Zak Klemmer’s Neighborhood

Henry 8.0 - The Book of Faces

Robert Fisk comparing Afghanistan during Gorbachev, to Afghanistan under Obamachev

The story of the British retreat from Kabul in 1942 is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Elphinstone's_Army

"Every day the government says that food prices are coming down," he said. "Every day we are told that things are getting better thanks to the cooperation of the Soviet Union. But it is not true. Do you realise that the government cannot even control the roads? Fuck them. They only hold on to the cities." The "mujahedin" infested Helmand province and crossed and recrossed the Pakistani border, just as they do today. A Soviet Mig fighter-bomber even crossed the frontier in early 1980 to attack the guerrillas. The Pakistani government – and the United States, of course – condemned this as a flagrant breach of Pakistan's sovereignty. Well, tell that to the young Americans who control the unmanned Predators so often crossing the border today to attack the guerrillas.

Obama

ACORN=No limit to the number of time you can vote Democrat

Good golly how long will the Obama Administration keep a lid on ACORN's dubious activities?

Darnell Nash, a voter in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has been indicted by a grand jury for, among other things, illegal voting.
Nash was registered to vote by ACORN.
Ryan Miday, spokesman for Cuyahoga County, Ohio Prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, just spoke with me.

"After the election ACORN had to turn over all its voter registration cards and those amounted to about 70,000," Miday said. "The sheriff's office in Cuyahoga County has been going through mounds of paperwork."

President Obama and ACORN

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/ACORN_VoterRegistrationDrive_2007-2008.jpg

The defenders of Obama and ACORN are fooling themselves. No one wants elections to be stolen by corrupt politicians.

ACORN's activities should frighten the heck out of all Americans, because their goals are the same as President Obama's.

Namely, President Obama and his surrogates are determined to turn America into "Cuba Lite" where a Castro and Hugo Chavez mentality supercedes that desires of American citizens.

In Washington State, ACORN agreed to court supervision and paid a $25,000 fine after five of its workers went to jail in July 2007 for sitting in a Seattle public library and filling out 1,800 registration forms with names they invented. In 2004, some Democratic precincts generated more mail-in ballots than there were mail voters.
When Darnell Nash, whom ACORN registered to vote nine times, was convicted of vote fraud –not just mere voter registration fraud— in Cleveland earlier this year, Holder couldn’t be bothered to comment. A spokesman for Cleveland prosecutor Bill Mason, a Democrat, told me last month that a local investigation of ACORN remains wide open.

Obama's ACORN has been hard at work

Recent Fraud

State	Year	Details
AR	1998	A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
CO	2005	Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
	2004	An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
CT	2008	The New York Post reported that ACORN submitted a voter registration card for a 7-year-old Bridgeport girl. Another 8,000 cards from the same city will be scrutinized for possible fraud.
FL	2009	In September, 11 ACORN workers were accused of forging voter registration applications in Miami-Dade County during the last election. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the state attorney’s office scoured hundreds of suspicious applications provided by ACORN and found 197 of 260 contained personal ID information that did not match any living person.
	2008	Election officials in Brevard County have given prosecutors more than 23 suspect registrations from ACORN. The state's Division of Elections is also investigating complaints in Orange and Broward Counties.
	2004	A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was “singled out” among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was “the common thread” in the agency’s fraud investigations.
IN	2008	Election officials in Indiana have thrown out more than 4,000 ACORN-submitted voter registrations after finding they had identical handwriting and included the names of many deceased Indianans, and even the name of a fast food restaurant.
MI	2008	Clerks in Detroit found a "sizeable number of duplicate and fraudulent [voter] applications" from the Michigan branch of ACORN. Those applications have been turned over to the U.S. Attorney's office for investigation.
	2004	The Detroit Free Press reported that “overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters.” ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
MO	2008	Nearly 400 ACORN-submitted registrations in Kansas City have been rejected due to duplication or fake information.
	2007	Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for charges including identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election.
	2006	Eight ACORN employees in St. Louis were indicted on federal election fraud charges. Each of the eight faces up to five years in prison for forging signatures and submitting false information.
	2003	Of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
MN	2004	During a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
NC	2008	County elections officials have sent suspicious voter registration applications to the state Board of Elections. Many of the applications had similar or identical names, but with different addresses or dates of birth.
	2004	North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM	2008	Prosecutors are investigating more than 1,100 ACORN-submitted voter registration cards after a county clerk found them to be fraudulent. Many of the cards included duplicate names and slightly altered personal information.
	2005	Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”
	2004	An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.
NV	2009	Nevada authorities indicted ACORN on 26 counts of voter registration fraud and 13 counts of illegally compensating canvassers. ACORN provided a bonus compensation program called “Blackjack” or “21+” for any canvasser who registered more than 20 voters per shift, which is illegal under Nevada law.
	2008	Nevada state authorities raided ACORN's Las Vegas headquarters as part of a task force investigation of election fraud. Fraudulent registrations included players from the Dallas Cowboys.
OH	2008	ACORN activists gave Ohio residents cash and cigarettes in exchange for filling out voter registration card, according to the New York Post. Some voters claim to have registered dozens of times, and one man says he signed up on 72 cards.
	2007	A man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties.
	2004	A grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called “blatantly false” forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
PA	2009	Seven ACORN workers in the Pittsburgh area were indicted for submitting falsified voter registration forms. Six of the seven were also indicted for registering voters under an illegal quota system.
	2008	State election officials have thrown out 57,435 voter registrations, the majority of which were submitted by ACORN. The registrations were thrown out after officials found "clearly fraudulent" signatures, vacant lots listed as addresses, and other signs of fraud.
	2008	An ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
	2004	Reading’s Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was “absolutely out of hand,” and added: “Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations.” The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
TX	2008	In Harris County, nearly 10,000 ACORN-submitted registrations were found to be invalid, including many with clearly fraudulent addresses or other personal information.
	2008	ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters “The signature is not my signature. It’s not even close.” His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
VA	2005	In 2005, the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law. In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. "Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia."
WA	2007	Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
WI	2008	At least 33,000 ACORN-submitted registrations in Milwaukee have been called into question after it was found that the organizations had been using felons as registration workers, in violation of state election rules. Two people involved in the ongoing Wisconsin voter fraud investigation have been charged with felonies.
	2004	The district attorney’s office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, “an apparent violation of state law,” according to the paper.

ACORN'S Voter related fraud cases.

ACORN

LAS VEGAS — The political advocacy group ACORN and a former supervisor were ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges that they illegally paid canvassers to register Nevada voters during last year's presidential campaign.
Evidence heard during more than six hours of testimony left "a lot of issues that have to be answered" before trial, Las Vegas Justice of the Peace William Jansen said.

Friday Night Philosophy (on Sunday)

Snowy
18 hours ago
7 comments

Mrs Snowy had other plans for Friday night, so being the ~~grovelling~~ loving husband that I am, I concurred.

I worked in a semi-government department in a former life. I remember one occasion where my boss and I had a meeting with an engineer from the local council regarding changing the electricity tariff of a pumping station that only pumped at night. He said that the council was going to have to pump during the day, and could we verify that the current electricity tariff would be advantageous, or should they change to another tariff. We did our sums and verified that the existing tariff would be the best, even though they would be pumping during the more expensive daylight hours. And so it proved. Until it rained and the council only needed to pump at night again. Because of the foibles of the tariff, this incurred a quite substantial penalty charge. And the resultant hullabaloo was something to observe.

All sorts of “experts” came out of the woodwork with an opinion on who was right in the matter, each arguing from the perspective that advantaged them. One councillor appeared on TV and confidently declared that the council had been assured at the meeting with us that the penalty charge would not apply. Which was a lie. I know because I was there, and the penalty charge was never discussed, because our understanding was that the daytime pumping was to be permanent. Fortunately for the engineer, he had long departed for greener pastures, otherwise I imagine he would have been hung out to dry by the councillors who had acquired such wisdom in hindsight.

So what does this have to do with the current climate change fuss, you may ask. Well everything. I learnt from this exercise that the only people who truly knew what had happened at that meeting were the people who were there. I learnt that those who had a vested interest in a matter weren’t very interested in the truth, but were more interested in cherry picking various snippets of the facts that suited their argument, and ignoring those facts that didn’t.

So it is that climate change denialists are having a marvellous time with the so called “Climategate”. Information from emails obtained illegally is being trotted out as “evidence” that climate change is not occurring. This, on the eve of crucial climate change talks in Copenhagen.

So where does this leave those of us who don’t have the knowledge to make an informed opinion on the matter? We have to get our truth from those whom we trust to give an unbiased opinion. For myself, I trust the people who use the scientific method to arrive at a conclusion. I have to be guided by them because I don’t have the scientific knowledge to make an informed decision from the data. What is being challenged on the basis of the hacked emails is that the scientific method has not been followed. This despite the fact that others have arrived at the same conclusion using different data.

I’m prepared to give the climate change believers the benefit of any doubt. The denialists are fond of saying that they want to be convinced that man made climate change is real. I’m saying that it is up to the denialists to prove that it isn’t real, using their own results arrived at by following the scientific method, and accepted by the majority of the scientific community.

Because if the denialists are wrong, we on planet Earth are toast. Literally. That’s not a gamble I want to take on my kid’s future.