21 April 2008
News and Comments - 04/21/08
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: What's News .
42.7 PERCENT OF ALL STATISTICS ARE MADE UP ON THE SPOT.
23 Comments so far...
Jesse Says:
21 April 2008 at 12:22 am.
Sadr threatens ‘open war’ as Iraqi army attacks base
I wish I understood what our plan was over there. It’s hard to see how this will turn out well.
Fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr with their weapons next to a burnt-out Iraqi police vehicle in Basra
By Patrick Cockburn
Monday, 21 April 2008
Iraqi government forces, with US and British support, have moved into the Mehdi Army stronghold in Basra and have surrounded its main bastion in Baghdad as the Shia militia’s leader Muqtada al-Sadr threatened “open war”.
The Iraqi army, supported by US air strikes and British artillery, was able to advance into Basra against little resistance while there is still heavy fighting around Sadr City, a vast impoverished quarter of Baghdad in which some two million people are living.
“I’m giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government,” said Mr Sadr. “Either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace … or it will be [seen as] the same as the previous government [of Saddam Hussein].”
Cameron Says:
21 April 2008 at 5:27 am.
Carter seems to still be clueless. He says Hamas will accept the results of the referendum but the Hamas spokesman says not necessarily, which I translate as only if they approve of the results.
Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor
JERUSALEM - Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to “live as a neighbor next door in peace,” former President Jimmy Carter said Monday.
Carter said the group promised it wouldn’t undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Hamas, a militant Islamic group that both the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization, calls in its charter for Israel’s destruction. It has also traditionally opposed peace negotiations with the Jewish state.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter’s comments “do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/ap_on_re_mi_ea/carter_israel
Angela Rogin Says:
21 April 2008 at 10:15 am.
Carter gave away the Panama Canal. He is an appeaser and a bumbler.
SGS Says:
21 April 2008 at 10:26 am.
Is the number about statistics being made up on the spot for real?
Cameron Says:
21 April 2008 at 11:12 am.
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 21, 2008
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing.
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
“You can’t eat this every day. It’s too heavy,” a health care executive from Palo Alto, Sharad Patel, grumbled as his son loaded two sacks of the Basmati into a shopping cart. “We only need one bag but I’m getting two in case a neighbor or a friend needs it,” the elder man said.
The Patels seemed headed for disappointment, as most Costco members were being allowed to buy only one bag. Moments earlier, a clerk dropped two sacks back on the stack after taking them from another customer who tried to exceed the one-bag cap.
“Due to the limited availability of rice, we are limiting rice purchases based on your prior purchasing history,” a sign above the dwindling supply said.
Shoppers said the limits had been in place for a few days, and that rice supplies had been spotty for a few weeks. A store manager referred questions to officials at Costco headquarters near Seattle, who did not return calls or e-mail messages yesterday.
An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.
“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”
http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world
Cameron Says:
21 April 2008 at 11:17 am.
UN chief warns world must urgently increase food production
Apr 20 07:39 PM US/Eastern
By FRANCIS KOKUTSE
Associated Press Writer
ACCRA, Ghana (AP) - The U.N. chief warned Sunday that the world must urgently increase food production to ease skyrocketing prices and pledged to set up a task force on a crisis threatening to destabilize developing nations.
The cost of food has increased by around 40 percent since mid-2007 worldwide, and the strain has caused riots and protests in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt.
“We must make no mistake, the problem is big. If we offer the right aid, the solutions will come,” Ban said at the opening of a a five-day U.N. conference on trade and development in Ghana’s capital, Accra.
“One thing is certain, the world has consumed more than it has produced” over the last three years, he said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D905T9KG0&show_article=1
Joy Bischoff Says:
21 April 2008 at 11:27 am.
SGS, the caption at the top about statistics is just ironic comedy.
Cameron, I got a link to the Food Rationing article from a friend and was about to post it. You beat me, good job. Then I just heard Rush talk about this. I’m glad he is no longer pretending everything is fine because that doesn’t help us prepare.
Joy Bischoff Says:
21 April 2008 at 11:44 am.
Chuck emailed this column to me. It is sad that mostly only other blacks feel comfortable blasting Obama. We should be able to look at his politics without being called racist. He didn’t sent the link but I decided to share part of it anyway.
What a Black Columnist has to say about Obama.
Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun
The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him.
Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He’s not. He’s the next George McGovern. And it’s time people learned the facts.
Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.
Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he’s not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America . But let’s look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial ‘beauty.’
Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on ‘the rich.’ How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.
Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, ‘All praise and glory to God!’ but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have ‘hijacked’ - hijacked - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois , he refused to vote against a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood , and San Francis co values, not Middle America values.
The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don’t start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of ‘bringing America together’ means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.
But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they’re talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama’s radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton.
It’s time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let’s first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.
Subject: Kind of scary, wouldn’t you think
Remember–God is good, and is in time, on time–every time.
According to The Book of Revelations the anti-christ is:
The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal….the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many times as you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet…do it!
If you think I am crazy…I’m sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the ‘unknown’ candidate
Joy Bischoff Says:
21 April 2008 at 12:02 pm.
The following comments and article was sent from Edward Elsberry. I only shared part of the article but would recommend all of it by following the link.
Here comes the inevitable food storage we have talked about for years and now it is at our doors. Interesting how the biofuels are driving the price of corn and hence food up. The incredible thing about the alcohol is it is more expensive to produce than the finished product, playing into the tightly controlled petroleum scam. There is enough oil in Pudoe Bay Alaska for 200 years with huge discoveries in Antarctica and in our Florida and Gulf coasts which the Chinese have been pumping illegally for some time now. There are reserves right here in Utah and also enough low sulfur coal to turn into gas like the Germans did 50 years ago. It really is all about control and subjugation just like they have planned.
It really is about controlling the food to control the people.
Food costs hit home: Utahns are struggling to cope with skyrocketing prices
Record-high gas prices are detouring school custodian Fabian Hernandez to the food line.
“Gas prices are so high, I can’t get food,” the veteran of the Vietnam and Gulf wars said last week as he lined up outside Hildegarde’s Pantry in downtown Salt Lake for emergency food help. “That’s why I’m here today.”
Many Utahns have seen skyrocketing prices for gasoline and food staples make a dent in their wallets.
“I went grocery shopping yesterday. Are you kidding? It killed me,” said Cynthia Millar, a Murray mother of five who budgets about $650 for food each month. “I spent $750 yesterday — and I didn’t buy any meat. That’s for the month.”
Some people are altering budgets and habits to make ends meet. But it appears more and more Utahns have no place else to cut.
The Utah Food Bank’s 2-1-1 hotline this year has taken double the calls for food assistance than it did in the first quarter of 2007. Crossroads Urban Center served 44 percent more families last month than it did the same time a year ago. For Hildegarde’s Pantry, a ministry of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, that number increased nearly 50 percent.
Utahns also spent a record $13 million in food stamps in March.
Pickles Says:
21 April 2008 at 12:05 pm.
It is getting totally crazy out there.
CindyL. Says:
21 April 2008 at 12:13 pm.
That deseret news article was very interesting and makes me realize I’m not alone. It is hard for a college student to afford food now a days. I know it is actually worse in most other countries so I shouldn’t complain but it is harder.
Resident Liberal Says:
21 April 2008 at 12:37 pm.
Why are you people working so hard to panic everybody? It is irresponsible and fanatic and you should rethink your actions. It isn’t very bad out there and things will straighten out in a few months with the next harvest. Calm down everyone.
Cut out the junk food and you will be fine.
T. Fan Says:
21 April 2008 at 1:45 pm.
I’ve been waiting for one of you to blast this guy. Wake up out there.
Res Lib, nobody here is panicking. There is a big difference between panicking and ignoring reality. These articles they’ve been putting on here lately aren’t from kook websites, they are main stream news articles. A lot of them are from the UK but they are newspapers. Don’t you think people deserve to be informed? Are we suppose to blind ourselves to what is happening around us?
Resident Liberal Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:04 pm.
The reason the problem is getting a little worse is because places like this are telling people to hoard food and that creates the situation. Don’t hoard and everything will settle down.
The moderators here see a few articles about rice shortage in other countries and start writing about famine. It is a over reaction.
Mac Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:22 pm.
Know what bud, it didn’t happen that way. A couple of months ago Joy wrote about how she had been thinking people needed to have some food put away and settle their finances and stuff as much as they could in March because she thought food prices were going to go up a lot. The articles about food shortages didn’t start until a month after that.
A couple of weeks ago Terrie wrote something about wanting to set some food aside in case the time comes where there are some restrictions. Well now it looks like they were both right but I bet neither of them expected for it to start getting this serious so fast.
CindyL. Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:26 pm.
Even when they wrote about planting potatoes they said it was because with higher prices it would help the food budget to garden and not only that, the day would come when gardening skills would be valuable so this would be good practice. There was no time table for a total collapse or anything like that. Nobody is panicking. We are being responsible.
Saddened Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:32 pm.
Resident Liberal, the moderators are Mormons and they have been told by their church leaders for a long time that it is a good idea to have food storage. To them this isn’t hoarding it is being prepared so it really isn’t fair to say they are causing panic by hoarding. This is just what they do. A lot of other people, especially Christians who believe in End Time prophecies are starting to do the same thing.
Can you point out a blog where people are panicking on this site? I don’t remember any.
Jeezer Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:36 pm.
Can we say BIOFUELS? That is the whole freaking problem. We can’t put a third of our corn into fuel and not have it effect everything else. Even with the bad rice crops there would be corn we could share with all the hungry in the world if we weren’t being tricked by the global warming scam. Sure has been a cold spring.
E.E. Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:38 pm.
Bank of America Net Income Falls 77% on Writedowns
April 21 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., the second- largest U.S. bank, said profit dropped for a third straight quarter as the company set aside $6.01 billion for bad loans.
First-quarter net income declined 77 percent to $1.21 billion from $5.26 billion a year earlier, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank said today in a statement. The results fell short of analysts’ estimates and sent the bank’s stock down as much as 3 percent in New York trading.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaKDTHjFQDm4&refer=worldwide
E.E. Says:
21 April 2008 at 2:38 pm.
You are sure right about the biofuel being a huge part of the problem, Jeezer.
Irritated Says:
21 April 2008 at 4:38 pm.
I’m with R.L. If you focus on the positive then the negative won’t seem so bad.
Cameron Says:
21 April 2008 at 5:54 pm.
For most of the history of the world people had to be aware of circumstances around them. We have been living in a time when if people fall through the cracks, there are people there to catch them, pat them on the head and make everything all right. If the day comes that I can’t get food for my family, then probably lots of other people won’t either and there won’t be anyone there to catch us. I want to do what I can to make sure we are all right. It’s called being responsible. Sometimes here we write about being positive but also aware. We learn the facts then focus on living our life being happy and positive but we aren’t blind. We aren’t as scared because we are being proactive and planning for the future the best we can.
Cameron Says:
21 April 2008 at 5:57 pm.
Here is a case in point. We need to have a handle on where gas prices might go to make decisions on what car to buy, family vacations, juggling finances, but we don’t have to dwell on it or freak out.
Gasoline, diesel prices hit new records, says EIA
Monday April 21, 4:50 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The average price U.S. drivers paid for gasoline soared to a new high of $3.51 a gallon, rising 11.9 cents over the last week, the federal Energy Information Administration said on Monday.
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