Pipes, Rhoda Broom, Joy Rider, Justin Case, John Thomas Willy and Sandy Beach.

Pat Fenis is a just a spoonerism away from vulgarity and Eva Faithful is included as is Bonk Register, Booby Ogle and Wiggy Piggy and one Lancashire-born baby named Wooloomooloo Roscoe.

There is a Zaiboom McDoom, Elle Fant, Don Key, Eileen Dover, Ura Buffalo, Wanton Coward, Smallpox Tommy and a boy called Tom Tom who probably never got lost!

Others include Placenta Hightshoe, Plegm Click, Hysteria Johnson and Lallu Lala Lad, along with Love Reading, Lovely Day, Lucious Bacon, Tiny Man and Young Love.

The pages also list Wee Girlie Potter, Womble Scoggins, Jangle Bowles, Gush Treacle, Grunt Little, Dong Dong, Ping Pong, Rip Van Wonkis, Fizzy Allgood and spare a thought for Pedor File.

Ophelia Balls was likely to have been ribbed at school and Pearl E Gates and Olive Branch might be unfortunate but Mary Zarse, Ed Banger, Isaac Balls and Etta Lott all raise a smile.

The book, "Frou-Frou, Frisby and Brick", is a fifth former's treasure trove of innuendo and lavatorial humour.

In the book Juan King rubs shoulders with Dick Bellend, while Eric Schon and Randy Bumgardner cause titters.

There is also a chapter of those who have deliberately changed their names which include Daniel Westfallen who is now called Happy Adjustable Spanners.

George Garratt is now known as Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined.

Gary Brett changed his name to Hong Kong Phooey and Steven Lane is now Jellyfish McSavaloy.

Martin Smith wasn't satisfied with his name and is now Martin Felix Oddsocks McWeirdo El-Tooty Fruity Farto Hello Hippopotamus Bum.

'It’s Just Totally Weird to Think That My Ex-wife Could Be Involved in Something Like This'

Actually, it's not that crazy when you consider her daddy is a high-ranking KGB honcho.

MI5 is investigating whether a former KGB agent recruited his daughter, Anna Chapman, to work for the country’s secret services while living in London.

Mrs Chapman told her British ex-husband that her father, Vasily Kushchenko, was a “high ranking” officer in the Russian security forces, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

On Wednesday an MI5 officer interviewed Alex Chapman at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, as part of the Security Service’s investigation into the background of Mrs Chapman, 28, who has been accused of spying in the US.

MI5 is trying to discover whether Mrs Chapman, who has British citizenship and a British passport, could have spied on Britain or was recruited here.

Alex Chapman, a 30-year-old trainee psychologist, married the then Anna Kushchenko in Moscow in 2002, five months after they met in a London nightclub. They divorced in 2006 but have remained in touch ever since.

Mr Chapman told The Daily Telegraph: “Anna told me her father had been high up in the ranks of the KGB. She said he had been an agent in 'old Russia’.

“Her father controlled everything in her life, and I felt she would have done anything for her dad.

“When I saw that she had been arrested on suspicion of spying it didn’t come as much of a surprise to be honest.

“Towards the end of our marriage she became very secretive, going for meetings on her own with 'Russian friends’, and I guess it might have been because she was in contact with the Russian government.”

Public school-educated Mr Chapman said he received a visit from MI5 on Wednesday morning, following the arrest last weekend of his ex-wife in the US together with nine others suspected of being part of a spy ring tasked with infiltrating political circles.

“The officer told me she would need everything and I told her what I knew,” he said. “It’s just totally weird to think that my ex-wife could be involved in something like this.”

Mrs Chapman, who has kept her married name despite being divorced, introduced her new husband to her father during their honeymoon in 2002 in Zimbabwe, where Vasily Kushchenko was serving as a diplomat.

“I asked her what her father’s job was and Anna just said he was there to represent the Russian government in certain areas of government,” said Mr Chapman.

“He didn’t trust anyone. He asked me why I had chosen a Russian bride and asked what business I had in Russia, and I said none.

“He was scary. He would never introduce me to other Russian people who came to the house and he always seemed to have a lot more security than the other diplomats. He had a Land Rover with blacked out windows and there was always one car in front of it and one car behind.”

More developments here.

'I Didn't Stay But the Party Went On All Night'

Does Silvio Berlusconi know how to roll or what? This dude could teach Al Gore a lesson on how to release the chakras.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was treated to a 12-minute lap dance in his hotel room during a visit to Brazil this week, it was claimed today.

The 73-year-old, who has been involved in a series of sleazy scandals, was said to have watched the private exhibition of lap and pole dancing while on an official trip to South America.

However Mr Berlusconi's aides today dismissed reports of an exotic dance show as 'wide of the mark' and instead described the event as a 'brief display of traditional local dancing'.

Officials in Rome released a statement after a Brazilian news website published an account of the evening given to them by one of the dancers, named as Alexandra Valenca, 28, who said she was paid £900 for the show.

Ms Valenca said: 'We were hired and told that it was a proposal to make a TV show for Italy. We were told that that he wanted to see some dancing.'

The event is said to have taken place on Monday at the Hotel Tivoli in San Paolo after a 'packed day of meetings' between Mr Berlusconi and Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

Ms Valenca, whose website was today unavailable, added: 'We were told that they were looking for Brazilian dancers for a show in Italy that would be broadcast in two weeks' time.

'Berlusconi was very charming. He said that he wanted to take Brazilian dancers to Italy.

'We did a 12-minute lap and pole dancing show. I didn't stay but the party went on all night.'

But Mr Berlusconi's office said: 'On the evening in question the Prime Minister, his entourage and several security staff attended an event given by a local businessman.

'It was one of many events that Mr Berlusconi attended during his visit and involved a brief display of traditional local dancing. He did not stay for the dinner and after politely remaining for several minutes he left.'

During his two-day visit to Brazi the billionaire media tycoon-turned-politician told a news conference that he had a 'strong of young women after him'.

I've really got to party with this guy.

'Everyone Understands the Problem Except the President of the United States'

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer takes Barack Obama to the woodshed. We've got a cartoonish community organizer in the White House and it's painfully obvious to the folks in Arizona.

Fall Out From The World Cup Begins

While America continues to ignore the World Cup, other countries are taking their teams performance very seriously. After getting bounced in the first round Nigeria's president has decided to ban the national team from international competition for two years, supposedly so they can get their collective act together.

Niboro said: "President Goodluck Jonathan has directed that Nigeria withdraws from international competition for two years to enable the country to put its house in order.

"This directive became necessary following Nigeria's poor performance in the ongoing World Cup."

The president also plans an audit of the country's World Cup organising committee.

I wonder what he would do to the American team. I know Landon Donovan is getting a lot of attention for his goal that allowed the Americans to advance to round two only to get manhandled by Ghana.

Being a big soccer fan, and someone who played the game from the time I was a teenager until I was forty something and the body just couldn't handle it anymore I get to be a armchair midfielder and offer my 2¢ on the US men's team performance. In a word: pathetic.

The only time they played worth a damn was when they were behind, which was normally within about 10 minutes of the start of a game and then as soon as they got it tied back up they would revert back to the style of play that caused them to be behind in the first place. Until the men's team gets a coach which will let them play wide open all the time and quit trying to mimic the Europeans or the Latin American countries their fate will continue to be one of a team which does okay but will never rise to upper echelons of the football world.

I say that because nobody takes into consideration the psyche of the American. We approach life, sports, and everything else with a different attitude then the rest of the world. Or at least we used to. Americans like to live life on the edge, on the attack, wide open. When they played that way they took control of the games they were in. If you want proof of this watch the champion women's team games sometimes and compare it to the men's games.

The women go all out for the whole game. Always pressing, never giving the other team any breathing room. The best example is the Ghana game. Watch the first half of the game where the Americans got behind. Then watch just the first 10 minutes of the second half. They came out on fire and everybody realized they had the Ghanans on their heels. They tied up the game and went back to that namby pamby UN, Euroweenie style of play and they lost.

I'm not bitter. Much.



Yeah he get's a dig in on Dick Cheney but halfway amusing anyway.

Hopenchange!

RBS tells clients to prepare for 'monster' money-printing by the Federal Reserve
As recovery starts to stall in the US and Europe with echoes of mid-1931, bond experts are once again dusting off a speech by Ben Bernanke given eight years ago as a freshman governor at the Federal Reserve.

Ambrose Evans Pritchard, International Business Editor
The Telegraph

Entitled "Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here", it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy.

The speech is best known for its irreverent one-liner: "The US government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."

Bernanke began putting the script into action after the credit system seized up in 2008, purchasing $1.75 trillion of Treasuries, mortgage securities, and agency bonds to shore up the US credit system. He stopped far short of the $5 trillion balance sheet quietly pencilled in by the Fed Board as the upper limit for quantitative easing (QE).

Investors basking in Wall Street's V-shaped rally had assumed that this bizarre episode was over. So did the Fed, which has been shutting liquidity spigots one by one. But the latest batch of data is disturbing.

The ECRI leading indicator produced by the Economic Cycle Research Institute plummeted yet again last week to -6.9, pointing to contraction in the US by the end of the year. It is dropping faster that at any time in the post-War era.

The latest data from the CPB Netherlands Bureau shows that world trade slid 1.7pc in May, with the biggest fall in Asia. The Baltic Dry Index measuring freight rates on bulk goods has dropped 40pc in a month. This is a volatile index that can be distorted by the supply of new ships, but those who watch it as an early warning signal for China and commodities are nervous.

Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS, is advising clients to read the Bernanke text very closely because the Fed is soon going to have to the pull the lever on "monster" quantitative easing (QE)".

"We cannot stress enough how strongly we believe that a cliff-edge may be around the corner, for the global banking system (particularly in Europe) and for the global economy. Think the unthinkable," he said in a note to investors.

Roberts said the Fed will shift tack, resorting to the 1940s strategy of capping bond yields around 2pc by force majeure said this is the option "which I personally prefer".

A recent paper by the San Francisco Fed argues that interest rates should now be minus 5pc under the bank's "rule of thumb" measure of capacity use and unemployment. The rate is currently minus 2pc when QE is factored in. You could conclude, very crudely, that the Fed must therefore buy another $2 trillion of bonds, and even more if Europe's EMU debacle goes from bad to worse. I suspect that this hints at the Bernanke view, but it is anathema to hardliners at the Kansas, Richmond, Philadephia, and Dallas Feds.

Societe Generale's uber-bear Albert Edwards said the Fed and other central banks will be forced to print more money whatever they now say, given the "stinking fiscal mess" across the developed world. "The response to the coming deflationary maelstrom will be additional money printing that will make the recent QE seem insignificant," he said.

Despite the apparent rift with Europe, the US is arguably tightening fiscal policy just as hard. Congress has cut off benefits for those unemployed beyond six months, leaving 1.3m without support. California has to slash $19bn in spending this year, as much as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Hungary, and Romania combined. The states together must cut $112bn to comply with state laws.

The Congressional Budget Office said federal stimulus from the Obama package peaked in the first quarter. The effect will turn sharply negative by next year as tax rises automatically kick in, a net swing of 4pc of GDP. This is happening as the US housing market tips into a double-dip. New homes sales crashed 33pc to a record low of 300,000 in May after subsidies expired.

It is sobering that zero rates, QE a l'outrance, and an $800bn fiscal blitz should have delivered so little. Just as it is sobering that Club Med bond purchases by the European Central Bank and the creation of the EU's €750bn rescue "shield" have failed to stabilize Europe's debt markets. Greek default contracts reached an all-time high of 1,125 on Friday even though the €110bn EU-IMF rescue is up and running. Are investors questioning EU solvency itself, or making a judgment on German willingness to back pledges with real money?

Clearly we are nearing the end of the "Phoney War", that phase of the global crisis when it seemed as if governments could conjure away the Great Debt. The trauma has merely been displaced from banks, auto makers, and homeowners onto the taxpayer, lifting public debt in the OECD bloc from 70pc of GDP to 100pc by next year. As the Bank for International Settlements warns, sovereign debt crises are nearing "boiling point" in half the world economy.

Fiscal largesse had its place last year. It arrested the downward spiral at a crucial moment, but that moment has passed. There is a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. The Krugman doctrine of perma-deficits is ruinous - and has in fact ruined Japan. The only plausible escape route for the West is a decade of fiscal austerity offset by helicopter drops of printed money, for as long as it takes.

Some say that the Fed's QE policies have failed. I profoundly disagree. The US property market - and therefore the banks - would have imploded if the Fed had not pulled down mortgage rates so aggressively, but you can never prove a counter-factual.

The case for fresh QE is not to inflate away the debt or default on Chinese creditors by stealth devaluation. It is to prevent deflation.

Bernanke warned in that speech eight years ago that "sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy" because it leads to slow death from a rising real burden of debt.

At the time, the broad money supply war growing at 6pc and the Dallas Fed's `trimmed mean' index of core inflation was 2.2pc.

We are much nearer the tipping today. The M3 money supply has contracted by 5.5pc over the last year, and the pace is accelerating: the 'trimmed mean' index is now 0.6pc on a six-month basis, the lowest ever. America is one twist shy of a debt-deflation trap.

There is no doubt that the Fed has the tools to stop this. "Sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation," said Bernanke. The question is whether he can muster support for such action in the face of massive popular disgust, a Republican Fronde in Congress, and resistance from the liquidationsists at the Kansas, Philadelphia, and Richmond Feds. If he cannot, we are in grave trouble.

Indonesian Toddler Still Sucking Down the Butts

I imagine we'll see periodic updates on this kid until he mysteriously dies at age five or so.

The Indonesian toddler whose two-pack-a-day smoking habit sparked outrage across the globe is having a hard time kicking the cancer sticks.

A month after his story lit up newscasts, a camera crew caught up with 2-year-old Aldi Suganda outside his home in Sumatra still puffing away.

"If he can really quit smoking, he will definitely be a very healthy boy, without any disease. But now, I don't know of what will happen in the future," the boy’s mother, Diana, told CBS News.

The network says it spent two days with the boy and his family in the fishing village of Musi Bbanyuasin.

Footage of the boy shows bopping around town in an undershirt and shorts while sucking on cigarettes and puffing out smoke rings like a seasoned pro.

Joys of Islam: Kids Removed From Music Classes 'Because Islam Forbids Playing an Instrument'

Seems music of any kind is a problem. I guess at the rate the UK is going music will be banned entirely before long so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of their Islamic overlords.

Muslim pupils are being withdrawn from music lessons because some Islamic beliefs forbid followers learning an instrument.

State schools are thought to have allowed hundreds of pupils to stop having classes despite music being part of the compulsory National Curriculum.

In one London primary, 20 pupils were withdrawn from the Christmas musical while the family of one five-year-old girl banned her from music classes.

The situation at Lambeth's Herbert Morrison Primary, where 29 per cent of pupils come from mainly Somalian Muslim families, emerged as part of a BBC investigation.

Headteacher Eileen Ross said some parents 'don't want children to play musical instruments and they don't have music in their homes'.

'For goodwill I allow that parent to withdraw their child from all music but I am in fact denying the child the opportunity that the other children in the class have,' she told BBC London News.

Some Muslims believe that playing musical instruments is forbidden in the same way that alcohol is banned.

Parents have no automatic right to withdraw their children from subjects such as music, although legal exemptions exist for religious and sex education.

The situation has already provoked concerns from Ofsted and education experts.

The Open University's Dr Diana Harris, an expert on music education and Muslims, said she had visited schools where half of the pupils were withdrawn from music lessons during Ramadan.

She claimed Ofsted inspectors sometimes turned 'a blind eye' to the issue.

'Although I wouldn't want anyone to do anything against their religion, I feel there's a lot in music which gives us great joy in life,' she said.

Joy is also prohibited, apparently.

It's About Time: Obama Voted One of Best Presidents Ever

Hard to believe it took these "leading presidential scholars" so long to realize we were living among such greatness.

George W. Bush was no FDR, but Barack Obama could be.

That's the verdict of 238 of the nation's leading presidential scholars, who - for a fifth time - rated Franklin Delano Roosevelt the best president ever in the latest Siena College Research Institute poll.

In office for barely two years, Obama entered the survey in the 15th position - two spots behind Bill Clinton and three spots ahead of Ronald Reagan.

Obama got high marks for intelligence, ability to communicate and imagination, but his score was dragged down by his relative lack of experience and family background.

Ability to communicate? Huh? The guy can't string together a coherent sentence without the aid of a TelePrompter and we're supposed to be dazzled by his intelligence?

What alternate reality do these people occupy?

"Most of the presidents came from elite backgrounds, and he certainly did not," said professor Douglas Lonnstrom, who crunched the numbers. "He grew up without a father."

So Reagan came from an elite background? Clinton? Carter? Nixon?

Naturally, George W. Bush is portrayed as a complete dunce.

Bush got docked for saddling Obama with two bloody wars and a recession, and he got low marks for "ability to compromise, foreign policy
accomplishments and intelligence," according to the survey.

Cardboard Obamas Make Appearance in Australia

The next best thing to actually being there, I guess.

US President Barack Obama would have felt sorry for Kevin Rudd when he was deposed last week, the US ambassador says.

Jeffrey Bleich said Mr Obama had a "real affinity" for Mr Rudd, the former prime minister.

"They got along well," Mr Bleich told reporters at a Canberra celebration ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

"I'm sure that (Mr Obama) felt sympathy for prime minister Rudd and the change that he's going through."

Don't bet for a minute that a megalomaniac like Obama feels anything for anyone else.

However, Mr Bleich said Mr Obama had "hit it off very well" with Prime Minister Julia Gillard when they spoke on the phone after she took on the top job last week.

"They have a lot in common," he said.

Mr Obama and his wife Michelle put in an appearance at the celebration at Mr Bleich's residence - life-sized cardboard cut-outs supervised the party from a balcony.

It's as close as Australia has got to the famous couple after Mr Obama twice cancelled trips Down Under this year.

The images can be seen here. For some reason they're not copying.

This isn't the first time Cardboard Obama has made an appearance.

'Hey, You Look Like That Spy'

It's Anna Chapman's world. The rest of us just live in it.

She could be accused Russian spy Anna Chapman's twin, but she's no double agent.

A Brooklyn redhead is turning heads and drawing stares because she's a dead ringer for the sexy secret agent.

Liza Marie Johnston said it started on Facebook when pals noted her remarkable resemblance to Chapman. Complete strangers have told her, "Hey, you look like that spy."

"They look at me, they look at the picture [of Chapman] and say, 'Oh my God!'" said Johnston, 30.

A grad student who waits tables at the Hillstone restaurant in the Citicorp Building, Johnston said even her regular customers are doing doubletakes.

"One I've known for years told me as a joke, 'I have to have to ask you three personal questions to make sure you are who you are,'" she said.

Johnston blames it all on Mary-Kate Olsen.

A brunette from Pittsburgh who moved here to become an actress, Johnston said she dyed her hair red when she was cast as Mary-Kate in an off-Broadway production of "The Misadventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley."

Now a music education student at NYU, Johnston said all the attention has been "kind of awesome."

At least we know who'll be playing Chapman in the TV movie of the week that's sure to come.

Burn Notice Does Iraq

"When you're a spy who has been burned...."

Those are the words which begin every episode of the USA show "Burn Notice" which is basically a buddy show which teams a former CIA spy, Michael Westen, whom the agency has cast aside, an FBI agent, Sam Axe, who used to pursue the spy and now works with him to help the average person, a female hit woman, Fiona Glennanne, who loves to blow stuff up and this year they have added a new character who is also a burned spy but in this case the main character of the show is the one who burned him.

Anyway in between filming for the show the guys headed to Iraq to visit the soldiers. It seems Bruce Campbell, who plays FBI agent Sam Axe has a brother who serves in the reserves and is currently a military adviser in Iraq. The Bruce Campbell fan club has put up some pictures of the visit along with some comments from the actors, but the pictures are worth viewing if for no other reason then to read the captions.

Some of ya'll may recall Bruce from his early days when he was on such tv shows as 'Hercules' and 'Xena' or from his campy horror flicks like 'Army of Darkness'. He always portrays a smart alecky action type character.

Anyway I just wanted to give credit where credit is due and anytime celebrities can take the time out to visit our troops they deserve to be recognized for it.

Now if they could get those motorcycle gang members from the 'Sons of Anarchy' to go after the Taliban this whole Afghanistan thing could be wrapped up pretty quickly. There would be no rules of engagement.

It Must Be Racist: Newark Cracks Down on 'Unauthorized Immigrant' Ice Cream Vendors

Ledger Live: What happens when the ice cream man is an illegal immigrant?

A tear-jerking tale of poor "unauthorized immigrants" forced into the shadows because they can't get proper permits to sell ice cream in a Democratic stronghold. Maybe Holder and Obama can sure their pal Cory Booker.

Interesting how the woman from Uruguay has no problem giving her name yet it's curious she's here five years and can't speak a word of English. Guess she's having a problem assimilating or something.

While the state of Arizona has sparked a national firestorm over its tough new immigration law, the City of Newark has quietly turned up the heat on another group of unauthorized foreigners: pushcart ice cream vendors.

Scores of vendors who sell shaved ice or "coco helado" have been denied license renewals by city officials demanding they provide social security numbers or proof of legal U.S. residency, vendors and city officials told Ledger Live, the Star-Ledger's video webcast.

I love how every mention of SB 1070 is always prefaced with "controversial" or, in this case how it's sparked a "national firestorm." Well, if 70% of the public favors the law, how is that so controversial? The only firestorm I see it creating is resentment toward the federal government by the overwhelming majority for the refusal to enforce border control.

'Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom'

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the JournoList shut down just as this propaganda organ was launching.

Al-Qaida launched its first online propaganda magazine in English on Tuesday, a move that could help the terror group recruit inside the U.S. and Europe.

The magazine, called Inspire, is being run by al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, which has been linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S.-bound airliner.

The launch suggests that, as al-Qaida's core has been weakened by CIA drone airstrikes, the group hopes to broaden its reach inside the U.S., where officials have seen a spate of homegrown terrorists.

"This new magazine is clearly intended for the aspiring jihadist in the U.S. or U.K. who may be the next Fort Hood murderer or Times Square bomber," Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar and former CIA officer, said.

Tuesday's launch did not go smoothly. The magazine was 67 pages long, but all but the first three pages were just garbled computer code, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites and obtained a copy of the magazine.

The table of contents included articles such as "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom," which promised to be "a detailed yet short, easy-to-read manual on how to make a bomb using ingredients found in a kitchen."

"We also call upon and encourage our readers to contribute by sending their articles, comments or suggestions to us," the magazine's introduction read.

Russian Spy Recruited at Columbia University

Talk about an easy job. If you're a Russian spy and busy yourself looking for some friendly comrades, where else would you go than an Ivy League university? It's not as if the students and professors at these elite institutions hide their political leanings.

She was lurking in the Ivy, ready to pounce.

Accused Russian spy Cynthia Murphy used her cover as a Columbia University MBA student to try to turn her capitalist classmates into comrades, federal officials say.

Murphy, code-named "N" by her Moscow handlers, not only tried to recruit secret agents, she also had another nefarious mission -- digging up dirt on fellow students who expressed interest in or were signed up for jobs at the CIA, a criminal complaint says.

The shocking charges against Murphy, 35 -- who received her master's of business administration from Columbia in May -- are laid out in the federal criminal complaint unsealed after she and her husband Richard were busted earlier this week, along with eight other US residents who allegedly worked for "Moscow Central."

According to the complaint, Russia's SVR spy agency last year sent electronic messages that were intercepted by US law enforcement. One of these messages directed Murphy "to strengthen . . . ties w/ classmates on daily basis incl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info," the complaint says.

Murphy's bosses also allegedly told her to spy on teachers and classmates with an eye toward turning them into secret agents for Russia.

"Report to C[enter] on their detailed personal data and character traits w. preliminary conclusions about their potential (vulnerability) to be recruited by Service," the spymasters wrote.

In response to those orders, the Murphys "on many occasions" gave Moscow Center the names of professors and students affiliated with Columbia, which were then checked against the spy agency's database "to determine is a particular potential 'target' was or was not 'clean,' " the complaint alleges.

"Thus, for example, when an SVR database check revealed that a particular contact of Cynthia Murphy's had been suspected by a then-Soviet bloc intelligence service of belonging to 'a foreign spy net[work],' Murphy was told to 'avoid deepening contact with them for sec[urity] reasons,' " according to the criminal complaint.

Murphy was also instructed to " 'dig up' personal data of those students who apply (or are hired already) for a job at CIA," the Russians allegedly wrote.

Meanwhile, in a stunning development, that "progressive" New York couple we mentioned the other day was actually referred to as leftists by the Associated Press. Much of what's reported there we already unearthed but this nugget is something fresh worth noting.

While Pelaez continued to pursue her career as a columnist, Lazaro studied at the New School for Social Research, now called The New School, a university in Manhattan.

In 1990, Lazaro published a study in a leftist European journal about the positive role of women as combatants in Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, a violent Maoist insurgency in Peru that had peaked in the 1980s before government security forces cracked down on it.

"It seems that sexism, normally one of the stronger barriers limiting female performance in guerrilla actions to support roles in the majority of the revolutionary movements, has been overcome by the Sendero Luminoso," Lazaro wrote in the study, called "Women and Political Violence in Contemporary Peru."

Ask Lori Berenson about that positive role in the Shining Path.

Pelaez, through her El Diario column, aggressively criticized the U.S. government and defended illegal immigrants. Her pieces are widely reprinted on left-leaning websites.

Hmm. Maybe she was on the JournoList. Anyone willing to take that $100K so we can find out?

I suspect most if not all of those "left-leaning" websites will be scrubbing the archives and not making much note of this spy case.

A good roundup of the charges and background the the suspects here and th elatest on the idiotic decision in Cyprus to set low bail for the spy paymaster.

Finally, check out the media's favorite spy in action.


If this girl walks she'll no doubt be a reality star before long. If any of you guys are interested, be sure to note looks aren't important, apparently.