FrankNatoli's blog
Posted at 12:35pm on Aug. 17, 2007 Russia to resume Cold War bomber flights
By FrankNatoli
The London Telegraph reports:
"Russia will immediately resume long-range strategic bomber flights on a 'permanent' basis, ending a 15-year suspension of the missions, President Vladimir Putin has said."
"Mr Putin said a halt in long-range bombers' flights after the Soviet collapse had affected Russia's security as other nations had continued such missions - a oblique reference to the US."
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:26am on Aug. 17, 2007 John Edwards Attacks...Himself
By FrankNatoli
The WSJ reports in today's print edition "Edwards, Foreclosure Critic, Has Investing Tie to Subprime Lenders".
"As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims".
"The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006".
Posted in 2008 — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:31am on Aug. 17, 2007 Man-made Global Warming Baloney, contd.
By FrankNatoli
Movement of oceanic waters, in a way declared to be caused by "man-made global warming", now is found to be within natural variance, see "Data on Atlantic flow are undercut" at the L.A. Times http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-ocean17aug17,1,620....
"A massive ocean circulation pattern that plays a crucial role in shaping the world's climate may not have been slowing down over the last few decades as scientists previously believed, according to a study released Thursday."
Posted in Breaking News — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:30am on Aug. 16, 2007 Killing For Congress
By FrankNatoli
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, USA, Retd., has another superb article on the real progress in Iraq, and the intended audience of the suicide bombers, see article at link below:
http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/...
Posted in Congress — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:40am on Aug. 16, 2007 The Dems Should Shut Up About Gay Marriage.
By FrankNatoli
The New Republic has a fascinating article by the "assistant" to the editor-in-chief entitled "The Dems Should Shut Up About Gay Marriage", see complete article at http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070813&s=kirchick081607.
Author James Kirchick's point is as follows: "It would certainly be refreshing to hear a leading presidential candidate come out in favor of 'what's right' and support gay marriage. But gay marriage advocates are actually doing their cause a disservice by pushing the Democratic candidates on the issue."
Posted in 2008 — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:45am on Aug. 14, 2007 Animal Planet, USAF
By FrankNatoli
POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. -- In the early-morning hours of May 13, 2006, after a night of partying with fellow airmen who were mixing a potent cocktail called the Incredible Hulk, Airman 1st Class Cassandra Hernandez told authorities that three of them had raped her.
One of the men was charged. After being questioned twice by the airman's military lawyer, Hernandez said, she felt "enormous stress" and decided not to testify.
Posted in Culture — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:37am on Aug. 11, 2007 Immigration rules may hurt economy
By FrankNatoli
The Los Angeles Times reports that "Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted painful economic fallout from the array of immigration enforcement measures the administration unveiled Friday in an attempt to choke off the jobs "magnet" that draws illegal immigrants", see complete article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig11aug11,1,3189....
Posted in Immigration — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:43am on Aug. 10, 2007 One future for medical care in America
By FrankNatoli
The European Union High Court has decided that patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease are not "cost effective" beneficiaries of relevant medication, e.g., Aricept, see the London Daily Telegraph at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=JQM4O44UAB14PQFIQM.... As an individual with both parents having Alzheimer's, one of whom was treated in its early stages with Aricept, one of whom was not, the difference between the two is shocking. That experience is, of course, anecdotal, but I suspect typical.
Posted in Policy — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:42am on Aug. 8, 2007 Conservative Judges, Liberal Crisis
By FrankNatoli
Doug Bandow of Citizen Outreach has a super article on the law in The American Spectator, see http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11844.
Here is perhaps the ultimate paragraph:
"Although unbridled judicial activism is an unsatisfactory jurisprudential principle, the left has nowhere else to go because the Constitution is fundamentally, though not purely, a libertarian-conservative document. The nation's basic law is meant to constrain politics, to put many issues, centered around an expansive and expensive national government, out of bounds of the democratic process. In short, to be a liberal and believe in original intent is to be eternally frustrated."
Posted in Law — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:15am on Aug. 8, 2007 I don’t want to EVER hear his name mentioned again
By FrankNatoli
That fellow whose name I will not mention is now the all time baseball home run king. How appropriate that a man who best represents what is fundamentally wrong with baseball if not all professional sports has reached the top.
It is said there is nothing more beautiful than a woman who doesn't know she is. Put another way, Americans are greatly attracted to someone who excels at something, even a purely God given talent or characteristic, who doesn't rub it in your face at every opportunity. So when a guy hits number 715 and says "I don't want to EVER hear his name mentioned again", he becomes, as we said in our Brooklyn Italian neighborhood, a low life.
Posted in Culture — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:39am on Aug. 7, 2007 The Prescription Is Death
By FrankNatoli
The L.A. Times today documents a case of a surgical transplant team “hastening” the death of an organ donor and now the doctor responsible for the action finds himself charged with three felony counts, see “Records show concerns over transplant” by Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-transplant7aug07,0,6582668,full.....
Although Ornstein is a first class guy, and has many super articles to his credit, the L.A. Times home page entitles the article “Transplant team upset nurses”, a curious choice considering that the transplant team also “upset” San Luis Obispo County prosecutors, and the article page title “Records show concerns over transplant” is even more curious considering that no transplant was performed. You can just see the L.A. Times editors wringing their hands over how they could neutralize the implications of the article without directly squashing it.
Posted in Law — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:44pm on Aug. 5, 2007 National Energy Policy Suicide
By FrankNatoli
The dominant media is delighted to report that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed by a 241 to 172 vote a national energy policy bill that can only rationally be regarded as economic suicide. See “House OKs clean-energy legislation” in the L.A. Times at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-congress5aug05,0,54..., “Energy bill adopted by House Requires Utilities to Use Renewable Power Sources” in the N.Y. Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/washington/05energy.html and “House Passes Bill to Support Renewable Energy” in the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR200708....
Posted in Energy — Comments (29) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 7:23pm on Aug. 4, 2007 Privatized to the Poor House
By FrankNatoli
With the I-35 bridge collapse, conservatives all over the fruited plain are extolling the virtues of...privatized toll roads and toll bridges. Indiana's decision to lease their turnpike for seventy-five years to a private company in exchange for a payment of $3.8 billion is held as a model for the other forty-nine states.
Leasing or selling toll roads or toll bridges to private companies makes absolutely no sense to this conservative. Capitalism works to the advantage of "the people" when it occurs in the increasingly hard to find atmosphere of the free market and real live killer competition. Like they say, there is no point with religion without there being sin, and there is no point with capitalism without there being at least the possibility of failure, failure defined as offering a product inferior to that produced by a competitor.
Posted in Policy — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:59am on Aug. 4, 2007 Court rules Jefferson raid was unlawful
By FrankNatoli
The L. A. Times reported today:
"The Justice Department trampled on congressional independence when it raided Rep. William J. Jefferson's office last year, a federal appeals court ruled, siding with Congress in a constitutional showdown."
"The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's Capitol Hill office. Still undecided is whether prosecutors can use other records confiscated as part of their case against Jefferson."
Posted in Law — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:40am on Aug. 3, 2007 Trillions for the welfare state, but not one cent for infrastructure
By FrankNatoli
Newspaper articles abound describing the immediate human tragedy of the I-35 bridge collapse, see the L.A. Times “They found clarity in the chaos” at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scene3aug03,0,46614... and the N.Y. Times “Officials lower estimate of missing to 8 in bridge collapse” at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/us/03cnd-bridge.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slog....
Posted in Policy — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »
