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Politics seems to trump all, even in a newly formed “democratic” government:

In an illustration of its growing muscle in Iraq as U.S. influence wanes, anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr‘s movement has won pardons for at least 50 prisoners jailed for crimes including murder, kidnapping and attacks on U.S. troops.

The amnesties come at a time when U.S. forces remaining in Iraq have faced an increased number of attacks, many by Shiite Muslim militias associated with the Sadr movement. And they have angered some senior Iraqi officials, who charge that the law is being applied selectively and bent to fit a hidden political agenda.

Only a few Iraqi officials are aware of the pardons, granted by President Jalal Talabani at the request of the Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who needs the backing of Sadr’s movement to stay in power.

Among those freed are prisoners who were convicted under anti-terrorism laws, crimes for which the Iraqi Constitution specifically forbids granting a pardon. At least three prisoners were serving life sentences; some were arrested during U.S. military operations.

There are a couple of issues that are troubling about Maliki requesting these pardons.

First, just the act of asking for pardons for prisoners not officially eligible for them shows just how low Maliki has sunk.  His willingness to bend the law in order to gain political backing stinks of a corrupt politician willing to do whatever he can to save his own skin.

Second,  where will Maliki’s willingness to do favors for the Sadr movement end?  If he cooperates with these requests from the Sadr movement, which has backing from Iran, how much more will be asked of him at Sadr’s, and perhaps Iran’s, behest? And will Maliki refuse if he thinks his political life is on the line?  Judging by his actions so far, the answer to this last question seems to be, “No.”

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the ailing Lockerbie bomber freed by Scotland nearly two years ago, showed up on Libyan TV Tuesday at a pro-government rally in Tripoli.[...]

 

The latest politician to throw his hat into the sex scandal ring is Democrat David Wu from Oregon.  You know who he is.  He’s the Representative who claimed that he dressed up in a tiger costume   to play with his kids. Sadly, he thought he looked so good in that costume that he sent a pic of himself  to his staff.  That, along with some other strange behavior, was enough to send his staff running for the exits.

Mr. Wu’s latest antics involve an alleged unwanted sexual encounter with the daughter of a “longtime friend and campaign donor.”    Ew.  Kinda Creepy.  It’s a typical he said/she said situation, and he claims it was consensual.  My personal opinion on the matter is that it’s still somewhat distasteful to be involved with a friend’s daughter, even if it’s consensual.

To make matters worse is that  this so-called ”woman” reported as being the recipient of Wu’s advances graduated from high school in 2010.  That would make her what? 18, maybe 19? Yes, that’s definitely a stomach turner.  Adding bonus points to the nausea  factor is the realization that this girl’s parent has been a “longtime”  friend of Wu’s and therefore, Wu must have known her when she was younger, perhaps much younger than her present age of consent.  Anyone else getting an uncomfortable Woody Allen vibe here?

Wu’s press secretary said there will be a statement issued on the matter.  It should be interesting given that similar charges were leveled against Wu back in the seventies.  Can it be purely coincidental that something like this has happened again?

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The American taxpayer finally made it out of Chrysler’s business today after the U.S. government sold its final holdings in the company to Fiat to the tune of $560 million.  This final sell-off brings Chrysler’s reimbursement to the U.S. taxpayer to a grand total of $11.2 billion.  That’s  a whopping $1.3 billion short of the company’s total received bailout. Would you call flushing $1.3 billion of the taxpayers’ money down the drain a success?  Not if you were sane. But from the federal government’s viewpoint,  success and failure are defined by alternative means. 

As it has indicated before, Treasury is unlikely to recover the remaining $1.3 billion. But Tim Massad, the Treasury assistant secretary who oversees the TARP program, declared the bailout a success.

“With today’s closing, the U.S. government has exited its investment in Chrysler at least six years earlier than expected,” he said. “This is a major accomplishment and further evidence of the success of the administration’s actions to assist the US auto industry, which helped save a million jobs during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

Ah yes, saving Chrysler’s union jobs. That’s what the bailout was about , right?  Well, bailing out Chrysler jobs might have been good for the unions, but overall,  I’d say it was an loss for the American taxpayer.

While Chrysler had the feds to float them some cash to keep its jobs from disappearing, do you know who had really great job security in the face of the worst economic downturn we’ve seen in decades? I’ll give you two guesses and the first one doesn’t count.  It’s none other than the federal government itself!

Keeping federal employees employed might be one of the very few things this administration has done successfully. Notice I didn’t say it was something this administration had done “correctly.”  In fact, job security must be job one in Washington, D.C. because, according to this article, if you work for the federal government in our nation’s capital, you may be more likely to die than to be fired.

Death — rather than poor performance, misconduct or layoffs — is the primary threat to job security at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Management and Budget and a dozen other federal operations.

The federal government fired 0.55% of its workers in the budget year that ended Sept. 30 — 11,668 employees in its 2.1 million workforce. Research shows that the private sector fires about 3% of workers annually for poor performance, says John Palguta, former research chief at the federal Merit Systems Protection Board, which handles federal firing disputes.

On the eve of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s carbon tax package announcement, psychologists and scientists said the lessons were alarmist, created unneeded anxiety among school children and endangered their mental health.

[...]

Australian National University’s Centre for the Public Awareness of Science director Dr Sue Stocklmayer said climate change had been portrayed as “Doomsday scenarios with no way out”.

Dr Stocklmayer said she was not a climate-change sceptic but worried that “too much time was spent presenting scary scenarios, especially to young people”.

“(Children) feel incredibly despondent and helpless in the face of all this negative information,” she said. “To put all of this before our children … is one of the most appalling things we can do to (them).

“The public is suffering from enormous fatigue on negative information … rather than say polar bears are going to die, we have to look locally at addressing solutions.”

[...]

“When you repeat things over and over to young people who don’t have the cognitive maturity and emotional maturity to process this stuff, you end up creating unnecessary anxiety,” he said.

Federal Schools Minister Peter Garrett said the government would not stop the teaching of climate science, despite moves in Britain for the subject to be withdrawn.

In a video on climate change funded by the state government, one teacher from a public school in Sydney’s southwest explained: “Students are being bombarded from all sides about climate change … it can be a very scary thing (for) a child.”

Thanks for the great work you global warming alarmists!  Why don’t you just tell the kids they’re going to be blown up if they don’t comply!

First, they learn how to walk through automatic doors. Then, the  next thing you know is they’ll be asking their bigger, badder relatives to lock us up in cages.

If  you’re ever in New Delhi and have to go to the hospital, you might want to check under your doctor’s mask to make sure he’s human:

The compromised wards include the neurosurgery department and nearby patient recovery rooms, which the monkeys often invade, snatching food, terrorising medical staff and playing around with sensitive equipment.

I don’t think these are going to be big sellers (price, space issues), but it’s cool to watch them anyhow.

A previously redacted immigration document obtained via a FOIA by author Sally Jacobs states that the President’s parents were planning on having their unborn child adopted by the Salvation Army:

“Subject got his USC [United States citizen] wife ‘Hapai’ [Hawaiian for pregnant] and although they were married they do not live together and Miss Dunham is making arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away,’’ wrote Lyle H. Dahling, an administrator in the Honolulu immigration office, on April 12, 1961.

The memo was obtained under a freedom of information request by Sally Jacobs, whose book about Mr Obama Snr – The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father – is due to be published next week.

Arizona’s governor, Jan Brewer, said that by the end of the year, Amazon will employ 3000 Arizonans and will have invested $150 million in the state. 

So, from one struggling state to another, thanks California, we couldn’t have done this without you!