With Chinese President Xi Jinping set to headline the attendees as a speaker on opening day of this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, those handling his messaging and his calendar indicated that channels of communication were open and that there was the possibility of a meeting between China’s staff members and those of President-elect Trump.
However, “Trump won’t send an official representative to the annual gathering of the world’s economic elite in Davos, taking place January 17 – 20, the days leading up to his inauguration.” The stated reason by a senior member of Trump’s transition team is that “the president-elect thought it would betray his populist-fueled movement to have a presence at the high-powered annual gathering in the Swiss Alps.”
Heads of state, who’s who of multinational corporations, prominent academics, philanthropists, U.S. Senators and Congressmen, world bankers and a retinue of journalists, celebrities and hangers-on will attend the three day conference and enjoy such culinary delicacies as a thirty-six dollar hot dog and a thirty-two dollar ham and cheese sandwich. One can just imagine what a hasenpfeffer with all the trimmings and lubricants will cost. There are 2200 attendees, and with all their entourage and with all the needed service people the population of Davos will swell from 11000 to 31000.
One of the subjects coming up is their cherished Climate Change Control debate. Getting to Davos is no easy task. It is nested among mountains, and nearby airports are small and with very little capacity to accommodate the 1700 private jets, so the jets have to deliver the dignitaries, then disperse over Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. The dignitaries need limousines, maybe exceeding existing limos in Switzerland, so limousines will come from surrounding countries to serve them. All this in the name of saving the planet from the evil of Climate Change.
President-Elect Donald Trump is sending a clear signal to the international community and to the Israeli government, that the incoming administration will be adopting a far different posture than the current occupant of the Oval Office by inviting leaders of Israeli West Bank settlements to his inauguration.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim-rights group designated by the Justice Department as a terrorist co-conspirator, is calling on Donald Trump to drop Rev. Franklin Graham as one of six clergy who will offer prayers at the Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony.This is not the first time CAIR has attempted to have Graham banned from official Washington functions. In 2010 the group celebrated its success at having Graham dropped from The National Day of Prayer at the Pentagon.
(AP): Iran is to receive a huge shipment of natural uranium from Russia to compensate it for exporting tons of reactor coolant, diplomats say, in a move approved by the outgoing U.S. administration and other governments seeking to keep Tehran committed to a landmark nuclear pact.
Two senior diplomats said the transfer recently approved by the U.S. and five other world powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran foresees delivery of 116 metric tons (nearly 130 tons) of natural uranium.
U.N. Security Council approval is needed but a formality, considering five of those powers are permanent Security Council members, they said.
Let me see: 116 tons of natural Uranium, contains 0.7% of U235, properly enriched translates to 812 kg of U235, from which you can make 51 nuclear bombs. Since Iran sold their reactor coolant, it must be for making bombs.
The Russians are good hackers. They hack and sell passwords, hack and demand ransom to restore computers, hack for industrial and military espionage, I could go on. They have been doing this since the internet started. The lower level hacking, such as Podesta’s e-mails, is usually done at the cottage industry level, the more sophisticated espionage is controlled centrally.
But Russia is not the only hacker. China is much more prolific, at least as sophisticated, and has the goods on all U.S. citizens (more than 20 million) with top secret or secret clearance, and all government employees.
There are two types of corporations in the U.S. Those that have been hacked, and those that don’t know yet they have been hacked.
Other actors are North Korea, Iran, Nigeria, and many US allies.
Are we innocent? Hardly. Here is a snapshot of one day in the world of cyber attacks
When all these hackings were starting the Bush Administration did very little to combat it. The Obama administration did even less as hackings grew in numbers and level of sophistication. By doing nothing, he gave away trillions of dollars worth of intellectual property, and jeopardized our security.
Now, after losing the election Obama wakes up and expels some some Russian diplomats from two compounds that have been doing mostly industrial and military espionage since the 70’s.
Way to go, Obama. First you used U.S. taxpayer money to try to prevent the re-election of Israel prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu won in a landslide.
Then you went to London and said “If the U.K. voted to leave the E.U, Britain would be left back in the queue”. Brexit won convincingly.
You campaigned hard for Hillary Clinton and ridiculed Trump as much as you could. Trump won in an electoral landslide.
Now you think you have found the culprit: Putin’s Russia.
At least Trump is forming a group to report within 90 days how to handle cyber security in his administration and for the whole country. It won’t be easy or cheap, but it must be done to preserve freedom.
There were two, very different reactions to the brutal Facebook video showing four African-Americans torturing a white teen with special needs in Chicago.
Obama denied that racial tensions have increased in the Windy City, his home town. He said that “smart phones and the Internet has just made such incidents more visible.”
“What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of the problems that have been there a long time,”
President Obama Jan 5, 2017
Now contrast this with the article by Sarah Palin , January 6, 2017 in Breitbart:
“The child, yet unborn, spoke with the Father, ‘Lord, how will I survive in the world? I will not be like the other children. My walk may be slower, my speech hard to understand. I may look different. What is to become of me?’
“The Lord replied to the child, ‘My precious one, have no fear. I will give you protectors. They will love you because you are special, not in spite of it. Though your path through life will be difficult, your reward will be greater. You have been blessed with a special ability to love, and those whose lives you touch will be blessed because you are special.’” – From an embroidered plaque sent anonymously to me when my son Trig was born
Trying to fathom what is shown in the Chicago torture video is just too much. I watched a mere few seconds of it and will watch no more. I cannot watch more. Perhaps my family and I see the torture of an innocent young man with special needs through different eyes and with a greater, undeniable sense of responsibility to help; but this story playing out today is proving unbearable.
It’s time for a screaming wake-up call, America.
My extended family discussed the tragedy last night. We concluded we do not care about arguing the legalities involved in categorizing this as a “hate crime” or not a “hate crime.” Obviously it is a hateful, hate-filled crime centering on politics and race. Proof is on tape. Debating the merits of categorizing the disgusting racist and political taunts vomited up by thugs during their brutal beating of a helpless young man is, to us, a media distraction. I leave it to others to focus on that.
My sister Heather has worked professionally in the public school system with older special needs students for decades. She and her husband have also been raising a beautiful son with autism and disabilities. My sister seems to have seen it all. Because of Heather’s years of experience in this tough arena, she could understandably have grown necessarily less emotionally reactive than others when seeing such a news report. But Heather and the family reacted with more explosive shock and disgust, mixed with such profound sadness, than perhaps expected.
She knows her precious students — and son and nephew — could never defend themselves against attacks from such evil people. That’s such common sense, though, that even the depraved creatures haughtily recording their recent brutality knew their victim was as defenseless.
Heather and family remind the public that this targeted beating by young adults is equivalent to torturing a small child. (And media: quit hiding the alleged perps, especially the reported 24-year-old, behind your deceptively descriptive term “teens”!) We’re curious to hear where our public leaders and influential pop icons are on this.
But President Obama… shush. Just shush with your reaction to this racist attack with claims that race relations have improved under your reign. That is BS. And why, even in this, do you have to make it all about you, all the time? Your suggestion yesterday that there’s some silver lining in this shows how completely out of touch you are. Attacks on the helpless and vulnerable — no matter skin color — are society’s cancer. You still don’t get it. A better reaction is to acknowledge, for one, that your pride and joy hometown of Chicago is a mess.
Further, acknowledge that you’ve helped perpetuate a culture that disrespects innocent life by pretending that babies aren’t really babies, so their lives don’t matter; by mocking special needs children on national television (as the President!); by promoting vile gangsta “artists” and their cultural depravity; and by wasting time and public resources instead of using them to better society by, for instance, creating jobs and expecting able-bodied persons to work for self-respect and responsibility instead of incentivizing a lawless, selfish, hard-hearted entitlement culture. You have no credibility when twisting this into somehow being about your “accomplishments.” You fail by making this about you.
And we all fail as protectors of the innocent when we ignore solutions to create a culture of life.
We fail when we accept the killing of defenseless babies.
We fail when we don’t properly budget public resources to afford obvious funding priorities to assist the disabled and elderly.
We fail when we allow the celebration of gangsta’ thuggery and the twisted media that always demonizes anyone with conservative values.
We fail when we retreat and capitulate to the elitist PC thought police who command that we sit down and shut up about their double standards.
We fail when we don’t hold statisticians and pundits accountable when they fake numbers and scenarios to make all cops — and all non-liberals — look like bullies and racists.
We fail when we don’t support law enforcement, and further burden them by wasting their limited time expecting them to respond and resolve every dispute that mature adults used to be able to handle themselves.
We further fail when we choose politicians in self-preservation mode who ignore basic social issues in favor of just the “safer” fiscal issues. Look, we can’t make America great again by focusing only on bureaucratic ideas to hopefully put more money in people’s pockets. Really, it’s more soul in the American life that will make us great again.
Is it politically incorrect to call on leaders — including black leaders — to proclaim this the wake-up call society needs? If so, so be it. I call on them.
Is it politically incorrect to challenge pop culture “heroes” to join in? If so, so be it. I challenge Colin Kaepernick to take a knee over this one, for this cause is based in reality.
May we all do our part to be protectors of the innocent — as God expects. Then our nation will be blessed, for our lives will be touched by special people with a special ability to love. We’ve missed that for too long.
On Jan 4, 2017 soon exiting President Obama added another prestigious medal to his Nobel Prize collection when he had Defense Secretary Ash Carter award him the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.
Secretary Carter awarded his boss the medal during the Armed Forces Full Honor Farewell Review for the President held at Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia. The ceremony was sparsely attended, only the required crew of brass bothered to show up.
Carter insisted that the medal was a token of appreciation for Obama’s service as commander in chief, the Associated Press reported.
Like when the Wizard of Oz gave the Medal of Courage to the Lion lacking courage.
It was too much for one member of the Obama honor guard, so he passed out during the speeches.
This completes the 100 verses of the Obama impeachment song (as if sung by President Barack Hussein Obama to the tune of “Please release me, let me go”)
A green energy scandal that is saw people heating empty buildings just to collect government grants could cost British taxpayers more than £1 billion.
The UK Treasury faces a huge bill after spending on Northern Ireland’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) went out of control, with businesses installing otherwise useless biomass heaters just to profit from the scheme.
The RHI was championed by Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster back in 2012 when she was minister in charge of business and enterprise. There are now calls for her to resign over the fiasco.
The scheme was supposed to cost £25 million in its first five years, but will now likely be closer to £1.15 billion over 20 years. Around £660 million will have to be funded by taxpayers in the rest of the UK after ministers failed to cap costs, The Timesreports.
Under the scheme, businesses could receive £160 for every £100 they spent on biomass fuels such as wood pellets. As businesses realised the profits they could make, there was a huge uptake and costs soon went out of control.
Finally, a whistle-blower exposed how businesses were purchasing biomass boilers just to collect the grant. One farmer in particular expected to make £1 million heating an empty shed, while another person hoped to make £1.5 million heating empty factories.
A similar scheme exists in the rest of the UK, but with much stricter spending controls. Northern Ireland’s Auditor-General, Kieran Donnelly, calculates that under that scheme a business could receive £192,000 over 20 years if it runs a boiler all year round. A similar business in Northern Ireland, however, could get £860,000.
Such is the outrage over the scandal that Mrs Foster’s political future is now in doubt. She survived a no-confidence motion last month, but new letters have come to light showing how she encouraged banks to “look favourably” on loan applications.
Martin McGuiness, the Deputy First Minister and leader of Sinn Fein, may now resign, causing the Northern Ireland government to collapse and triggering new elections.
A study in 2014 found that biomass may in fact be worse for the environment than fossil fuels, as the wood pellets used are often imported from North America, creating a bigger carbon footprint and contributing to deforestation in the United States.
The City of Philadelphia has levied an 1.5 cents per ounce of soft drinks.
So, if you buy one gallon of sweetened ice tea for 1.72 (on special) you end up paying 1.92 in tax, for a total of of 3.64, a 112 percent tax.
The soda tax levied in Philly
all soft drinks are taxed willy nilly.
Is it sugar? – relax
it’s an aspartame tax.
Ax tax! Lacks facts, whacks backs! Silly.
Nearly one third of Philadelphians receive food stamps (SNAP).
According to a new study released by the Food and Nutrition Service, the federal agency responsible for running the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), soft drinks are the #1 expenditure for people on food stamps (# 2 for the general population).
Great job, Philadelphia! Tax the people on food stamps! It would have been better to make soft drinks not eligible for food stamps! (They would have to settle for 70% or more non carbonated fruit juices!)
culinary delicacies as a thirty-six dollar hot dog and a thirty-two dollar ham and cheese sandwich. One can just imagine what a hasenpfeffer with all the trimmings and lubricants will cost. There are 2200 attendees, and with all their entourage and with all the needed service people the population of Davos will swell from 11000 to 31000.
Getting to Davos is no easy task. It is nested among mountains, and nearby airports are small and with very little capacity to accommodate the 1700 private jets, so the jets have to deliver the dignitaries, then disperse over Switzerland, France, Germany and Italy. The dignitaries need limousines, maybe exceeding existing limos in Switzerland, so limousines will come from surrounding countries to serve them. All this in the name of saving the planet from the evil of Climate Change.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 