Iraq Surge
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Iraq Tribal Leader: Tell Dems to Lay Off Bush

RUSH: Story in the New York Sun today: "As Surge Begins to Take Hold in Baghdad, Tribal Leaders Turn on Al-Qaeda." The dateline of this story is Abu Ghraib. "In the aftermath of America's recent troop surge in Iraq, tribal leaders throughout Iraq are turning on Al-Qaeda, and American military commanders are trying to exploit the new development by bringing tribe members into the Iraqi Security Forces."

Now, that's interesting, but listen to the nut of the story: "Despite the rising antipathy," that would be "anger" for those of you who watch Channel 13 in Sacramento, "toward Al-Qaeda, the tribal sheiks in the Sunni regions in particular are very clear that their new alliance with the Americans is merely a tactical one. Sheik Hussein summed it up: 'We would like America, a friend, to rebuild the country. This is what we want, what the tribes want. But to stay here as a military force indefinitely is unacceptable.' For Sheik Hussein, however, the process of a speedy exit is also unacceptable. At a luncheon at a home of one of his cousins," he told the reporter on this story, Eli Lake of the New York Sun, "'Please, tell the Democrats for now to stop pressuring Bush.'"

So an Iraqi cleric, aware of the damage the Democrats are doing to the future of Iraq, has asked a reporter from the New York Sun to go tell the Democrats to lighten up on Bush for now.

NY Sun ~ Eli Lake ** As Surge Begins To Take Hold, Tribal Leaders Turn on Qaeda

Capitalism, 101
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE ALERT
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

US Cancer Survivability Rates Higher Than Socialized Medicine Countries

Socialists want control, so they'll dump our system.

Listen To It! WMP | RealPlayer

Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
(Hillary Clinton Dialect School Parody Commerical)

RUSH: Something in that parody talked about health care. "You have to no gottaa pay-a the health care bill." I was reading Ed Morris's blog, Captain's Quarters. I came across something fascinating. "A new study by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden shows that the American health care system outperforms the socialized systems in Europe in getting new medicines to cancer patients. The difference saves lives, and the existing Western European systems force people to die at higher rates from the same cancers, although the Telegraph buries that lede. The researchers studied Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and the US, as well as 19 European countries, with a total population of 984 million, and looked at access to 67 newer cancer drugs. They found that the proportions of female cancer patients surviving five years beyond diagnosis in France, Spain, Germany, Italy were 71 percent, 64 percent, 63 percent and 63 percent respectively. In the UK it was 53 percent. Among men the proportions still alive at five years in the same countries were 53 percent, 50 percent, 53 percent and 48 percent. Again in the UK it was lower at 43 percent."

The survivability rates beyond five years of diagnosis in the United States are far in excess of all of these socialized countries with socialized medicine. Here's the point, though, and it takes a while in the story for it to show up. Here's the reference in the story about the American system. "Dr. Nils Wilking, a clinical oncologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: "Our report highlights that in many countries new drugs are not reaching patients quickly enough and that this is having an adverse impact on patient survival. Where you live can determine whether you receive the best available treatment or not. To some extent this is determined by economic factors, but much of the variation between countries remains unexplained. In the US we have found that the survival of cancer patients is significantly related to the introduction of new oncology drugs.' ... The proportion of colorectal cancer patients with access to the drug Avastin was 10 times higher in the US than it was in Europe, with the UK having a lower uptake than the European average."

United States health care saves more lives than socialized medicine, and yet socialized medicine is one of the building blocks of the Democrat Party's agenda, particularly Mrs. Bill Clinton's agenda. Now, it's the same thing with tax revenue that we were just discussing. If current tax rates are producing record amounts of revenue and rapid economic growth, why would you change it? If the US health care system is the best in the world, despite its flaws -- if it's the best in the world and people who come down with deadly diseases survive much longer here because of access to drugs much sooner and much cheaper than people who live in socialized countries have access to it -- why in the world would you change it? Well, there's a simple answer. Socialists want control. They want as much control over us as they can get.  It's about power. It's about enlarging the State. It's about making you dependent, and that eliminates your threatening their power. The less wealth you have, the less mobility, freedom, the less of a threat you are to their power. This is liberalism through and through.

Now you might ask: "How come so many average Americans are liberals and they're willing to give up this power?" Because they're dupes. I'm talking about the leaders. I'm talking about the people in Washington. I'm talking about the think tank leaders. I'm talking about the special interest groups. Liberals in this country, these doofuses that write the hateful comments on Internet blogs, they're just unhappy people in general. They want everybody else to be miserable with them anyway. They're probably jealous of people who do better than them and they want those people taken down a peg or two. They want everything the same. Everything the same. No inequality. No inequity. They want outcome of results. They're sickos and they're miserable and they're unhappy and they want everybody to join them in that. But you talk about ideology? Liberals believe this and conservatives believe this. It's really very, very simple. Conservatives believe in individual liberty and freedom and ambition so that people can become the best they can be, because it is believed that the greatest society and the greatest culture, the greatest country, is achieved by the greatest number of people pursuing excellence. Liberals don't have that faith in people and they don't want that kind of freedom. They want to be in charge. They want to have the power and they want people dependent because that is what enriches them in every which way you can imagine.

END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
CaptainsQuarters: US Health Care Saves More Lives Than Socialized Medicine
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.
Rush Limbaugh.com ** US Cancer Survivability Rates Higher Than Socialized Medicine Countries

Related: SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE ALERT
Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe, British cancer patients more likely to die
UK Telegraph ~ Nic Fleming ** Cancer survival rates worst in western Europe

Fake Snot
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Odd Stuff

Fake Snot Makes Electronic Nose Smell Better

Scientists are using artificial snot to give electronic sniffers a better, and faster, sense of smell.

A human nose contains more than 100 receptors working together to tease apart the molecules it encounters. This ability is further enhanced by a thin layer of mucus that, in addition to trapping particles such as pollen and dust, dissolves scents and causes some molecules to reach the odor receptors later than others. Our brain translates the time delays into a wide variety of smells.

Electronic noses look nothing like a human nose and typically contain fewer than 50 sensors.

Researchers at the University of Warwick and Leicester University in the United Kingdom achieved the same effect by coating an electronic nose with artificial mucus made from a mix of polymers. The man-made snot allowed their device to smell the difference between milk and a banana, something it could not do before.

"Our artificial mucus not only offers improved odor discrimination for electronic noses, it also offers much shorter analysis times than conventional techniques," said study leader Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick.

The team's device is detailed in the journal of the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

Electronic noses are often used by the food industry for quality control and some are being used to sniff out diseases.

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Related:
• How We Smell
• How Your Nose is More Complex than a 747
• Giant Balls of 'Snot' Explain Ocean Mystery

Live Science.com ~ Ker Than ** Fake Snot Makes Electronic Nose Smell Better

Welched promises
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Dems backing down on promised reforms...

Lobbying Reform Losing Steam in House

Lobbying Reform Losing Momentum in Congress After Democrats Touted It for 2006 Election

House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices.

"The longer we wait, the weaker the bill seems to get," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, which has pushed for the changes. "The sense of urgency is fading," he said, in part because scandals such as those involving disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Duke Cunningham, R-Calif., have given way to other news.

The situation concerns some Democrats, who note their party campaigned against a "culture of corruption" in 2006, when voters ended a long run of Republican control of Congress. Several high-profile issues remained in doubt Friday, five days before the House Judiciary Committee is to take up the legislation.

They include proposals to:

Require lobbyists to disclose details about large donations they arrange for politicians.

Make former lawmakers wait two years, instead of one, before lobbying Congress.

Bar lobbyists from throwing large parties for lawmakers at national political conventions.

All appeared headed for adoption in January when the Senate, with much fanfare, included them in a lobby-reform bill that passed easily. But the provisions, plus many others in the bill, cannot become law unless the House concurs and that's where feet are dragging.

The issues are in danger of being dropped from the House version, a Democratic member close to the negotiations said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because sensitive discussions were continuing.

The snags are frustrating to advocates in and out of Congress who want more restrictions and greater transparency in lobbying and fundraising. Early this year, they appeared on the edge of victory.

Within hours of taking control of the House and Senate, Democrats engineered rule changes to bar lawmakers and their aides from accepting meals, gifts or trips from lobbyists or groups that employ lobbyists.

They also made it far more difficult for lawmakers to slip targeted items, known as earmarks, into spending bills without divulging the source. Such "pork projects" have greatly benefited some companies with well-connected lobbyists.

These rule changes are now in effect in the House. But they will not apply to the Senate unless both chambers reconcile a lobbying bill that the president signs into law.

"Members of Congress ignore this issue at their peril," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who chairs his party's 2008 House campaign committee. "The public wants a Congress that is open and accountable."

The chief stumbling block in the House centers on whether to require disclosures of a fundraising practice called bundling. It involves lobbyists soliciting and collecting campaign donations from other people and then presenting them in one package to the targeted candidate.

Under current law, each individual check-writer must report his or her donation. But the lobbyist-bundlers, who use the practice to ingratiate themselves to politicians, often go undetected.

Meaningful disclosure of bundling "is the defining issue of this bill" and must remain in the House version, said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a private group that supports greater transparency in government.

However, resistance from some House members is so strong that Democratic leaders are thinking of dropping the bundling language from the bill, and perhaps allowing proponents to offer it later as an amendment or separate legislation.

Some House members also oppose the Senate bill's tougher restrictions on retired lawmakers who plan to become lobbyists. Under current law, such retirees can immediately begin drawing pay for lobby-related activities so long as they do not contact former colleagues for one year.

The Senate bill would extend the "cooling off" period to two years, and apply the ban to all lobbying activities, not just direct contacts with lawmakers.

Some House members also dislike a Senate provision that would bar lobbying groups from throwing parties in honor of lawmakers at national nominating conventions. Critics call the practice a way for interest groups to ingratiate themselves with powerful officials.

Meanwhile, public advocacy groups want the House and Senate to adopt tougher reporting requirements for groups that hire lobbyists to help organize supposedly grass-roots campaigns to influence Congress. One proposal would require disclosures by lobbying firms that receive at least $100,000 in a quarter for "paid communications campaigns" aimed at mobilizing the public on a given issue.

Groups such as Common Cause and Democracy 21 say massive special-interest campaigns can largely hide their donors' identities because current disclosure laws apply only to direct lobbying of Congress.

But organizations spanning the political spectrum oppose the idea, saying it could discourage citizens from exercising their right to petition the government. Groups urging lawmakers to reject the proposal include the American Civil Liberties Union, National Right to Life Committee and Eagle Forum.

House members and aides said it was unclear whether the grass-roots proposal, which is not in the Senate bill, will be added to the House measure.

The Senate bill is S. 1

ABC News ~ Associated Press - Charles Babington ** Lobbying Reform Losing Steam in House

Libtard liars
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Coward Deanpeace told Kansas Gov. Sebelius to not ask for help and lie about Natl Guard...

XM Radio's War Room: Dean Told Sebelius to Lie about Natl Guard

Did Howard Dean order KS gov to lie about FEMA’s response to the Greensburg tornado?

XM Radio’s Quinn & Rose made the allegation that DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius early Sunday morning and instructed her not to request federal assistance in recovery from the Greensburg tornado, and to lie about the federal response to date, on their show, The War Room, today. After I discussed the story via phone with both Quinn and Rose today, here’s what they sent me.

PLEASE NOTE: The following is information we have received from a reliable source. We have never been misinformed by this person in the past.

It seems that, on Sunday, a few hours after Kansas Governor, Kathleen Sebelius, made her remarks about Bush sending all their National Guard Members and Resources to Iraq, she made a call to Brownback

Sebelius, was calling to apologize to the Senator for making the Political statements that she did. She explained that she did not believe them and that they actually had too many National Guardsmen show up.

Governor Sebelius explained “Sam, you know how political everything is right now and we’re not allowed to let an opportunity like this just pass.” She continued “I made sure not to blame you or Pat (Senator Roberts?) or anybody outside the White House. With his (Bush’s) numbers, you can’t really blame me for usin’ that.”

Then Sebelius explained the path to her comments. After Brownback told her that he was very disappointed in her, She pleaded “You know me Sam, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t have to.” She declared “Howard (Dean) called me around 5 o’clock (in the morning) and told me not to ask The White House for any help or make any statements until I heard back. Dick (Durban?) called me an hour or 2 later and that’s when he told me we needed to use this ‘n’ said to talk about the Guard all bein’ at war.”

She then explained the thinking; “Speaker and Harry got so much heat on them from both sides over this damn war, ‘n’ they need to get the press on somethin’ else. I didn’t think it was right to use it like this either, but I didn’t see’s I had much choice in this climate, Sam.”

She the[n] apologized a few more times and promised that she’d try to move away from the comment when she and Brownback were to meet up later and tour the damage, but she had to so it without disappointing Dean and Pelosi.

I asked them to characterize their source, and they replied that she or he would be in a position to have knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Brownback and Gov. Sebelius and has never misinformed them before. Sean Hannity has called Sen. Brownback’s office to either verify or debunk the story, but so far the senator has done neither. There is word that the senator may attempt a “limited hangout” strategy this weekend, in which he acknowledges that the conversation took place but won’t remember the Dean angle. Such a strategy, if that’s what Sen. Brownback does, might be an attempt to maintain comity in what has until now been by all accounts a smooth relationship between the Democratic governor and Republican officials in Kansas. Comity shouldn’t come at the price of truth, however.

At this point, I have no way of verifying whether DNC Chairman Howard Dean called Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and instructed her to lie about the federal response to Friday’s devastating tornado. But I will make some calls and see what I can find out. Quinn & Rose’s story does fit the timeline and does fit the Democrat M.O. of late, in which they find a way to blame every single thing under the sun on Bush and on the war in Iraq. Other Democrat governors have pre-emptively blamed the lack of response to disasters that haven’t even happened yet on Bush and the war in Iraq. So on its face the story strikes me as very plausible.

More: Here’s the original post to catch everyone up on Sebelius’ original statements, the WH and Pentagon and Brownback rebuttals, and then Sebelius’ quick climb down. Obama makes his “10,000 dead” gaffe (has anyone seen video of that gem yet?) and Dingy Harry assails the WH long after Sebelius’ original statements had been debunked. **Here’s the Obama gem. Heh. I’d been off the site and missed it when Ian posted it.

Hot Air ~ Bryan ** Did Howard Dean order KS gov to lie about FEMA’s response to the Greensburg tornado?

Dems conspiring to make false accusations? No shocker there... I wouldn't put it past Coward Deanpeace.

April Revenue
Mood:  special
Now Playing: BUSH'S FAULT
Topic: News

Revenue Collections Hit Record in April

WASHINGTON -- Federal revenue collections hit an all-time high in April, contributing to a further improvement in the budget deficit for the year.

Releasing its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Thursday that through the first seven months of this budget year, the deficit totals $80.8 billion, significantly below the $184.1 billion imbalance run up during the first seven months of the 2006 budget year.

So far this year, tax revenues total $1.505 trillion, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year. That figure includes $383.6 billion collected in April, the largest monthly tax collection on record.

Tax collections swell in April every year as individuals file their tax returns by the deadline.

For the first seven months of this budget year, which began Oct. 1, revenue collections and government spending are at all-time highs.

However, the spending total of $1.585 billion was up at a slower pace of 3.2 percent from the previous year.

The difference in the growth of tax collections and spending is the reason for the narrowing deficit.

The Congressional Budget Office said that it now expects the deficit for all of 2007 to total between $150 billion and $200 billion. That would be a significant improvement from last year's deficit of $248.2 billion, which had been the lowest imbalance in four years.

The federal budget was in surplus for four years from 1998 through 2001 as the long economic expansion helped push revenues higher. But the 2001 recession, the cost of fighting a global war on terror and the loss of revenue from President Bush's tax cuts sent the budget back into the red starting in 2002.

The administration's budget sent to Congress in February projects that the deficit will be eliminated by 2012 even if the president achieves his goal of getting his tax cuts made permanent. They are now due to expire in 2010.

However, critics say the improvement in the deficits will be only temporary with deficits expected to balloon again with the higher Social Security and Medicare payments needed as 78 million baby boomers retire.

While Bush sought to make entitlement reform the centerpiece of his domestic agenda in a second term, his proposals to bolster Social Security with personal savings accounts has gone nowhere in Congress.

For April, revenue receipts totaled $383.64 billion while spending totaled $205.97 billion, leaving a surplus for the month of $177.7 billion.

Breitbart.com ~ Associated Press - Martin Crutsinger ** Revenue Collections Hit Record in April

BIGGEST GOVERNMENT EVER! Fed revenue collections and spending at all-time highs
Also at:
Yahoo News ~ Associated Press - Martin Crutsinger ** Revenue Collections Hit Record in April

Libtard child care
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: LIBTARD ''FAMILY VALUES'' ALERT
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Sperm donor must pay child support

By Reggie Sheffield/The Patriot-News

Jodilynn Jacob (left) holds daughter Catie,3, with her partner Jennifer Schultz-Jacob. Catie was born after Jacob was artificially inseminated. ↓

Pennsylvania Patriot-News ~ Reggie Sheffield ** Sperm donor must pay child support

The judge ordered a dead guy to pay child support!

TV Shows Suck
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

TV Ratings Down Because Shows Suck

RUSH: You know, the television networks -- I have this story in the stack here -- say that two and a half million fewer people are watching primetime television this season than last. They're all trying to figure it out: "Why is this happening?" They're chalking it up to the early Daylight Savings Time. Early Daylight Savings Time, my rear end! Try, "the shows suck," maybe.

Rush Offers Katie Couric an Interview to Fix CBS' 20-Year, Record-Low Ratings

The interview of the century will boost those Nielsens.

Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV

NEW YORK -- Maybe they're outside in the garden. They could be playing softball. Or perhaps they're just plain bored. In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.

Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed.

Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn't fully equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring's ad-buying season.

"This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity.

The viewer plunge couldn't have come at a worse time for the networks -- next week they will showcase their fall schedules to advertisers in the annual "up front" presentations.

The networks argue that viewership is changing, not necessarily declining. Some advertisers respond that they are no longer willing to pay full price up front to reach viewers that may not tune in later.

This fall, both sides will be watching what happens with families like Tony Cort's. During prime-time, Cort, his wife and four kids tend to scatter to computers or other activities in different parts of their New Jersey home. (Not during "American Idol" or "Lost," though.) They're definitely watching less TV, said Cort, who runs a Web site for martial arts aficionados.

"I remember when `24' was on, that was something there was a lot of interest and excitement about," he said.

News flash: "24" is still on. Its ratings are down, too, amid a critically savaged season.

More bad news abounds. NBC set a record last month for its least- watched week during the past 20 years, and maybe ever -- then broke it a week later. This is the least popular season ever for CBS' "Survivor." ABC's "Lost" has lost nearly half its live audience -- more than 10 million people -- from the days it was a sensation. "The Sopranos" is ending on HBO, and the response is a collective yawn.

Events like "American Idol" on Fox (which is owned by News Corp.) and "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) are doing the most to prop up the industry. But still, in the six weeks after Daylight Savings Time started in early March, prime-time viewership for the four biggest broadcast networks was down to 37.6 million people, from 40.3 million during the same period in 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Millions of missing viewers could translate into millions of missing dollars for the networks heading into the up-front sales season.

Advertisers don't believe that the drop in viewership is as dramatic as the numbers suggest, but they're no longer willing to spend what they once did in the spring market, said Brad Adgate of Horizon Media, an ad buying firm. Johnson & Johnson and Coca-Cola sat out the spring market last year -- betting they could get lower prices later -- and it's likely other companies will do the same this year, he said.

The early start to Daylight Savings Time has hurt ratings. Prime-time viewership traditionally dips then as people do more things outside, and this year folks had a three-week head start to get into the habit of doing something else. More network reruns during March and April dampened interest, too.

"We let them get out of the habit of watching television a little bit, and it's going to take some time to get these people back in front of their television sets," said David Poltrack, chief researcher for CBS (owned by CBS Corp.).

Strategic decisions to send some popular serial dramas on long hiatuses appeared to backfire. NBC's "Heroes," CBS' "Jericho" and "Lost" lost significant momentum when they returned. Besides HBO's "The Sopranos," there are no lengthy countdowns toward the end of very popular series, unless you count "The King of Queens."

There also are technical reasons that this apparent diminished interest in television may be overstated.

This year, for the first time, Nielsen is measuring viewership in the estimated 17 percent of homes with digital video recorders -- but it only counts them in the ratings of a specific show if they watch it within 24 hours of the original air time.

If you recorded "Desperate Housewives" this spring and watched it two days later, you're not counted in the show's ratings. And you're not counted by Nielsen under any circumstances if you downloaded a show on iTunes and watched it on your iPod or cell phone, or streamed an episode from a network Web site.

Since last year's Nielsen sample contained no DVR homes and this year's sample does, logic dictates that fewer Nielsen families are watching TV live this year, deflating ratings.

"People are not consuming less television, they're watching it in different ways, and the measurements haven't caught up," said Alan Wurtzel, chief research executive at NBC (owned by General Electric Co.).

The numbers can be significant. When "The Office" aired on NBC on April 5, Nielsen said there were 5.8 million people watching. Add in the people who recorded the episode and watched it within the next week, and viewership swelled to 7.6 million, a 32 percent increase, Nielsen said.

"The Sopranos" is another interesting case study. For its first four episodes this season, the show averaged 7.4 million viewers for its weekly Sunday night premiere, down from 8.9 million at the same point its last season.

But HBO shows each new episode eight times a week. Between the multiple plays and DVR viewing, each episode this spring gets 11.1 million viewers, down from 13 million last year. And these figures don't count people who watch on demand.

Numbers for "The Sopranos" may be down because people can watch whenever they want. They may not be as interested in the show as they used to be -- or it could be a combination of both.

Television has made billions based on how many people watch a show at its regular time. That idea may already be obsolete. So should the industry use DVR viewing when setting ad rates? If so, how quickly must people watch the shows -- within two days? A week? What about people who watch shows on their cell phones or on network Web sites, which Nielsen doesn't measure yet? Later this month Nielsen will begin measuring how many people watch commercials. Should those be used to compute advertising costs?

Right now, none of those questions have answers.

However, "if we continue to do business assuming people will watch television as they always have," said NBC's Wurtzel, "it's a dead-end game."

Breitbart.com ~ Associated Press - David Bauder ** Data Says 2.5 Million Less Watching TV

Gas prices
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Gas station owner told to raise prices 

MERRILL, Wis. -- A service station that offered discounted gas to senior citizens and people supporting youth sports has been ordered by the state to raise its prices. Center City BP owner Raj Bhandari has been offering senior citizens a 2 cent per gallon price break and discount cards that let sports boosters pay 3 cents less per gallon.

But the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says those deals are too good: They violate Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price.

Bhandari said he received a letter from the state auditor in late April saying the state would sue him if he did not raise his prices. The state could penalize him for each discounted gallon he sold, with the fine determined by a judge.

Bhandari, who bought the station in May 2006, said he worries customers will think he stopped the discounts because he wants to make more money. About 10 percent of his customers had used the discount cards.

Dale Van Camp of Merrill said he bought a $50 card to support the local youth hockey program. It would have saved him about $100 per year on gas, he said.

Information from: Wausau Daily Herald
Yahoo News ~ Associated Press ** Gas station owner told to raise prices

Funny, I thought the Demented-crat party was supposed to be the party for the little guy and anti-big oil and all that.

(D) Jim Doyle -- Wisconsin governor. Also of note: Vetoed concealed carry. Has 'proposed' legislation taxing oil companies.

The state of Wisconsin is dictating the price and guess who takes the hit... the consumer and the station owner trying to benefit the community and his customers. Oh the wonders of government meddling in the free market.

Enviro-tards
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Children 'bad for planet'

Parents have been told to take the environment into account when having children.

Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: "The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

"The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

In his latest comments, the academic says that when couples are planning a family they should be encouraged to think about the environmental consequences.

"The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account," he added.

Professor Guillebaud says that, as a general guideline, couples should produce no more than two offspring.

The world's population is expected to increase by 2.5 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. Almost all the growth will take place in developing countries.

The population of developed nations is expected to remain unchanged and would have declined but for migration.

The British fertility rate is 1.7. The EU average is 1.5. Despite this, Professor Guillebaud says rich countries should be the most concerned about family size as their children have higher per capita carbon dioxide emissions.

Full coverage: Climate change in-depth
Australian Sunday Times ~ Sarah-Kate Templeton ** Children 'bad for planet'
Related: Environmentalist calls mankind a 'virus'
Gore sees 'spiritual crisis' in warming
Sheryl Crow: 'We have risen to great heights of arrogance in our refusal to acknowledge that the earth is changing'

Unrelated (Sanity): Prominent climate scientist calls warming fears 'absurd'