Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Viareggio, esplode il treno, 17 vittime. "Disastro annunciato"


VIAREGGIO - Sedici morti, decine di feriti di cui 15 in pericolo di vita, alcune persone disperse, decine contuse, sotto schock, un migliaio di abitanti evacuati. E poi due palazzine distrutte e altre tre evacuate, alcune centinaia di sfollati. Lutti e devastazione in un paradiso delle vacanze al mare, Viareggio, a causa di un treno merci carico di Gpl (Gas di petrolio liquefatto) che a mezzanotte deraglia in stazione e innesca l'apocalisse nel centro della città: una serie di esplosioni e l'incendio.

Le vittime. Il bilancio delle vittime è provvisorio. Il capo della Protezione Civile, Guido Bertolaso, verso le 11. definisce le cifre che, prima sembravano più alte. Dice: "I morti accertati sono dodici". Ma, purtroppo, si capisce che questo bilancio durerà poco. Quasi subito, arrivano nuove segnalazioni. Prima si passa a 14 decessi, poi vengono individuati due cadaveri in un punto ancora non sicuro che, quindi, verranno recuperati più tardi, quando sarà possibile. E' in condizioni molto critiche la bambina straniera di 4 anni che è stata trasportata in elicottero all'ospedale Bambin Gesù di Roma con ustioni su tutto il corpo.

L'esplosione. "Come un terremoto, come un tornado, ho avvertito uno spostamento d'aria e il pavimento muoversi" racconta un giovane. "Dormivo, mi è piombato il lampadario addosso, sono vivo per caso" dice un altro. "Mio marito, un eroe. Mi ha preso di peso e trascinato fuori da una porta sul retro prima che crollasse tutto. Da sola, con queste gambe malridotte, operate da poco, non ce l'avrei mai fatta" aggiunge un'anziana sorretta a braccia da due volontari della protezione civile che l'accompagnano nella tendopoli allestita in piazza del municipio. più... Dunque molti duole, prego per loro.

ROME — At least 16 people died, 3 of them children, and more than 34 were reported injured after a freight train carrying liquid petroleum derailed and exploded late Monday in a quiet seaside town on the Tuscan coast.

The accident, which took place as the train passed through a residential neighborhood in the town of Viareggio, caused five homes and buildings to collapse, killing some residents as they slept. Flames engulfed entire streets, including parked cars, until the authorities were able to contain the blaze.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is expected to travel to the town, about 220 miles north of Rome, on Tuesday afternoon to assess the damage.

The accident, the deadliest train-related disaster in the country since 2005, delayed train service nationwide. It comes a week before Italy is expected to host world leaders for the Group of Eight summit meeting, to be held in L’Aquila, where nearly 300 people were killed and 65,000 people left homeless by an earthquake on April 6. Already on Tuesday, critics were saying aging infrastructure had contributed to the derailment.

The accident was caused by a mechanical problem: the axle on the first car gave way, the director of Italy’s state railway, Mauro Moretti, said at a news conference. “From what we’ve seen so far, the engineers didn’t make any mistakes,” Mr. Moretti said, according to the news agency ANSA.

On Tuesday, rescue workers sifted through the wreckage looking for around 30 missing people. Three children were pulled alive from the rubble, and 16 of the injured were in critical condition, Italian news media reported.

The 14-car train was traveling to Pisa from the northern city of La Spezia and was near the Viareggio train station just before midnight when the car derailed, The Associated Press reported.

“We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky,” said one witness, Gianfranco Bini, who lives in a building overlooking the station, according to The A.P. “We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out.”

More than 1,000 people were evacuated, the mayor of Viareggio, Luca Lunardini, told ANSA.

Raffaele Gargiulo, a police spokesman for the nearby city of Lucca, told The A.P. that the bodies were severely burned and would be difficult to identify.

The director of Italy’s Civil Protection, Guido Bertolaso, called the incident one of the “worst tragedies” to occur in the Italian train system.

Jhesu+Marie.
Brantigny

Monday, June 29, 2009

Obama to end unemployment

He has decided to hire 1,200,000 new czars.

Brantigny

Monday, June 22, 2009

Neda

This is what it takes to be free Mr Obama. ...and all you want to do is talk about Fox News, George W.Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. You have removed your moral standing by being silent. If you had seerved one day in uniform you would understand courage, moral and physical.



Rest in Peace Neda...

Brantigny

Obama's Persian Tutorial

..."Mr. Obama may believe that his offer to Iran is a break with a hard-line American policy. But nothing could be further from the truth. In 1989, in his inaugural, George H.W. Bush extended an offer to Iran: "Good will begets good will," he said. A decade later, in a typically Clintonian spirit of penance and contrition, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright came forth with a full apology for America's role in the 1953 coup that ousted nationalist Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.

Iran's rulers scoffed. They had inherited a world, and they were in no need of opening it to outsiders. They were able to fly under the radar. Selective, targeted deeds of terror, and oil income, enabled them to hold their regime intact. There is a Persian pride and a Persian solitude, and the impact of three decades of zeal and indoctrination. The drama of Barack Obama's election was not an affair of Iran. They had an election of their own to stage. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a son of the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary order, a man from the brigades of the regime, austere and indifferent to outsiders, an Iranian Everyman with badly fitting clothes and white socks -- was up for re-election..."
more...

Mr Obama get a clue.

Brantigny

"Qui tacet consentit"



"...sayes nothing, what of that?"(1)

Note to Obama. Your silence on Iran and North Korea is deafening.

"Qui tacet consentit." Silence implies consent.

Brantigny

(1) Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare: Act 2, Scene 2.

CSI



Washington: CSI

Brantigny

Dodge facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago-style

I rally hate to eat a hot dog in North Carolina, if you ask for it all the way you never know what you will get. Being from Chicago, I know about hot dogs. If you have ever been to Chicago, you soon learn to never ask for ketchup on a hot dog. It is sumply not done. Bells will go off, the patrons will boo, and you'll be lucky if you are not arrested.

The time to raise the ketchup alarm has come. Obama, not content to get his hot dog Chicago style wants ketcup too. Bells sghould be going off, and the people need to boo...

Michael Barone has written this article today...

By Michael Barone

We pundits like to analyze our presidents and so, as Barack Obama deals with difficult problems ranging from health care legislation to upheaval in Iran, let me offer my Three Rules of Obama.

First, Obama likes to execute long-range strategies but suffers from cognitive dissonance when new facts render them inappropriate. His 2008 campaign was a largely flawless execution of a smart strategy, but he was flummoxed momentarily when the Russians invaded Georgia and when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. On domestic policy, he has been executing his long-range strategy of vastly expanding government, but may be encountering problems as voters show unease at huge increases in spending.

His long-range strategy of propitiating America's enemies has been undercut by North Korea's missile launches and demonstrations in Iran against the mullah regime's apparent election fraud. His assumption that friendly words could melt the hearts of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been refuted by events. He limits himself to expressing "deep concern" about the election in the almost surely vain hope of persuading the mullahs to abandon their drive for nuclear weapons, while he misses his chance to encourage the one result -- regime change -- that could protect us and our allies from Iranian attack.

Second, he does not seem to care much about the details of policy. He subcontracted the stimulus package to congressional appropriators, the cap-and-trade legislation to Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, and his health care program to Sen. Max Baucus. The result is incoherent public policy: indefensible pork barrel projects, a carbon emissions bill that doesn't limit carbon emissions from politically connected industries and a health care program priced by the Congressional Budget Office at a fiscally unfeasible $1,600,000,000,000.

He quickly announced the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and now finds his administration begging the likes of Palau and Bermuda to take a few detainees off its hands. His acceptance of Arabist insistence that all problems in the Middle East can be solved by getting an Israeli-Palestinian settlement has put us in the absurd position of pressuring Israel not to expand settlements by a single square meter but pledging not to "meddle" in Iran.

Third, he does business Chicago-style. His first political ambition was to be mayor of Chicago, the boss of all he surveyed; he has had to settle for the broader but less complete hegemony of the presidency.

From Chicago, he brings the assumption that there will always be a bounteous private sector that can be plundered endlessly on behalf of political favorites. Hence the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler to bail out the United Auto Workers, the proposal for channeling money from the private nonprofits to the government by limiting the charitable deduction for high earners and the plan for expanding government (and public employee union rolls) by instituting universal pre-kindergarten.

Chicago-style, he has kept the Republicans out of serious policy negotiations but has allowed left-wing Democrats to veto a measure upholding his own decision not to release interrogation photos. While promising a politics of mutual respect, he peppers both his speeches and impromptu responses with jabs at his predecessor. Basking in the adulation of nearly the entire press corps, he whines about his coverage on Fox News. Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed. Those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired.

Obama entered the presidency with what seemed like supreme self-confidence. He had, after all, advanced from the Illinois state Senate to the presidency of the United States in just four years -- a steeper and more rapid ascent than any president since Woodrow Wilson. The success of his long-range campaign strategy seems to have made him confident that his long-range policy strategies would work, as well.

But transferring large segments of the American economy from the private to the public sector has proved to be tougher than winning Democratic primaries and caucuses. And Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il have proved to be harder to charm than American mainstream media.

It's generally good for American presidents to have long-term strategies. But in setting public policy, it's important to get the details right. And in guiding the nation in a dangerous world, it's vital to adjust to face hard realities and adjust to unexpected events.


Townhall

Brantigny

Irony

Here is a bit of irony, A North korean cargo ship is heading towards the middle east with presumably a load of weapons and other contraband for the Iranians. It is being shadowed by a US Navy derstroyer named the USS John McCain. If that is not irony, then what is?

It may be that the Do-nothing-president may have his butt pulled out of the perverbial fire by The John McCain.



Brantigny

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Them Jews...

One day after a neo-Nazi gunman attacked a guard at the Holocaust Museum, after we are told that it is only what can be expected with all the hate speech coming over the air waves by "Right Wing" demagogues; a supporter of President Obama who may be described as anyone but a member of the Right Wing is recorded as saying 'Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me..."
His statement with may be found in the below article sounds familiar. I have heard a "Jews" comment from the father of a former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney when she lost an election in 2002.
...Reverend Wright is back. Yes, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is back. The Hampton Roads Daily Press has a little blurb today. "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright says he does not feel any regrets over his severed relationship with President Barack Obama. … Wright also said that he had not spoken to his former church member since Obama became president. … 'Regret for what... that the media went back five, seven, 10 years and spent $4,000 buying 20 years worth of sermons to hear what I've been preaching for 20 years? Regret for preaching like I've been preaching for 50 years? Absolutely none,' Wright said. … Asked if he had spoken to the President, Wright said: 'Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ... They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ... I said from the beginning: He's a politician; I'm a pastor. He's got to do what politicians do.... more and from Hampton Roads Daily Post
I all ready know that there will be not a connection made by any mainstream news affiliate. I have yet to hear about this by any report, Fox included.
Cynthia McKinney is now writing a news letter for a cult called the 5% Nation called Original Thought Magazine.
Brantigny

What happens when you let you dughter pick out your clothes?

This...

I remember Jackie Kennedy, and Michelle Obama you are no Jackie Kennedy. The poor guys walking behind her look sick. I wonder what they ate?

Brantigny

Friday, June 5, 2009

Abortion Clinic 911 Emergency Calls "No lights and sirens, please!"

What is done in darkness, is not hidden in the light.

Genocide pure and simple.

God save your children.

Brantigny

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A Rising Anti-Government Tide

By Newt Gingrich

Americans should look carefully at the anti-politician, anti-government mood exhibited in California this week. Just as Proposition 13 and the anti-tax movement of 1978 were the forerunners of the Reagan presidential victory, so the results of Tuesday's vote are a harbinger of things to come.

The repudiation of the California establishment in the series of initiative defeats could hardly have been more decisive. Five taxing and spending measures were rejected by 62.6 to 66.4 percent of the voters. That is a consistent majority of enormous potential. An even larger majority, 73.9 percent, approved the proposition limiting elected officials' salaries when there is a deficit.

This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.

The elites ridiculed or ignored the first harbinger of rebellion, the recent tea parties. While it will be harder to ignore this massive anti-tax, anti-spending vote, they will attempt to do just that.

Voters in our largest state spoke unambiguously, but politicians and lobbyists in Sacramento are ignoring or rejecting the voters' will, just as they are in Albany and Trenton. The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people. They have become castles of corruption, favoritism and wastefulness. These state governments are run by lobbyists for the various unions through bureaucracies seeking to impose the values of a militant left. Elections have become so rigged by big money and clever incumbents that the process of self-government is threatened.

Sacramento politicians will now reject the voters' call for lower taxes and less spending and embrace the union-lobbyist-bureaucrat machine that is running California into the ground, crippling its economy and cheating residents. This model of high-tax, big-spending inefficiency has already driven thousands of successful Californians out of the state (taking with them an estimated $11 billion in annual tax revenue). The exodus will continue.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a smart, tough, charismatic leader who has been forced to submit to policies he knows are ruining California on behalf of interests he knows are cheating the state. His failure to tame the union-lobbyist-bureaucrat machine that owns the legislature is a symptom of just how powerful it is.

Albany is even more corrupt and dysfunctional. The special interests that own the legislators in both parties have been exploiting New York for two generations. They have impoverished the Upstate region to the point where it is a vast zone of no jobs and no opportunities. Their predatory tax and bureaucratic union behavior is beginning to cripple New York City. More and more successful New Yorkers are leaving the state. In the face of multiple crises, Gov. David Paterson has shown himself incapable of carrying out reform.

In other words, the political machines in California and New York are wrecking the states' economies and driving out successful residents. But the machines don't care because all they want to do is own the wreckage.

This system of ruining communities on behalf of interest groups first appeared in Detroit. Bad government, bad politicians and bad policies drove a city that had, in 1950, the highest per capita income of any large American city to No. 62 in per capita income as of 2007. The population has declined from 1.8 million to fewer than 950,000. Recently, 1,800 homes were sold for under $10,000 each. The human cost of bad politics and bad government in Detroit is staggering.

Now President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid want to impose on the nation this style of politics in which interest groups, politicians and bureaucracies dominate. Look at their record: a $787 billion stimulus no elected official had read, 8,000 earmarks, an Environmental Protection Agency plan to control the economy through carbon regulations, the government threatening retaliation against those who would protect their property rights against theft in the Chrysler bailout -- again and again, this team is moving toward a government that owns the country rather than a government that is owned by the people.

Watch Sacramento politicians and interest groups work to overrule the people of California. Watch Albany politicians and interest groups continue to undermine the economy of New York. Watch the arrogance of the elites in Washington as they impose their costs and special deals on the American people.

Then look again at the 62 percent-plus majority in California in favor of smaller government and lower taxes.

In the great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites, there will soon be a party of people rooting out the party of government. This party may be Republican; it may be Democratic; in some states it may be a third party. The politicians have been warned.


The writer, a Republican, was speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He is chairman of the Gingrich Group, a communications and consulting firm, and general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future. © The Washington Post

Thanks to Carlos Rosendi, at Casorosendi.
Newt Gingrich is the Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representivies, author of the Contract with America, and Convert to Catholism.
Jhesu+Marie,
Brantigny
Politicians are cutting their states throat. In an example of the stupity by a city government I present my home town Chicago. Chicago has recently decided to place an additional tax on bottled water. Chicagoians are now travelling out of the city to shop. Loss of tax revenue and loss to businesses. Barack, the man made God learned his lessions well...