“It is amazing how this scaremongering from climate change lobbyists keeps arising even though they are constantly being proved wrong.”

“Last year there was snow in Saudi Arabia and still they persist in saying the temperature is going up.”

Christopher Booker, author of “The Real Global Warming Disaster

“In addition to the global warming challenges, we need to address ‘global cooling’ effects and to do so promptly,” he said.

Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia as reported by Itar Tass News agency

ABC NEWS: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration slammed Tylenol manufacturer McNeil Healthcare LLC during a media briefing this morning for what it called a slow response to problems at a facility in Puerto Rico that led to consumers becoming sickened by tainted pills.

“McNeil should have acted faster,” said Deborah Autor, director of the FDA’s Office of Compliance, of the arm of Johnson & Johnson that manufactures Tylenol products…

A recall of Tylenol products that began last month with the popular Tylenol arthritis caplet expanded this morning to include more than two dozen other over-the-counter products manufactured by McNeil.

McNeill initiated a voluntary recall of Tylenol Arthritis Relief Caplets at the end of December after consumer complaints of stomach problems. The problems were linked to the presence of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA)…

Now it appears that the problem extended into other Tylenol products as well, according to the FDA.

Tylenol Extra Strength, Rolaids and a number of children’s medicines are now included in the recall, which affects 27 products in various packaging quantities.

THE HILL: A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.

This startling admission came Thursday from Peter Orszag, who manages the federal bureaucracy for President Barack Obama.

The public is getting a bad return on its tax dollars because government workers are operating with outdated technologies, Orszag said in a statement that kicked off a summit between Obama and dozens of corporate CEOs.

“Twenty years ago, people who came to work in the federal government had better technology at work than at home,” said Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “Now that’s no longer the case.

“The American people deserve better service from their government, and better return for their tax dollars.”

BOSTON HERALD: Weekly Standard reporter says he was roughed up last night outside a Washington, D.C. fund-raiser for Attorney General Martha Coakley by someone he believes is associated with her U.S. Senate campaign.

According to McCormack’s account, Coakley took two questions from reporters after the event, but declined to respond to his question.

“TWS: Attorney General Coakley, you said last night that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan–that they’re all in Yemen and Pakistan. Do you stand by that remark?

COAKLEY: I’m sorry, did someone else have a question? Then answered another reporter’s question.

McCormack wrote after Coakley finished her answer he followed her and asked her why health care industry lobbyists were supporting her at the fundraiser. He said she did not reply.

As he continued to walk down the street, he said a man who appeared to be associated with Coakley’s campaign pushed him into a freestanding metal rail.

“I ended up on the sidewalk. I was fine. He helped me up from the ground, but kept pushing up against me, blocking my path toward Coakley down the street,” he wrote.

McCormack wrote he eventually caught up to Coakley, who declined to answer his question.

TAMPA, Fla. (UPI) — U.S. researchers say they’re surprised to discover radiation from cell phones may protect against and even reverse Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers at the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, led by University of South Florida neuroscientist Gary Arendash, said exposing old Alzheimer’s mice to electromagnetic waves from cell phones erased brain buildups of a harmful

protein known as beta amyloid and eliminated memory problems typical of Alzheimer’s. The radiation also prevented beta amyloid buildup in younger Alzheimer’s mice, the researchers said in a study funded in part by the National Institute on Aging and published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. In fact, exposing normal mice to cell phone radiation for two hours a day over seven to nine months actually improved their cognitive abilities compared with so-called control mice tested in a parallel experiment for comparison, Arendash and colleagues said. The highly controlled study let researchers isolate the effects of cell phone exposure on memory from other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, the researchers said. It involved 96 mice, most of which were genetically altered to develop beta amyloid plaques and memory problems mimicking Alzheimer’s disease as they aged. “It surprised us to find that cell phone exposure, begun in early adulthood, protects the memory of mice otherwise destined to develop Alzheimer’s symptoms,” Arendash said. “It was even more astonishing that the electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones actually reversed memory impairment in old Alzheimer’s mice.”

BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts’s top election official says it could take weeks to certify the results of the upcoming U.S. Senate special election. That delay could let President Barack Obama preserve a key 60th vote for his health care overhaul even if the Republican who has vowed to kill it wins Democrat Edward M. Kennedy’s former seat.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin, citing state law, says city and town clerks must wait at least 10 days for absentee ballots to arrive before they certify the results of the Jan. 19 election. They then have five more days to file the returns with his office.

Galvin bypassed the provision in 2007 so his fellow Democrats could gain a House vote they needed to override a veto of then-Republican President George W. Bush, but the secretary says U.S. Senate rules would preclude a similar rush today.

The potential delay has become a rallying point for the GOP, which argues Democrats have been twisting the rules to pass the health care bill despite public opposition. It’s also prompted criticism from government watchdogs…

Massachusetts Democrats already changed state law last fall so the governor could appoint a fellow Democrat to fill the seat after Kennedy died in August.

The Boston Herald reported that, according to a source, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s office wants to certify the race on Feb. 20.

NEW YORK DAILY POST: Conan O’Brien broke down in tears yesterday while reading to his writing staff his 553-word statement that he no longer wants to host the “The Tonight Show” if it’s moved to midnight, an insider said.

With Conan out of the picture, Jay Leno will take back “The Tonight Show” by March 1, if not sooner, sources said.

But he was his sardonic self at the show’s LA taping last night, introducing himself as “soon to be available for children’s birthday parties,” and saying how it was “always my dream to host ‘The Tonight Show’ for seven months.”

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion

for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned - a request that could be an especially hard sell to some of the administration’s Democratic allies.

The extra $33 billion in 2010 would mostly go toward the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year.

Military officials have suggested that the 2011 request would top $700 billion for the first time, but the precise figure has not been made public.

PRAVDA: A sheep gave birth to a dead lamb with a human-like face. The calf was born in a village not far from the city of Izmir, Turkey.

Erhan Elibol, a vet, performed Cesarean section on the animal to take the calf out, but was horrified to see that the features of the calf’s snout bore a striking resemblance to a human face.

“I’ve seen mutations with cows and sheep before. I’ve seen a one-eyed calf, a two-headed calf, a five-legged calf. But when I saw this youngster I could not believe my eyes. His mother could not deliver him so I had to help the animal,” the 29-year-old veterina

The lamb’s head had human features on – the eyes, the nose and the mouth – only the ears were those of a sheep.

Veterinaries said that the rare mutation most likely occurred as a result of improper mutation since the fodder for the lamb’s mother was abundant with vitamin A.

Bill Clinton, referring to Obama, to Teddy Kennedy when he was trying to secure Teddy’s endorsement for Hillary during the campaign (as quoted from the book “Game Change”.

“Iran will have the technology to build a nuclear weapon by early next year.”

–Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Dec. 28.

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up by itself.

Let me remind you that Obozo heads the “Executive” branch of the government

which is the “enforcement” arm of government. Of course law enforcement is not

going to take any action when the chief enforcement figure of the government is

one of the dirtiest crooks and isn’t about to let law enforcement loose to do

anything. He runs the Justice Department the same as he is the Commander in

Chief. Nothing happens without his approval. The local yokels have no

jurisdiction to investigate this stuff. If Sheriff Joe were able, rest assured

he would turn the tables, investigate them all and have them all on his chain

gangs. Thanx Dale

An exclusive report that will air tonight on CBS EVENING NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC reveals the alarmingly high number of members of Congress who got an all-expense paid trip to Denmark — on your dime!

Nancy Pelosi was at the summit. She called the shots on who got to go. Among them, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and embattled Chairman of the Tax Committee Charles Rangel They were joined by 17 colleagues from both parties: Democrats: Waxman, Miller, Markey, Gordon, Levin, Blumenauer, DeGette, Inslee, Ryan, Butterfield, Cleaver, Giffords, and Republicans: Barton, Upton, Moore Capito, Sullivan, Blackburn.

The House delegation was so large, it needed three military jets: two 737’s and a Gulfstream Five. Up to 64 passengers

Add Senators and staff, most of whom flew commercial, and there were at least 101 Congress-related attendees. All for a summit that failed to deliver a global climate deal. As a perk, some took spouses, since they could snag an open seat on a military jet or share a room at no extra cost to taxpayers.

Congresswoman Giffords and her husband,Moore Capito and her husband, Markey took his wife as did Sensenbrenner. Congressman Barton– a climate change skeptic– even brought along his daughter.

Three military jets at $57-hundred dollars an hour. ($5,740) Dozens flew commercial at up to two thousand dollars each. More than 300 (321) hotel nights booked - the bulk at Copenhagen’s five-star Marriott. Meals add tens of thousands more.

Nobody would defend the super-sized Congressional presence on camera. One Democrat said it showed the world the US is serious about climate change. And all those attendees who went to the summit rather than hooking up by teleconference? They produced enough climate-stunting carbon dioxide to fill 10,000 Olympic swimming pools. (40,500 tonnes/source: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change)

“[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.”

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 1823 Thanx Dave

“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of

relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” “1984″, by George Orwell

“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.” –Will Rogers (1879-1935) US actor, humorist

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida.

Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.

Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site.

“This is a pretty significant cold snap,” Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop.” The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week,” he said.

Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said.

Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Heavy snow hit Beijing on Sunday, stranding thousands of passengers at the main airport and casting an unusual quiet over normally busy streets as people stayed out of the freezing weather.

More than 90 percent of flights at Beijing’s Capital International Airport, the country’s busiest, were canceled or delayed, state television said, with only one of its three runways open.

TELEGRAPH U.K.–Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.

They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.

And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Forecasters say the coldest stretch of weather in years if not decades could be heading for North Carolina. While temperatures won’t be falling to record lows, the National Weather Service says the duration of the cold weather is unusual. Highs could struggle to get above freezing for the next week in areas from Raleigh west.

-London Mail

BREITBART: Oil-rich Venezuela ushered in 2010 with new measures rationing electricity use in malls, businesses and billboards, as Hugo Chavez’s government aimed to save power amid a crippling drought.

The new regulations came into effect January 1, with businesses required to comply with reduced consumption limits and authorities warning of forced power cuts and rate hikes if the measures are not followed.

A decree published on Christmas Eve states that commercial centers may operate from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm on the electricity grid, but beyond that, establishments would have to operate off-grid, using their own generators.

Venezuela is flush with oil — the country’s primary export — and natural gas, but relies mainly on hydroelectric generation to meet domestic energy demand.

With the country in a widespread drought, late last year Chavez announced a sweeping campaign to reduce widespread energy “waste,” stressing that rationing was necessary to avoid a systemic “collapse.”

Tariff surcharges of up to 20 percent could be imposed on violators.

The state-controlled aluminum and steel industries halted some of their production lines in order to reduce energy consumption by some 560 megawatts (MW).

In 2009 there were four nationwide blackouts, with daily failures common in several cities.

PHOENIX (AP) — More than a year after Arizona became the first state in the country to deploy dozens of speed cameras on highways statewide, threats to the groundbreaking program abound.

A photo enforcement van in Arizona lights up a speeding car while recording its license plate.

Profits are far below expectations, a citizen effort to ban the cameras is gaining steam, the governor has said she does not like the program, and more and more drivers are ignoring the tickets they get in the mail after hearing from fellow speeders that there are often no consequences to doing so.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety introduced the cameras in September 2008 and slowly added more until all 76 were up and running by January.

Supporters say the cameras slow down drivers and reduce accidents, but opponents argue that they are intrusive and are more about making money than safety.

More than 300 communities in 25 states use cameras similar to Arizona’s, including New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. But the backlash seems to be particularly intense in Arizona. (I should clarify for out of state and out of country readers that the reason that the backlash is so strong in Arizona is that is just the way we are. Napolitano was a carpet-bagger that brought her big government, tax and spend ways out here.) Some people have shown their distaste with the cameras by covering them with boxes, sticky notes and Silly String. In locally infamous cases, one man took a pickax to a camera and another purposefully set off the cameras dozens of times while wearing a monkey mask. (I saw one in the village of Paradise Valley, the town who started this whole thing, about two or three years ago, that was riddled with about 6 bullet holes)

Definition for new readers: Yellow rat democrats, as opposed to Blue Dog Democrats, or just Democrats, are so named because they behave like yellow rats; they are sneaky, they have no rules that they live by except to get what they want by any means necessary and they run for cover when someone shines a light on them. Yellow Rat Democrats draw primarily from the so-called “progressive” democrats.

The normal font indicates hard news articles. The Font in black italics indicates my paraphrasing hard news articles or my general writing, such as in the observations. The font in red italics is the (sometimes snarky) opinion of the author. The font in red bold italics is mad or making a point!

Copyright © 2009. All Rights reserved.

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“Deliberation is the work of many men. Action, of one alone.” –Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) French general and statesman

By David Olmos

Dec. 31 (Bloomberg) — The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their

doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman…

“Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.”

The Mayo organization had 3,700 staff physicians and scientists and treated 526,000 patients in 2008. It lost $840 million last year on Medicare…

Nationwide, doctors made about 20 percent less for treating Medicare patients than they did caring for privately insured patients in 2007, a payment gap that has remained stable during the last decade… Congress last week postponed for two months a 21.5 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements for doctors…

Greater access to primary care is a goal of the broad overhaul supported by Obama that would provide health insurance to about 31 million more Americans. More family doctors are needed to help reduce medical costs by encouraging prevention and early treatment, Obama said in a June 15 speech to the American Medical Association meeting in Chicago.

Reid Cherlin, a White House spokesman for health care, declined comment on Mayo’s decision to drop Medicare primary care patients at its Glendale clinic.

Annual Costs

A Medicare patient who chooses to stay at Mayo’s Glendale clinic will pay about $1,500 a year for an annual physical and three other doctor visits, according to an October letter from the facility. Each patient also will be assessed a $250 annual administrative fee, according to the letter. Medicare patients at the Glendale clinic won’t be allowed to switch to a primary care doctor at another Mayo facility. …

Mayo’s decision may herald similar moves by other Phoenix- area doctors who cite inadequate Medicare fees as a reason to curtail treatment of the elderly, said John Rivers, chief executive of the Phoenix-based Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

“We’ve got doctors who are saying we are not going to deal with Medicare patients in the hospital” because they consider the fees too low, Rivers said. “Or they are saying we are not going to take new ones in our practice.”

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

DENVER —

Mike Hermanstorfer was clutching his pregnant wife’s hand when her life slipped away in a Colorado hospital on Christmas Eve, and then he cradled his newborn son’s limp body seconds after a medical team delivered the baby by Cesarean section.

Minutes later he saw his son come to life in his arms under the feverish attention of doctors, and soon he learned his wife had inexplicably come back to life.

“My legs went out from underneath me,” Hermanstorfer said Tuesday. “I had everything in the world taken from me, and in an hour and a half I had everything given to me.”

Hermanstorfer’s wife, Tracy, went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during labor on Thursday, said Dr. Stephanie Martin, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, where the Hermanstorfers had gone for the birth of their son.

“She had no signs of life. No heartbeat, no blood pressure, she wasn’t breathing,” said Martin, who had rushed to Hermanstorfer’s room to help. “The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate.”

After their miraculous recovery, both mother and the baby, named Coltyn, appear healthy with no signs of problems, Martin said.

She said she cannot explain the mother’s cardiac arrest or the recovery.

“We did a thorough evaluation and can’t find anything that explains why this happened,” she said.

Mike Hermanstorfer credits “the hand of God.”

“We are both believers … but this right here, even a nonbeliever — you explain to me how this happened. There is no other explanation,” he said.

Asked about divine intervention, Martin said, “Wherever I can get the help, I’ll take it.”

Tracy Hermanstorfer, 33, was getting prepped for childbirth at the hospital Thursday morning and her 37-year-old husband was by her side when she began to feel sleepy and laid back in her bed.

“She literally stopped breathing and her heart stopped,” her husband said. Pandemonium erupted as doctors and nurses tried to revive her with chest compressions and a breathing tube, but nothing worked.

“I was holding her hand when we realized she was gone,” Hermanstorfer said. “My entire life just rolled out.”

Doctors told him, “We’re going to take your son out now. We have been unable to revive her and we’re going to

take your son out,” he recalled.

After the Cesarean section, some of the team rushed his wife to the operating room while the others attended to Coltyn.

“They hand him to me, he’s absolutely lifeless,” Hermanstorfer said. The doctors went to work on Coltyn as

Hermanstorfer held him, and soon he began to breath.