Euro Crisis Deepens

The IMF is calling on Greece to refinance their debt. The growing realization that despite the bailout of €110 billion (US $158.5 billion), holders of Greek sovereign bonds will have to take losses.

Indeed, the most recent analysis by the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB on the issue of whether Greece will be able to refinance its debts by itself came to an alarming conclusion. The study found that the country's economy is contracting more than previously feared and that one of the main causes behind the contraction was the harsh austerity measures that the government has been forced to introduce in return for receiving outside assistance. As a result, the public deficit in Greece has climbed even higher than previously assumed.

The article in Der Spiegel concludes, "Indeed, on the whole, those in charge of rescuing the euro in Brussels and Europe's capitals have done a poor job."

The European Central Bank (ECB) warns that restructuring would hit banks that hold a lot of Greek debt hard. And that includes the ECB who bought up several billions of Greek sovereign debt. Greece is paying between 5 and 6 percent for the loans. There are still worries about Spain and now Beligum needing bailouts. Belgium is in the top fifth of over-borrowed nations globally.

As with several Mediterranean countries, Belgium was a huge beneficiary of joining the euro (it was the first to do so) because the implicit German guarantee allowed heavy borrowing at much lower interest rates.

Source: Business Insider (July 2010) that notes that "Much to the dislike of most politicians across Europe, Brussels is the de facto Federal Capital." Some 40% of the population comes from outside Belgium as bureaucrats and lobbyists from all over Europe.

Belgium has been without a government for 302 days. NPR

Ivory Coast Civil War UPDATE

BBC's UN correspondent asks, "Did UN forces take sides in Ivory Coast?" as he reports on the U.N. helicopters bombing of Gbagbo's arsenal.

"What is clear is that if the UN continues to sanction military interventions in national conflicts, there will be continuing questions about whether it is acting to protect civilians, or using humanitarian justifications as a smokescreen to force political change."

Election Results Wisconsin

With 204 votes separating them,  on Wednesday, JoAnne Kloppenburg declared victory and issued a statement thanking Supreme Court judge Prosser for his service and vowing to be an impartial judge. Report from Wisconsin State Journal (April 8)
- Interestingly, the vote count reported in the story in Dane County, county seat of the state capitol at Madison, was:
133,513 or 73.3% of the vote For Kloppenburg
  38,627 or 26.6% of the vote for Prosser

In the 2010 Election for governor in Dane County, the vote was
148,380 or 67.96% for Barrett
  62,728 or 30.97 % for Walker
Source: Dane County Clerk's Office     link

That was before the Waukesha votes were corrected. They were not entered due to a database save error but the bipartisan commission caught this error during regular vote canvasing. The chairman of the WI DNC was there and corroborated the vote canvasing.

Press Conference video WI DNC vice chair speaks at 13:00 min
Ramona Kitzinge said, "We're satisfied that it's correct." and "I am with the Democrat party vice chairman of the Waukesha Democrats and I am not going to stand here and tell you something that's not true."

There will be a recount, probably several.

TODAY in the news April 8

Setting the ground rules. The legal team for Dr. Conrad Murray asked a judge to prohibit any mention of the physician's extramarital affairs, out-of-wedlock children or penchant for strip clubs at his manslaughter trial next month in the death of Michael Jackson. The lawyers plan to make Michael Jackson's financial woes central to their case, but do not want the fact known that Murray owed a host of creditors and was behind in child support for some of the six children he had fathered with four women that the prosecution wants to show how desperate Murray was to keep his job with Jackson. STORY Los Angeles Times (April 8)

---

Remember that Gay Caveman Found story? Turns out he wasn't gay or a caveman. He was a "third gender" and a pre-Bronze Age farmer. He might even have been a shaman.
FOUND at LiveScience (April 8)
-- Or it might have been a media agenda thing.

---

How's that Marxism going? Not too well in Venezuela where a blackout hit much of the country. Venezuela said it was due to a forest fire. Last year Venezuelans had blackouts for months when government said cutbacks were necessary during a drought.
Report    FROM Associated Press (April 8)

---

Florida proposes budget cuts of $4 billion. AT at Orlando Sentinel (April 8)
-- In comparing the budget cuts, the newspaper puts the emphasis on health and school cuts, listing the very large savings of $700 million on public-employee pension below the scroll.
-- If Florida can cut $4 billion from their budget, why is the administration shutting down the Federal government over a dispute over cuts of only $12.5 billion?

---

Texas House approves 85-mile speed limit. Not on all highways. "Texas and Utah are the only states that now allow speed limits of 80 miles per hour." STORY FROM Orlando Sentinel (April 7)

---

The biggest drug dealing organizations. "A top U.S. State Department anti-narcotics official said Thursday that Colombia's leftist rebels and the Taliban are among the world's largest drug-trafficking organizations." ITEM Associated Press (April 7)
-- Someone should ask who is proving support to those organizations.

---

UPDATED Mexican Violence Continues  Police found more than 40 bodies in eight pits found in a Mexican graves 80 miles from Brownsville. It is the same area where police found the bodies of 72 migrants shot to death August 24. Source: Houston Chronicle (April 6) The count is now up to 58 59.   Police found the bodies while looking for abducted bus passengers.   Brownsville Herald story (April 6)
Investigators have found an additional 13 bodies in two more mass graves. AP story (April 8)

---

Planned Parenthood spent over $1 million electing Democrats in 2010. Story at Washington Examiner (April 8)
-- No wonder Democrats don't want it defunded.

---

How are those wars going?

LIBYA by U.S., U.N. and France
A top US general told a Senate hearing that it was unlikely that Libya's rebel forces could launch an assault on Tripoli and oust the regime's leader Moamer Kadhafi. AFP (April 7) Ham said the operation was largely a stalemate now and was more likely to remain that way now that America has transferred control to NATO. AP (April 7)

In Libya, Rebel forces said NATO airstrikes hit them. AP (April 7)

First it was Nato airstrikes, now the story is "Gadhafi plane evades NATO no-fly zone, bombs rebel tanks" - three Russian tanks. McClatchy (April 7)
UPDATE April 8 McClatchy now says it was a NATO strike, but that they didn't know the tanks which were captured from Gadaffi were in rebel hands. (THIS, despite the fact that their original story said NATO had instructed rebels to paint captured tanks yellow on top. Despite that, there are stories about the rebels who were killed. And, from McClatchy, an unrepentant NATO who refuse to apologize, although AFP reports that NATO 'regrets" bombing. AFP: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rassmussen issued the apology after the operation's deputy commander, British Rear Admiral Russell Harding, refused to apologize. AFP also reports that the rebels themselves admitted its fighters had made a "mistake" by firing tracers in the air, prompting warplanes to act in self-defence. (You would not know that from the lurid stories in the Daily Mail or McClatchy.) (April 8)

---

IVORY COAST by U.N. and France
"Many foreign journalists and senior diplomats from Japan, Israel and India on Wednesday sought US help to flee a besieged neighborhood in Ivory Coast's capital Abidjan, a US official said." AFP story (April 7) Ghabago holds on against former IMF economist's mercenaries. Civil War is virtually assured. France is now involved in six wars in Africa.

UPDATE April 8 - 100 bodies were found, "possibly burned alive" and the U.N. claims it is the work of Nigerian mercenaries and "at least partly ethnically motivated." (No information on who employed the Nigerian mercenaries, but the BBC identifies 244 dead as "traditional Gbagbo supporters.") MSNBC made no mention of the identity of the victims. AFP reported that reports of massacres "emerged as Ouattara's forces swept through the region on their way to confronting Gbagbo.

---

DIPLOMATIC WAR by U.S. and Ecuador
US expels Ecuador ambassador in tit-for-tat move AFP (April 7) "Ambassador Luis Gallegos was summoned to the State Department which declared him persona non grata and asked him to leave the United States as soon as possible..." It was in retaliation for the explusion by Ecuador of US Ambassador Heather Hodges who was quoted in a cable leaked by WikiLeaks as saying President Rafael Correa knowingly appointed a corrupt chief of police. New York Times on her expulsion: "The expulsion of Ms. Hodges raised new doubts about American diplomacy in Latin America. Washington has had relatively warm ties with Mr. Correa, especially compared with its tense relationships with Bolivia and Venezuela, two leftist allies of Ecuador that have also expelled their American envoys." The United States is "also suspending suspending the bilateral dialogue, which had been scheduled for June.

In the News April 7

In the U.K. former environment minister Elliot Morley, a Labour MP, pleaded guilty to false accounting for £32,000 in expense claims. He served under Tony Blair as environment minister from 2003 to 2006. Story: The Telegraph (UK) Three others have been sentenced and one Tory MP is awaiting sentencing for expense-related crimes.
The Taxpayers Alliance is following this and many other stories. Link

Corruption in ICE

March 21 - Constantine Peter Kallas, 40, a senior lawyer at the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for taking bribes to help immigrants fill out false paperwork to remain legally in this country. From initial arrest reports, "Some $950,000 more than Constantine Kallas earned at the Department of Homeland Security has been deposited into his bank account since 2000, according to a search warrant." ABA Journal

In the News April 6

Undercover police in Honolulu arrest Richard Titcomb, 49, described as Obama's close friend in undercover prostitution sting. Source: Hawaii News Now (April 6)

---

Detroit's former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, has been transferred from a federal prison to the state prison for a parole hearing. His mother is former Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick. Source: Detroit Free Press (April 6)
He might not be free long. He has been indicted by the Feds on another 38 charges of corruption.

---

Also in Detroit, Rev. Michael Reeves, 33, a member of the Police Commission arrested after a single-car crash, now faces drunken-driving and weapons charges. Source: Detroit News (April 6)

---

In the meantime, Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers "says she misses helping city residents as she serves a 37-month prison sentence for corruption." Source: Detroit News (March 11)
-- She is the wife of U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D) former head of the House Committee on the Judiciary before the 2010 election.  He is still a member of the committee,  a fact that doesn't show up on his Wikipedia page at all.

---

Charity Probes   Madonna denies report of FBI probe into charity; some stars on edge Source: Chicago Sun (April 6)

---

Fallout continues in Academia. It's not just their involvement in rehabbing Libya's image in response to a Harvard-professors founded PR company request. "A generation of Ivy League economists was enjoying both professional esteem and financial industry paychecks until the Wall Street crisis of 2008 made them look pretty dumb, if not venal." Bloomberg Business Week (April 7) asked "What was lost when some of America's finest scholars got paid to buff the Libyan dictator's image?"

DODGING ANOTHER BULLET

BUMPED from yesterday.

PORTUGAL ADMITS IT NEEDS A BAILOUT ...  "because of austerity measures."
Daily Mail (UK) April 6
It is believed they need up to £70billion.   (Or more. "Analysts expect Portugal will need up to €80bn (£69.6bn) - compared with €85bn for Ireland and €110bn for Greece.")
-- The austerity measures never took effect because  Parliament refused to enact them which led to the Prime Minister's resignation on March 23.  Germany has been pressing Portugal to take the bailout.  The reason is simple: most of Portugal's debt is owed to German and French banks.   "German and French banks have lent nearly $1 trillion to the most troubled European countries and are more exposed to the debt crisis than the banks of any other countries." Source: New York Times  (Jun 13, 2010)

THE PHONY ARMY

Mercenaries could be drafted into Libya to help rebel forces because British military chiefs believe the war against Colonel Gaddafi cannot be won with air strikes alone.

Senior commanders have told David Cameron that the rebels lack the numbers and the organisation to oust the dictator without fresh arms supplies and professional military expertise.

Source: Daily Mail (UK) April 6
-- Which makes the rebels, what? A phony army.  But it's really the oil the French and British want to secure.  Not liberty nor removal of a half-crazed nutcase like Momar Gaddafi who shot down Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie.   Not freedom for Libyans, nor "democracy" for a country that has no democratic institutions to maintain freedom.  A poster at the story remarked, "So our "humanitarian" mission now involves us pumping up a civil war using mercenaries because otherwise it might stop." Uh huh. And make no mistake, it would be a civil war because deposing Gaddafi is just the beginning.

MORE DISCLOSURES about those TARP funds

Bloomberg News is continuing to release details of the Fed lending that helped more foreign banks than American ones. The House subcommittee that oversees the Fed plans hearings on the central bank’s discount window lending to offshore financial institutions next month.

Overseas banks accounted for about 70 percent of discount window loans when borrowing reached its peak of $113.7 billion in October 2008 according to the Fed’s data.

-- That data was only released after Bloomberg and News Corp (Fox news) won a lawsuit to command the release.  And there is worse. Especially for German banks.

TODAY in the news

POOR BELGIUM    Not only are they still without a government, but they have been referred by the EU Environment Commissioner to the European courts for failing to comply with air-quality standards set by the European Union. Official Wire (April 6)
-- "Ve can impose anythink we like. You cannot resist."  (Which is pretty much damned true of every country in the European Union, whether or not they have an installed government,  because proportional representation guarantees the governments don't represent the majority and politicians have already sold out their voters and their country's sovereignty.)

---

RELEVANT STORY
"Should the world be more like Belgium?" from the Malaysian Insider (March 30)

This is a European country riven by ethnic tensions. Its public debt is almost as big as its total annual output and it’s in the middle of a political crisis so deep that this week it passes Iraq as the modern-day state whose politicians have taken the longest to form a government.

They ask:  "Would some countries work better without a government? Could the world learn something from Belgium’s experience?"  
-- Consumer confidence in Belgium is up, which just might be a clue.

---

Mea Culpa AND CAN WE HAVE A TRADE AGREEMENT?  CAN WE?  CAN WE?
U.K. Prime Minister DAVID CAMERON on a visit to India said that Britain caused many of the world's problems. Daily Mail (April 5)
U.K. reporter and blogger Nile Gardiner responds: "David Cameron should learn from Barack Obama’s disastrous apology tour" Daily Mail (UK) (April 6) " The Prime Minister should look carefully at the damage done by President Obama’s frequent apologies on behalf of the United States, which have provoked a furious backlash and widespread derision at home, and have significantly weakened America’s standing abroad."

In his first year in office, Barack Obama succeeded in apologising for his country to nearly 3 billion people across Europe, the Muslim world, and Latin America, a staggering achievement. From Cairo to Strasbourg to Ankara, Obama made a point of dragging his own nation’s name through the mud.

---

TURKEY, THE NEWESTS ISLAMIST STATE?   Bernard Lewis thought it was a possibility in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. Now, Arrested Journalist's Book Claims Turkish Police Infiltrated by Islamic Movement Der Spiegel (April 6)

---

SOME OF US ALREADY KNEW IT   "The ugly truth about Obama advisor Samantha Power" - Washington Examiner article   (April 6)

---

PUBIC EDUCATION (not a typo) In Henrico, Va, it was Career Day at an elementary school. So a plastic surgeon brought -- breast implants for the kids to feel. - from NBC12 (April 5)
-- The school rates a 10 at Greatschools.org so the parents are doing something right. Next thing they should do is vote for better school board members.   And oust the principal who doesn't think that such a demonstration is a problem.

---

BLOCKBUSTER BARGAIN SALE Dish network bought bankrupt Blockbuster, the Viacom spinoff, for $321 million. From Yahoo Daily Ticker (April 6)

TODAY in the news

It's now 295 days that Belgium has been without a government. (See post)

---

Former Planned Parenthood director quit in disgust over their emphasis on abortion as industrial production. She writes today in The Hill:

Planned Parenthood’s bottom line is numbers. And, with abortion as its primary money-maker, that means implementing a quota. I know this is true because I worked at one of their Texas clinics for 8 years, two as the clinic director.

"Planned Parenthood gets one-third of its entire budget from taxpayer funding and performed more than 650,000 abortions between 2008 and 2009."
Read the whole thing.

---

Obama drops sanctions against the Lockerbie mastermind. Daily Mail(UK) article (March 5)
"The Obama administration has been accused of ‘rewarding terrorism’ after dropping financial sanctions against the former Libyan foreign minister who defected to Britain."

---

Libyan rebels exporting $130 million in oil to buy weapons. To England, France, Italy and Qatar. Story at Daily Mail (UK) (March 5)

---

New York reportedly has tens of thousands of dead voters on the rols, including the long-dead Walter Conkite, Lena Horne, Natasha Richardson, Frank McCourt, among others. The Board of Elections likes it that way.

And all those dead voters add up. To run for public office, one must first collect signatures from 5 percent of the district's registered voters. That thousands of dead voters are still included in the count makes that much more difficult, especially for newcomers challenging incumbents.

New York Post article (April 3)

---

Female teacher gets up to 30 years for sex with student. The Salt Lake Tribune (April 4) Valynne Bowers, 41, pleaded guilty to sex with 14-year-old student. She is one of two teachers convicted of having sex with the same student.

---

Whining Rebels in Libya slam NATO over Misrata's plight. AFP (April 5)

---

It's Sarah Palin's fault. Again. Tiny Fey blames Anger Over Sarah Palin Impressions for Low Ratings of '30 Rock' Yahoo Contributor Network (April 5)

Connecting the dots

What Florida public-university presidents are paid Orlando Sentinel article (April 3)

Highest paid public-university presidents nationwide (April 3)

Sob story on budget cuts: Thousands could lose health care in Florida's $1 billion budget cuts   From the Orlando Sentinel (April 5)    The newspaper does not seem to be able to connect the dots.

Dumber than Dirt

I've said it before. If you live in Baltimore, you are dumber than dirt.

For tolerating corruption you might find in a Third World theocracy. For accepting consecutive administrations who don't reform the system and educators who don't educate. And newspapers that don't expose the rot.

Lately, Baltimore has been touting their 66 percent graduation rate - that probably isn't. That is being challenged by a retired teacher who wrote a letter telling how those numbers were inflated in recent years. Commenters at the post agree. Another letter from an adjunct at a local community college illustrates the point.

For the current semester, my college is running 63 sessions, 20 students each, of Basic Writing I and Basic Writing II. These are remedial classes for the 1,260 students who could not test into English Composition. Additionally, a recent study completed at my college indicates that 20 percent of students in Basic Writing I cannot even read or write at a sixth grade level.

He concludes: "I know that for the students I encounter, their high school graduation means very little in real academic terms. They were robbed of an education, and they don't even know it."

A Little Late Now

Headline: Libya: Gaddafi removal 'risks power vacuum' Daily Telegraph (UK)
The quote is from Moussa Ibrahim, Gaddafi spokesman. At least someone said it.

THOUGHT: If the U.N., the U.S. and the EU can decide which heads of state should "go," what precludes others from deciding that the heads of the U.N., the U.S. or the EU should go by any means necessary?

---

Confused Thinking or Opportunism?
From the Daily Telegraph (UK): Official figures show that since 2009, Britain approved export licences worth £2.3billion to 16 states over a 21-month period. Including the export of "sniper rifles, bullets, tear gas and other ‘crowd control’ ammunition to Tripoli shortly before the murderous dictator ordered his military to crush a pro-democracy uprising."

"Military export licenses to Libya alone since the start of 2009 totalled £61.3million, according to Department for Business figures." Also arms licenses totalling £1.7billion to Saudi Arabia, £20.4million to Egypt, £276.9million to Algeria and £52.8million to the United Arab Emirates.

That was before on March 29, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicholas Sarkozy "Gaddafi must go." Source: The Guardian

USELESS SODS & INTERFERING BASTARDS

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE UNITED NATIONS. The U.N. backed Alassane Ouattara for president of the Ivory Coast. Quattara won the election. But the incumbent president refuses to go.

Quattara is muslim and is from north Ivory Coast, where most of the immigrants live. He earned a doctorate in economics in the United States 1967 and worked as both Africa Director of the International Monetary Fund and as governor of the regional Central Bank of West African State. He previously had backed a coup that lead to a civil war in 2002 where the militias supporting him were alleged "to have perpetrated human rights abuses." Despite that, the U.N. backed him in the election last November.

On Saturday, the U.N. accused the militia fighting to install Quattara of "extra-judicial executions" of more than 330 people in Duekoue. The International Red Cross says about 800 people were killed in an operation by pro-Ouattara forces in the town last Tuesday.

March 31 - The European Union and United States imposed sanctions on incumbent Gbagbo in an effort to make him leave office. The U.N., in a resolution proposed by France and Nigeria, passed Resolution 1975 demanding Gbagbo step down.

Quattara has accepted help from a northern-based rebel group, whose members make up the majority of the fighters now assaulting Abidjan.

April 2 - Aid workers find 1,000 bodies in Duekoue. "The apparent massacre came despite the presence of United Nations troops..."

April 3 - US renews call to ICoast's Gbagbo to quit ""The path forward is clear," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said early Sunday. Gbagbo "must leave now so the conflict may end."

LATEST: April 3 - UN and French peacekeepers have taken control of Abidjan airport.
Arpil 3 - U.N. evacuating 200 employees.

And isn't that just the story of the U.N, France, and Africa?

Sunday

STILL COUNTING.   It's now 293 days that Belgium has been without a government. Story from the AP.

ANOTHER COLLAPSING COALITION GOVERNMENT IN EUROPE.   This time it is in Kosovo. Story from the Daily Telegraph (UK)

IRISH CREDITWORTHINESS IS NEAR JUNK BOND STATUS.     "The new “BBB+” rating puts Ireland on the same level as Thailand and the Bahamas in terms of creditworthiness." Story from the Irish Times.

NO WONDER THE MEDIA LOVED GHANDI. A new biography of Mahatma Gandhi has suggested that he had a homosexual relationship with a Jewish German body builder, Hermann Kallenbach. The author is  a Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times foreign and executive editor. Story from the Irish Times.
             There is something familiar about this manufactured controversy that is eerily similar to the the deliberate misinterpretation in a recent biography of the flowery Victorian style of writing employed by Eleanor Roosevelt  to suggest she was a lesbian.   It might be pointed out that Joseph Lelyveld, the author of the Ghandi biography, has never been married himself and he is 74 years old. Which might suggest to some that he's just another self-validating gay looking to justify his lifestyle by finding homosexuality in everyone else.  (Bio information from the Jewish Virtual Library.)

SPEAKING OF LIBEL.     Israel is asking the United Nations to repeal the Goldstone Report, a scathing U.N. report published in 2009 that severely criticized Israel and accused them of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity for deliberately killing civilians. Richard Goldstone who chaired the committee that published the report had  recommended   that such war crimes allegations be brought before the International Criminal Court.  However, in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Saturday, he said his most serious accusation against Israel -- that it deliberately targeted civilians -- appeared to have been wrong.
 Story Boston Globe.
     His bad.   Goldstone is a retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the disastrous and frequently farcial U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia. (One trial took seven years and is still not solved.  And  there was the trial of Slobodan Milosevic that lasted five years and only ended when he died of a heart attack.)   Goldstone was also chief prosecutor for the Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda that have been ongoing for 16 years and resulted in the conviction of 29 people for the death of 800,000 Rwandans who died in 1994.
     Goldstone's op ed piece (I can only link to cached version at this time.)   included this: " I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted."

Kind of  optimistic of Goldstone considering the United Nations General Assembly was chaired at the time by Libya. (Remember when Gadaffi wanted the U.N. to break up Switzerland, giving half to France and half to Belgium. And then there was that horrendous speech to the United Nations.)

YOU MEAN IT WILL ACTUALLY COST MONEY???!!!     Remember that carbon tax proposed by the greenies and the environmental goons and the Obama administration that didn't go into effect? Turns out that in Australia a Freedom of Information request yielded the anticipated cost figures there for implementing a carbon tax. It's $16.60AUD ($17.26US) a week, or $863AUD ($897US) a year, for the average household. Story Sydney Morning Herald.
     The carbon tax was always planned as a redistribution of wealth from sovereign nations to international world government types. Our own U.S. Senate, dominated by the Left as it is, wouldn't implement it. And in Australia, elections in New South Wales last week dumped the Labor party, leaving the coalition Prime Minister of Australia who broke a key election promise that it wouldn't introduce a carbon tax in its current term, in a precarious position.

"Sometimes we all make mistakes."     Baltimore County, MD. Turns out that a recent appointee to the Baltimore County Planning Board is a convicted felon who served time for misappropriating $300,000. It wasn't a mistake. Howard L. Perlow said he discussed the matter with County Executive Kevin Kamenetz (Democrat) who appointed him. After his guilty plea Perlow was disbarred. He was pardoned in 2002 by then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening (Democrat).

County Council member Kenneth Oliver (Democrat) thought Perlow had paid his debt to society. Council Council member Todd Huff (Republican) is the author of the quote.

In the meanwhile,(March 29, 2011) the president of the Baltimore County police union, a 27-year veteran with the department, was charged with hitting and pulling a gun on a limousine driver during a confrontation in Parkville. Fraternal Order of Police officials said the charges will not affect Weston's status in the labor organization.

Good Reading

From Max Hastings at the Daily Mail (UK): A nation divided: Britain is no longer split by class. Instead the social chasm is between taxpayers and the public sector

Watching TV images of the marchers snake through the capital, I reflected that they should rightfully have been wearing wigs and powder, because they are the modern-day counterparts of pre-Revolution French aristocrats, enjoying advantages such as the rest of us can only dream of.

Once upon a time ‘civil servants’, as they were called before both words became satirical, enjoyed lifelong job security, to compensate for the fact that they received much more modest financial rewards than their private-sector counterparts.

Read the whole thing. Then look at Wisconsin.

Colonel Gaddafi's son was given help with his 'dodgy' PhD thesis by Britain's ambassador to the United States. Daily Mail (UK)

Classic understatement: "The doctorate awarded him by the London School of Economics was already thought suspect because he followed it with a £1.5million donation."
Curious: "He has served in Moscow - which he had to leave in a hurry after the car he was driving hit and killed a pedestrian - the U.S. in the 1980s and Brussels." How many people did he kill?

TODAY in the news

Insane headline of the day.
Gaddafi forces pound Misrata as retreating rebels set out their terms for a ceasefire

Angry AND stupid. Katherine R. Windels, 26, was charged with two felony counts and two misdemeanor counts accusing her of making email threats against Wisconsin lawmakers. She emailed long, detailed threats to 15 (Reuter says 19) Republican legislators. The state's Division of Criminal Investigation quickly identified her. (Mar 11)
And biased. "Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne, a Democrat, filed charges just hours after Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's office expressed concern (Mar 31) he'd not done so."
She's not identified in newspapers as...
She is - wait for the shoe - a teacher who specializes as an early childhood.
via UrbanGrounds
A copy of the email at story in comments.
Wisconsin Journal Sentinel makes sure to note that Democrats also received death threats. But it doesn't seem awfully credible. The state Division of Criminal Investigation surely would have found one person by now.

Prison Inmates Wrongly Recieve [sic] Unemployment
The Legislative Audit Bureau found Wisconsin prison inmates wrongly received at least $250,000 in federal unemployment and food stamp benefits.

In Ohio, the governor signed legislation that would effectively bar the faculties of Ohio public colleges from unionizing. Source: Inside Higher Education They called it an anti-union bill.
Previous entry.

What a difference an election makes

From the House Financial Services Committee:    What’s REALLY in the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill? Lots of Bailouts

More of the same chummy bailouts. With our tax dollars.
Lots more at the House Financial Services website.

This, BTW, is the same committee that was previously chaired by Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank who allowed the bank crisis to develop. And got the U.S. Federal Reserve to bail out (see post above) their European friends.

Leaking OutGuess who the Feds bailed out? Not our banks.

UPDATE - (Mar 1) Bloomberg reports that foreign banks accounted for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record.

In addition, six European banks were among the top 11 companies that sold the most debt overall -- a combined $274.1 billion -- to the Commercial Paper Funding Facility.   Who didn't borrow is the biggest question.