Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

“ Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

Luke 2:14

Emanuel talked directly to gov: source

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had a deeper involvement in pressing for a U.S. Senate seat appointment than previously reported, the Sun-Times has learned. Emanuel had direct discussions about the seat with Gov. Blagojevich, who is is accused of trying to auction it to the highest bidder.

Emanuel talked with the governor in the days following the Nov. 4 election and pressed early on for the appointment of Valerie Jarrett to the post, sources with knowledge of the conversations told the Sun-Times.

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Bush OKs $17.4B bailout of the auto industry

WASHINGTON (AP) - Citing danger to the national economy, President Bush approved an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans in exchange for tough concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.

Allowing the massive auto industry to collapse in the middle of what is already a severe recession "would worsen a weak job market and exacerbate the financial crisis," Bush said. "It could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession. And it would leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office."

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Ousted Mayor Goes On Shopping Spree

DETROIT -- Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick went on a shopping spree during his first full day in jail, spending $40 on food, toiletries and XXXL long johns.

Records released Friday to the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News show Kilpatrick's purchases included granola bars, barbecue potato chips, shampoo and $2 worth of Vaseline.

In late October, Kilpatrick began serving a 120-day sentence for obstruction of justice and assault. With good behavior, he could be out of jail after 100 days.

Kilpatrick was in a scandal that involved courtroom lies, sex with a top aide and incriminating text messages.

The Wayne County jail did not release the names of Kilpatrick's visitors. He reported to jail in a business suit and had 18 pairs of socks and $67.

"And $2 worth of Vaseline".
WTF?

Iraqi journalist hurls shoes at 'dog' Bush

Fed won't name recipients of $2 trillion in loans

Financial transparency.

The Federal Reserve Bank is refusing a Bloomberg News request for names of recipients of more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-funded emergency loans.

In a May 21 request, Bloomberg asked the Fed for information on the terms of the loans issued to shore up the strains in the financial markets. In a letter dated Dec. 9, the Fed responded and denied access to most of the requested documents, citing trade secrets and internal memo exemptions. It released a two-page document that was so heavily redacted, it provided little information.

Bloomberg filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Nov. 7 to learn more about the Fed's lending programs and the current financial crisis.

Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates as Haven Demand Surges

Bloomberg

Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Treasury sold $27 billion of three-month bills yesterday at a discount rate of 0.005 percent, the lowest since it starting auctioning the securities in 1929. The U.S. also sold $30 billion of four-week bills today at zero percent for the first time since it began selling the debt in 2001.

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Culture of Corruption

Details Of Complaint Against Blagojevich

CBS

Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and his Chief of Staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges alleging that they and others are engaging in ongoing criminal activity: conspiring to obtain personal financial benefits for Blagojevich by leveraging his sole authority to appoint a United States Senator; threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical of Blagojevich; and to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions – both historically and now in a push before a new state ethics law takes effect January 1, 2009.

Blagojevich, 51, and Harris, 46, both of Chicago, were each charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. They were charged in a two-count criminal complaint that was sworn out on Sunday and unsealed today following their arrests, which occurred without incident, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both men were expected to appear later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois' U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:

A substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;

Placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;

Promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and

A cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

Just last week, on December 4, Blagojevich allegedly told an advisor that he might "get some (money) up front, maybe" from Senate Candidate 5, if he named Senate Candidate 5 to the Senate seat, to insure that Senate Candidate 5 kept a promise about raising money for Blagojevich if he ran for re-election. In a recorded conversation on October 31, Blagojevich claimed he was approached by an associate of Senate Candidate 5 as follows: "We were approached 'pay to play.' That, you know, he'd raise 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator."

On November 7, while talking on the phone about the Senate seat with Harris and an advisor, Blagojevich said he needed to consider his family and that he is "financially" hurting, the affidavit states. Harris allegedly said that they were considering what would help the "financial security" of the Blagojevich family and what will keep Blagojevich "politically viable." Blagojevich stated, "I want to make money," adding later that he is interested in making $250,000 to $300,000 a year, the complaint alleges.

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And now for a world government

Financial Times

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America’s president-in-waiting, does not share the Bush administration’s disdain for international agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he argued that: “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.” The importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America’s ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

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U.S. Could Take Stakes in Big 3

Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Congress and the White House inched toward a financial rescue of the Big Three auto makers, negotiating legislation that would give the U.S. government a substantial ownership stake in the industry and a central role in its restructuring.

Under terms of the draft legislation, which continued to evolve Monday evening, the government would receive warrants for stock equivalent to at least 20% of the loans any company receives. The company also would have to agree to limits on executive compensation and dividend payments, much like those contained in the government's $700 billion rescue of the financial industry.

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Left wing Tries to steal Canada

Canada PM Harper to address nation on crisis
Reuters

OTTAWA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will address the nation on Wednesday night as speculation heightens that he will ask for a temporary suspension of Parliament to try to prevent the opposition from taking power.

Governor General Michaelle Jean, who will play a key role in the political crisis gripping the country, is due back from a foreign trip several hours before the prime minister speaks.

Harper, whose Conservatives were reelected with a minority government on Oct. 14, is expected to say that a plan by the three opposition parties to bring down the government and install a coalition government is illegitimate.

A leading option he is considering is asking Jean to suspend Parliament at least until his government can present a budget with new measures to stimulate the economy in late January.

Jean is the representative in Canada of Queen Elizabeth, the country's head of state, and must weigh competing constitutional arguments on whether to grant such a request or a possible later Conservative request to call a new election.

She is returning to Ottawa at 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) from Europe, and Harper's televised address is set for 7 p.m.

Harper aides would not say whether he would meet Jean this afternoon.

The main opposition Liberal Party, the separatist Bloc Quebecois and the left-leaning New Democratic Party signed an agreement on Monday to try to replace the Conservatives with a Liberal-NDP government supported by the Bloc.

To do so they would first have to defeat the government in a confidence vote in Parliament scheduled for next Monday evening. That would be prevented for now if Parliament is suspended. (Reporting by Randall Palmer; editing by Peter Galloway)

Gay Bible angers Christians

Guardian.co.uk

A gay version of the Bible, in which God says it is better to be gay than straight, is to be published by an American film producer.

New Mexico-based Revision Studios will publish The Princess Diana Bible – so named because of Diana's "many good works", it says – online at princessdianabible.com in spring 2009. A preview of Genesis is already available, in which instead of creating Adam and Eve, God creates Aida and Eve.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Aida, and she slept: and he took one of her ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from woman, made he another woman, and brought her unto the first. And Aida said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of me. Therefore shall a woman leave her mother, and shall cleave unto her wife: and they shall be one flesh.' And they were both naked, the woman and her wife, and were not ashamed."

The film studio said it would also adapt and direct the revised Bible as a two-part mini-series, The Gay Old Testament and The Gay New Testament, once it is completed.

"There are many different versions of the Bible; I don't see why we can't have one," said Max Mitchell, who directed the science fiction comedy Horror in the Wind, in which an airborne formula invented by two biogeneticists reverses the world's sexual orientation.

"I got the idea for the Princess Diana Bible from Horror In The Wind," he added. "After the world becomes gay, religious people create The Princess Diana Bible, which says that gay is right and straight is a sin. Then they burn all the King James Bibles."

The move has already provoked upset among Christians, with the blogger Douglas Howe at the Idol Chatter site describing it as "inspired by a political agenda and one person's desire to contort not only the text but the very context of it to suit his own perspective".

There was also criticism on Mitchell's Princess Diana Bible site, where one commentator said the choice of title was "very disrespectful to the late Princess Diana … It's just one more thing to link her to what many people believe is immoral. Sad, very sad indeed."

But Mitchell said: "There are 116 versions of the Bible, why is any of them better than ours?"

GORDON RAMSAY'S 7-YEAR AFFAIR EXPOSED

New York Post
excerpt-

CELEBRITY chef Gordon Ramsay is in hot water - and it's got nothing to do with cooking, according to a startling news report.

Ramsay has been having a seven-year affair with Britain's most famous mistress, the News of the World said today.

The woman in the sex scandal is Sarah Symonds, who has had so many affairs with powerful married men in Britain that she wrote a book about it, called "Having an Affair: A Handbook for the Other Woman."

Symonds was even interviewed on "Oprah" as a sort of role model for aspiring mistresses.

The paper published a photo of Ramsay leaving a high-priced London hotel this week after spending what it said was 75 minutes in Symond's $600-a-night room.

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When death comes calling, so does Oscar the cat

CNN

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) -- Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means the patient has less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," Dr. David Dosa said in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there, said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who treats patients at the nursing home and is an expert on care for the terminally ill.

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The Iceland Canary?

Icelanders protest economic meltdown
The Associated Press
excerpt-

REYKJAVIK, Iceland: Thousands of Icelanders marked the 90th anniversary of their nation's sovereignty with angry protest Monday, and several hundred stormed the central bank to demand the ouster of bankers they blame for the country's spectacular economic meltdown.

Tiny Iceland has seen its banks and currency collapse in just a few weeks while prices and unemployment soar — leaving a country regarded as a model of Scandinavian prosperity in a state of shock.

"The government played roulette and the whole nation has lost," writer Einar Mar Gudmundsson told a noisy but peaceful anti-government rally of several thousand people in downtown Reykjavik.

After the rally, hundreds of protesters stormed the headquarters of Sedlabanki, Iceland's central bank, demanding the sacking of its chief, David Oddsson.

The demonstrators staged an hour-long standoff with shield-wielding riot police inside the bank's lobby, singing songs and chanting "Out with David" and "Power to the People." The protest ended peacefully when both police and demonstrators agreed to withdraw.

Anti-government protests have been growing larger and angrier since Iceland's three main banks collapsed in October under the weight of huge debts amassed during years of rapid economic growth.

Since then the value of the country's currency, the krona, has plummeted. Icelanders who grew used to buying houses and cars with easily available foreign-currency loans now struggle to repay them. The cost of everyday goods is skyrocketing — furniture retailer Ikea hiked its prices by 25 percent last month.

Iceland has been forced to seek $10 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund and individual countries.

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Pentagon to detail military to bolster security

Plan would dedicate 20,000 uniformed troops inside U.S. by 2011

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

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