For the record, there is no such thing as a “sex addiction.” Steve Phillips, like Tiger Woods, had the four ingredients needed to get laid. Money, fame, looks and an expense account. JD

Steve Phillips, the former ESPN baseball analyst and New York Mets general manager, said Monday that he knew he had a sex addiction problem in August — two months before he was fired from his role with the network.

“What I want to do is take ownership,” he said in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show. “I made some mistakes … I’m fully responsible for what I did.”

Phillips spoke publicly for the first time since he left the Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services clinic in Hattiesburg, Miss., the same clinic golfer Tiger Woods reportedly attended.

“

Phillips I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I was doing, even knowing the consequences.

Phillips didn’t talk extensively about his time at Pine Grove, but did say that it is a place for people who are “broken” and “struggling to find answers.”

Phillips said he realized he had a sexual addiction problem in August, while he was having an affair with ESPN production assistant Brooke Hundley. That affair eventually included Hundley contacting Phillips’ wife at their home. It made its way to the New York tabloids, where Phillips was front-page fodder, in October.

“I recognized in August, I needed help,” Phillips said. “I started calling facilities.”

He said he had made the decision on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, to attend the sexual addiction clinic. He was fired by ESPN two days later. Hundley was also let go by ESPN.

At the time, a representative for Phillips said he was entering a treatment facility “to address his personal issues.”

“I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I was doing, even knowing the consequences,” Phillips told Lauer on Monday.

A month earlier, Phillips wife, Marni, had filed for divorce. The couple had been married for 19 years. He has four children.

He said he has returned to his home, but doesn’t know if his marriage can be saved. He declined to say if he had anything to tell Hundley.

“All of that is in the past,” he said. “My focus is moving forward, trying to save my family.”

Hundley, in a taped piece that preceded the Phillips interview, said that she was “young” and had made mistakes as well.

Phillips was the general manager of the Mets from 1997-2003. He said during that time, while taking a leave of absence from the team after a sexual harassment allegation, he had counseling locally for sexual issues, but didn’t enter a treatment facility.

He worked at ESPN from 2005 through October.

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We here at the brokencountry have been big fans of Howard Stern for years. We have had this argument with people for years. We like Howard because he says whats on his mind without fear of what others think.

We think putting Stern on American Idol is Americana at its finest. JD

From the “You’ve got to be kidding me” file: The New York Post is reporting “American Idol” producers are in talks with Howard Stern to replace Simon Cowell on America’s No. 1 rated show. You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Not that we don’t respect Stern, and see him as far more than the one-note shock jock he’s often painted as, but we still think this is a horrible choice for several reasons.

One, he knows very little about modern music, a point he proves every time he has a musical artist as a guest on his show. Having Ellen DeGeneres on the judging panel is one thing, but combining two non-musical entertainers on the judging panel would be deadly to the show’s credibility. But more importantly, Stern is a tremendously polarizing figure, and — misunderstood though he may be — his presence alone would cause many to tune out.

But perhaps this is all much ado about nothing: The Post report says the negotiations may simply be a ploy to get Sirius to start shaking in their boots and re-up his contract, which is up next January. Let’s hope this is the case, because we’re not ready for Ryan Seacrest to start making Baba Booey jokes on “Idol.”

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Its about time President Obama realizes that people do not want government sponsored health care. The federal government mismanages virtually every program they currently run, why would health care be any different?

Nothing like watching Obama get knocked a few rungs down the political ladder. Perhaps now he will be an effective president. One more thing. Get rid of your speaker of the house. Pelosi is an embarrassment to the democrat party. JD

WASHINGTON – After insisting for a year that failure was not an option, President Barack Obama is now acknowledging his health care overhaul may die in Congress.

His remarks at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser Thursday night sounded contradictory at times, complicating congressional leaders’ effort to revive health care legislation as Democrats hunger for guidance from the White House. Even while saying he still wanted to get the job done, Obama counseled going slow, and bowed to new political realities. Democrats no longer command a filibuster-proof Senate majority, and voters and lawmakers are far more concerned with jobs and the economy than with enacting sweeping and expensive changes to the health system.

“I think it’s very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let’s go ahead and make a decision,” Obama said Thursday night.

“And it may be that … if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not,” the president said. “And that’s how democracy works. There will be elections coming up and they’ll be able to make a determination and register their concerns one way or the other during election time.”

It seemed to be a shift in tone for the issue Obama campaigned on and made the centerpiece of his domestic agenda last year.

“Here’s the key, is to not let the moment slip away,” Obama also said.

Sweeping health legislation to extend medical coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans passed both chambers of Congress last year and was on the verge of completion before Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in a Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election last month. Brown was sworn in Thursday, giving Republicans 41 votes, enough to block the initiatives of the Democratic majority.

Now the health legislation hangs in limbo. Lawmakers are looking to Obama for a path forward, but he has not publicly offered specifics. His signals have been mixed. At the DNC event he said Republicans should be part of the process — something they’ve shown little interest in and that would doubtlessly drag out a legislative effort that many rank-and-file Democrats want to end quickly. The health care bill has become unpopular with the public and a political drag for lawmakers.

“The next step is what I announced at the State of the Union, which is to call on our Republican friends to present their ideas. What I’d like to do is have a meeting whereby I’m sitting with the Republicans, sitting with the Democrats, sitting with health care experts, and let’s just go through these bills. … And then I think that we’ve got to go ahead and move forward on a vote,” Obama said Thursday.

“But as I said at the State of the Union, I think we should be very deliberate, take our time. We’re going to be moving a jobs package forward over the next several weeks; that’s the thing that’s most urgent right now in the minds of Americans all across the country.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Friday that there is no meeting set yet for the president to talk over health care strategy with Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

“There’s nothing on the block on this right now,” he said. “But I think this just goes to the president continuing to want to hear ideas.”

Bipartisan congressional leaders are planning to join Obama at the White House on Tuesday, but Gibbs reiterated that the meeting will be centered on how to create jobs and boost the economy.

Obama had also said Thursday night that “we’ve got to move forward on a vote” on health care. When asked what the president meant by that, Gibbs said only that White House officials are “still working with Capitol Hill on the best way forward.”

Obama’s comments came just hours after he met Thursday afternoon with Democratic congressional leaders, but the discussion focused mostly on jobs, and the leaders emerged with no announcement about a path ahead for health care. Rank-and-file Democrats are eager for them to settle on one by the end of next week, after which lawmakers will return to their states and districts for a weeklong recess where they’ll likely face questions from voters on the issue.

Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, said Friday that the White House has not requested a sit-down on health care with Republicans.

“The president wants to start over on health care? Sen. McConnell’s been saying that for months,” said Stewart.

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It was just a short time ago that democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were making fun of the tea baggers. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart were taking great pride of making an obvious sexual connection to the tea baggers. Now the tea party movement is taking hold and will be a major influence in the upcoming November elections. Its not so funny now, is it Nancy Pelosi? Ed.

Nashville, Tennessee (CNN) — A grassroots movement that exploded last year is now working on its underpinnings as what’s being billed as the first national Tea Party convention gets under way.

The convention started off with fireworks Thursday night as former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado used his kickoff speech to slam President Obama.

“People who could not even spell the word ‘vote,’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama,” Tancredo said to cheers Thursday night.

A spokesman for the Tea Party Nation, the group that organized the convention, said Tancredo’s speech may have provided some red meat but termed it problematic.

“It doesn’t further the dialogue,” said Mark Skoda, a businessman and founder of the Memphis Tea Party, who is also serving as spokesman for the convention.

Contrary to Tancredo’s remarks, the Tea Party is not about “name-calling,” said Rand Paul, whose campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky is supported by the Tea Party.

“There are politicians who have gone into the movement and tried to become part of the movement,” he said on CNN’s American Morning.”But really the movement is about individual people.”

The activists are mostly concerned about the “fiscal insolvency of our nation,” he said. “We have to do something, and it’s not going to come from the career politicians.”

Speeches are not the focus of the convention. Panels, sessions and workshops are the bread and butter of this event. Among the sessions scheduled for Friday are ones on how to conduct voter registration drives and where to find conservative votes, women in politics, how to organize a Tea Party group, how to involve youth in the conservative movement, grassroots “on the ground,” how to unite state Tea Party groups, technology in the Tea Party movement and why Christians must engage.

“This convention is a way to galvanize the conservative movement in a way that the general rallies do not,” said Skoda, leading a panel on technology in the movement.

Organizers hope the three-day event will help strengthen the anti-big-government movement. On its Web site, Tea Party Nation says the event is “aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation for the purpose of networking and supporting the movement’s multiple organizations’ principal goals.”

Organizers told CNN that they’ll announce at a news conference Friday afternoon a set of “first principles” for candidates seeking support from the movement. Skoda refused to term the principles a “litmus test,” but said candidates would have to adhere to the principles to be eligible for Tea Party fundraising and support.

The principles include fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, states’ rights and national security.

There has been pushback against the convention and its organizers from both outsiders and some in the movement because of the Tea Party Nation’s for-profit status and because the price of entry attendees have paid for access to the workshops and seminars being held through Saturday.

Red State blogger Erick Erickson wrote that while he has good things to say about some groups within the Tea Party, “this national Tea Party convention smells scammy.”

Mark Meckler said he and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of the Tea Party Patriots, aren’t participating in the convention because “it wasn’t the kind of grassroots organization that we are, so we declined to participate.”

Organizers say some 600 people have paid $549 each to attend the convention and that the event is sold out. But they add that tickets costing $349 are still available for Saturday night’s banquet, where former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin will give the convention’s keynote address.

Neither convention organizers nor a spokeswoman for Palin would confirm reports that she’s getting paid around $100,000 for her keynote appearance.

“I will not benefit financially from speaking at this event,” Palin said in a statement this week. “Any compensation for my appearance will go right back to the cause.”

Sherry Phillips, who along with her husband, Nashville attorney Judson Phillips, founded Tea Party Nation, said earlier this week in a message to supporters that “we fully expect to break even at this event. We may even make a few thousand dollars to cover local operating costs of TPN.”

Phillips also fired back at her critics, saying, “We never did this to make us rich or famous. Quite the contrary, we are patriots who love our country, our members and the people who are coming to Nashville to attend this great event.”

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If all else fail, bail. It sounds to me that perhaps people are finally realizing that global warming is the single biggest hoax perpetrated on mankind. Ed.

India has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr R K Pachauri

The Indian government’s move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his glacial melting claims. In Autumn, its environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing in the face of global warming.

Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further.

He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses … they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

“I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA),” he said.

It will bring together 125 research institutions throughout India, work with international bodies and operate as a “sort of Indian IPCC,” he added.

The body, which he said will not be rival the UN’s panel, will publish its own climate assessment in November this year, with reports on the Himalayas, India’s long coastline, the Western Ghat highlands and the north-eastern region close to the borders with Bangladesh, Burma, China and Nepal. “Through these we will demonstrate our commitment to climate science,” he said.

The UN panel’s claims of glacial meltdown by 2035 “was clearly out of place and didn’t have any scientific basis,” he said, while stressing the government remained concerned about their health of the Himalayan ice flows. “Most glaciers are melting, they are retreating, some glaciers, like the Siachen glacier, are advancing. But overall one can say incontrovertibly that the debris on our glaciers is very high the snow balance is very low. We have to be very cautious because of the water security particularly in north India which depends on the health of the Himalayan glaciers,” he added.

The new National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology will be based in Dehradun, in Uttarakhand, and will monitor glacial changes and compare results with those from glaciers in Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.

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Katie Couric makes $300,000.00 a week? Are you kidding me? One would think with all that money the ice princess would be giving to charities and such. I can’t remember ever reading about Couric doing anything nice for anyone. I can’t imagine why no one watches CBS news. maybe its because it sucks and Katie Couric can suck the life out of any news story. Not to mention she is just another liberal toady. ED

CBSNEWS anchorwoman and 60 MINUTES contributor Katie Couric faces a dramatic pay cut at the network, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

CBS boss Les Moonves is determined to save money and trim expenses — from top to bottom — at the former crown jewel of broadcasting.

Couric, the highest paid TV news personality in history, commands over $14 million a year, plus bumps for non-EVENING NEWS appearances.

But her salary is now in the direct line of fire, network insiders explain, and a populist backlash against Couric’s cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.

“She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!” demands a veteran producer. “It’s complete insanity.”

The angry source continues: “We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!”

Couric’s $300,000 a week paycheck has become the obsession of disgruntled CBS staff, just as deep layoffs rock the fishbowl.

Dozens of employees — including staff members in D.C., San Francisco, Miami, London, Los Angeles and Moscow — are being let go, the NEW YORK OBSERVER reports.

Couric’s current CBS contract expires next year.

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I found this on the Times UK website.  It seems to be the only place to find any headline stories about the global warming hoax.  I especially like the part of the article where they discuss how there is no balance in the global warming community,  because as far as these so called experts are concerned,  there is no opposition.  They are right.  Ed.

The United Nations’ expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world’s mountain tops on a student’s dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

Officials were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers Photo: GETTY

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC’s remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.

The revelations, uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph, have raised fresh questions about the quality of the information contained in the report, which was published in 2007.

It comes after officials for the panel were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC’s report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.

Sceptics have seized upon the mistakes to cast doubt over the validity of the IPCC and have called for the panel to be disbanded.

This week scientists from around the world leapt to the defence of the IPCC, insisting that despite the errors, which they describe as minor, the majority of the science presented in the IPCC report is sound and its conclusions are unaffected.

But some researchers have expressed exasperation at the IPCC’s use of unsubstantiated claims and sources outside of the scientific literature.

Professor Richard Tol, one of the report’s authors who is based at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland, said: “These are essentially a collection of anecdotes.

“Why did they do this? It is quite astounding. Although there have probably been no policy decisions made on the basis of this, it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been.

“There is no way current climbers and mountain guides can give anecdotal evidence back to the 1900s, so what they claim is complete nonsense.”

The IPCC report, which is published every six years, is used by government’s worldwide to inform policy decisions that affect billions of people.

The claims about disappearing mountain ice were contained within a table entitled “Selected observed effects due to changes in the cryosphere produced by warming”.

It states that reductions in mountain ice have been observed from the loss of ice climbs in the Andes, Alps and in Africa between 1900 and 2000.

The report also states that the section is intended to “assess studies that have been published since the TAR (Third Assessment Report) of observed changes and their effects”.

But neither the dissertation or the magazine article cited as sources for this information were ever subject to the rigorous scientific review process that research published in scientific journals must undergo.

The magazine article, which was written by Mark Bowen, a climber and author of two books on climate change, appeared in Climbing magazine in 2002. It quoted anecdotal evidence from climbers of retreating glaciers and the loss of ice from climbs since the 1970s.

Mr Bowen said: “I am surprised that they have cited an article from a climbing magazine, but there is no reason why anecdotal evidence from climbers should be disregarded as they are spending a great deal of time in places that other people rarely go and so notice the changes.”

The dissertation paper, written by professional mountain guide and climate change campaigner Dario-Andri Schworer while he was studying for a geography degree, quotes observations from interviews with around 80 mountain guides in the Bernina region of the Swiss Alps.

Experts claim that loss of ice climbs are a poor indicator of a reduction in mountain ice as climbers can knock ice down and damage ice falls with their axes and crampons.

The IPCC has faced growing criticism over the sources it used in its last report after it emerged the panel had used unsubstantiated figures on glacial melting in the Himalayas that were contained within a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.

It can be revealed that the IPCC report made use of 16 non-peer reviewed WWF reports.

One claim, which stated that coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby, quoted a feature article on the WWF website.

In fact the data contained within the WWF article originated from a paper published in 2004 in the respected journal Nature.

In another example a WWF paper on forest fires was used to illustrate the impact of reduced rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data was from another Nature paper published in 1999.

When The Sunday Telegraph contacted the lead scientists behind the two papers in Nature, they expressed surprise that their research was not cited directly but said the IPCC had accurately represented their work.

The chair of the IPCC Rajendra Pachauri has faced mounting pressure and calls for his resignation amid the growing controversy over the error on glacier melting and use of unreliable sources of information.

A survey of 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report showed, however, that the majority still support Mr Pachauri and the panel’s vice chairs. They also insisted the overall findings of the report are robust despite the minor errors.

But many expressed concern at the use of non-peer reviewed information in the reports and called for a tightening of the guidelines on how information can be used.

The Met Office, which has seven researchers who contributed to the report including Professor Martin Parry who was co-chair of the working group responsible for the part of the report that contained the glacier errors, said: “The IPCC should continue to ensure that its review process is as robust and transparent as possible, that it draws only from the peer-reviewed literature, and that uncertainties in the science and projections are clearly expressed.”

Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation Resources for the Future who also contributed to the IPCC’s latest report, added: “The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy.

“It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative studies ignoring more positive alternatives.”

The IPCC failed to respond to questions about the inclusion of unreliable sources in its report but it has insisted over the past week that despite minor errors, the findings of the report are still robust and consistent with the underlying science.

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John Edwards and his mistress Rielle Hunter

Andrea Purse tells The Associated Press on behalf of Elizabeth Edwards that the couple has separated. Purse released a statement Wednesday that says Elizabeth is moving on with her life and wants to put this difficult chapter behind her.

It comes as details emerge about a tell-all book from longtime John Edwards aide Andrew Young, who initially claimed he fathered a child with Edwards’ mistress.

John Edwards publicly declared last week that he was the one who fathered a child with Rielle Hunter, who worked as a videographer before his second presidential campaign.

North Carolina law requires couples to be separated for a year before divorcing.

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We want to ask this question of the Los Angeles city council and Tim Rutten, an Op-Ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. Will anyone notice the layoffs?

I lifted this from Mr. Rutten’s article entitled “L.A. city officials need to think twice about layoffs” When I read it I was stunned.

The beast now gnawing the heart from our civic finances is, in part, the progeny of the credit markets’ collapse and, in even greater part, a consequence of the unemployment created by that disaster. Citywide, unemployment is running better than 12%; in some particularly hard-hit Latino and African American neighborhoods, one in five workers is jobless. Unemployed workers still require city services, but they pay little in the way of taxes, so they drain the city budget.

Those numbers ought to weigh heavily on City Hall’s current deliberations because government has been for some time now our most significant local employer. Over the last two decades, the manufacturing, financial-services and aerospace firms that once provided our local middle-class employment base have faded from the scene — most the victims of consolidation within their own industries. As a result, Los Angeles County’s six leading employers now are government entities: L.A. County employs 93,200 workers; the state of California has 30,200; the city of Los Angeles clocks in with 53,471.

What do all these employees do? L.A. Country employs 93,200 workers? The City of Los Angeles employs 53,471 workers? Again, what is it that these “workers” do? Obviously not very much if it takes so many workers in the first place.

One fact that Mr. Rutten seems to have conspicuously left out of his opinion piece, is that the vast majority of all of these city, county and state employees are in unions.

Now this is just my opinion, but I know it’s an opinion shared by many, and that’s that unions breed contempt. Contempt of management, contempt of employers and even contempt of fellow employees.

Union’s are constantly pitting their rank and file against their employers. They have a “work less for more” attitude. Unions in California are primarily responsible for the current budget mess that the state of California finds itself in today.

Mr. Rutten leaves out the obvious in his article, that unions have been instrumental in expanding California’s government workforce at every level of government, and for all the added expense of each and every one of the hired workers, the quality of service has gone down.

Remember the California Teachers Association convincing us that the path to better education was to reduce classroom size down to 23 students? How many new teachers were required to pull that one off? How much did the state spend on new portable classrooms to accommodate all the new teachers with a smaller workload? Has education in California gotten any better? Have test scores improved?

How frustrating is it for any of us that have to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or for that matter to go to any government run agency? We sit and watch helplessly as these “workers” wander about the facility like kids in a playground, shooting the breeze with co-workers, laughing and carrying on, ridiculing and laughing at us all right in front of us, without any fear of retribution from their employers because getting them fired takes an act of congress. Thank the unions for it.

Now apologists like Mr. Rutten want to try to make the Los Angeles City Council think twice for putting 1,000 people in the unemployment line from a workforce of 53,471?

Let me ask another question of Mr. Rutten. The city and county of Los Angeles are broke. So is the state of California. If you were to suddenly lose your job, would you keep your gardener, pool man and maid employed to help keep the economy from tanking? I would bet that the answer would be a resounding NO.

How then Mr. Rutten, can you logically argue that it’s imperative that the city of Los Angeles keep employees that they cannot afford to stave off a deeper recession of the local economy? It’s absolute insanity.

If two employees are good, then four is even better. The overwhelming bloat and waste in the state of California is a direct result of this kind of thinking. Where did logic go? How did doing things logically get lost in the government equation?

Californians are paying more for less at every level and at come point something has to give. The current situation cannot sustain itself for much longer. You have less revenue coming in to state and city coffers so you cut spending. Government employees are not guaranteed a lifetime of employment. JD

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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested California could ease its crowded prison system by sending thousands of undocumented inmates to specially built jails in Mexico.

Speaking to reporters at the Sacramento Press Club, Schwarzenegger said California could ease its strained finances by a billion dollars if 20,000 illegal immigrants currently held in the state were housed across the border.

“I think that we can do so much better in the prison system alone if we can go and take, inmates for instance, the 20,000 inmates that are illegal immigrants that are here and get them to Mexico,” Schwarzenegger said.

“Think about it — if California gives Mexico the money. Not ‘Hey, you take care of them, these are your citizens’. No. Not at all.

“We pay them to build the prison down in Mexico. And then we have those undocumented immigrants down there in prison. It would half the costs to build the prison and run the prison. We could save a billion dollars right there that could go into higher education.”

Schwarzenegger’s remarks come as California prepares for the latest in a long line of state budget crises.

Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency earlier this month, warning severe cuts were necessary to stem a 19.9-billion-dollar deficit.

California has some of the most overcrowded prisons in the United States, with an estimated 170,000 inmates housed in facilities designed for 100,000 people, according to 2007 figures.

Schwarzenegger said he believed the financial burden of California’s prisons could be eased if the private sector moved into the industry.

“I think that there is no reason why we should have just state employees and public prisons,” Schwarzenegger said. “Why shouldn’t we have private prisons and private prisons competing with public prisons?

“I don’t want to go and get rid of public prisons, not at all. It’s not an attack on their labor union even though they may take it as such.

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John Travolta in a file photo next to one of his personal aircraft

John Travolta piloted a plane laden with aid supplies and Scientologists to Haiti today to bolster the US-based group’s disaster relief effort.

The actor and leading Scientologist flew his own Boeing 707 to the capital, Port-au-Prince, and helped unload six tonnes of ready-to-eat military rations and medical supplies. “We have the ability to actually help make a difference in the situation in Haiti and I just can’t see not using this plane to help,” he said.

The delivery came as impatience with food distribution sparked a small riot in front of the national palace and President Rene Preval announced he would move into a tent in solidarity with hundreds of thousands left homeless by the magnitude 7 quake on 12 January.

Aid continued building up at the airport with planes and helicopters landing and departing every few minutes. The jumble of US troops, western aid workers, Chinese rescue teams, UN staff and wounded Haitians turned even more eclectic with the overnight arrival of Travolta.

The actor, who has a pilot’s licence, flew from Florida accompanied in the cockpit by his wife, Kelly Preston. He compared the mission to their visit to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. “We were there right away, with this aeroplane, because you know we have the ability and the means to do this so I think you have responsibility on some level to do that.”

There is a backlog of at least 800 aircraft awaiting permission to land at the overloaded airport, which can handle just 130 flights daily, prompting recriminations from some aid agencies

The Church of Scientology has dispatched several hundred “volunteer ministers” in yellow T-shirts to other disasters, including September 11. They use a process called “assist” in which the power of touch purportedly reconnects nervous systems shaken by trauma. Since last week several hundred have fanned across Port-au-Prince. “Our volunteers are coming from all over. From Puerto Rico, Mexico, the US, everywhere,” said Frank Suarez, from Puerto Rico, as colleagues set up a camp at a gymnasium. “The need is huge here.”

The group, which critics say is a cult peddling quack treatments, has received a mixed reaction to the light “touching”, through clothing and bandages, of fractures and infection.

“All the patients are happy with the technique,” a volunteer named only as Silvie told AFP. “But some doctors don’t like the yellow T-shirts. It’s a colour thing.”

One US doctor, who declined to be named, said it was more a credibility thing. “I didn’t know touching could heal gangrene.”When asked about the Scientologists, an Oxfam spokesperson said: “All aid agencies need to co-ordinate and ensure help that is given reaches benchmark standards and follow best practice.” Delays continued to hamper the response to a disaster which, according to the Haitian government, has killed more than 150,000 and left 3 million needing aid.

Only 10,000 of a needed 200,000 tents have arrived, leaving many to shelter under grubby sheets in settlement camps. The president, who lost his home in the quake, said he would move into a tent on the lawn of the collapsed national palace.

A daily handout of rice and soy oil in front of the palace degenerated into chaos on Monday when 4,000 people overwhelmed Uruguayan UN troops in charge of the distribution.

“Whatever we do, it doesn’t matter – they are animals,” one soldier, who declined to be named, cried in Spanish, as he tried to hold back the crowd with a shield.

The troops, who did not speak French or Creole, waved pepper spray and fired rubber bullets in the air from atop an armoured vehicle.

They carried off a pregnant woman who vomited and collapsed amid the chaos. After the troops had withdrawn, the crowd jostled over 50 rice sacks left behind. Those too slow or weak for the struggle were left to pick up the remaining rice grains from the street.

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Clear Channel Communications is interested in signing radio shock jock Howard Stern.

The nation’s largest radio station owner, and the home of conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, confirmed its interest in Stern to The Associated Press on Monday.

Calls and e-mails to Stern’s agent, Don Buchwald, and Stern’s current employer, Sirius XM Radio Inc., were not immediately returned.

Stern’s five-year, $500 million contract with Sirius expires at the end of the year.

John Hogan, CEO of Clear Channel’s radio division, told Bloomberg BusinessWeek earlier that the company’s interest depends on whether Stern would be willing to work within the limitations of over-the-air radio. The Federal Communications Commission restricts broadcasts of profanity and other indecent material.

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Democrats in Washington following Obama into the political abyss

President Obama has asked his former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to oversee House, Senate and governor’s races to stave off a hemorrhage of seats in the fall. The president ordered a review of the Democratic political operation — from the White House to party committees — after last week’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, aides said.

The democrats have followed President Obama to the edge of the cliff and now Obama wants them to jump. In one short year, Obama’s agenda and Obama himself have managed to alienate the very people that put him in power, the independents.

President Obama’s answer to last Tuesday’s “Massachusetts Massacre” as its being called has been a debacle in and of itself. Obama went out on Wednesday acting contrite and said “We’ve lost touch with the people.”

It took less than 24 hours for Obama’s massive ego to rear it’s ugly head once again. On Thursday, Obama was grabbing headlines with rhetoric about being “fighting mad” and “not walking away from health care.”

If this is the leadership that the democrats desire, well then, see you in the growing unemployment lines. Because that’s exactly where President Obama is taking the democrats in Washington.

The White House under President Obama lacks direction. Obama himself admitted that he may have taken on too much. Obama is all over the map with plans to take over the banking industry, the auto industry, the health care industry, at times sounding more like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez than the leader of the free world.

President Obama and his campaigners can try to sugarcoat last weeks Brown victory in Massachusetts until the cows come home, but it wont hide the alarming trend of the political landscape.

Democrats ran under the premise that they intended to “change” the way business is done in Washington, but based on Obama’s handling of the health care reform debacle, where “transparency in government” was about as clear as a brick wall, and its rather obvious to Americans that Obama and the democrats are playing politics with the people, and the people don’t like it.

Let Massachusetts serve as a warning to the democrats. in the 2008 elections, the people did not vote for Obama’s “change” as much as they voted against McCain/Palin. That appears to be the bottom line.

If President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi think that an entire year of ignoring the people that put them in office is any way to sustain their political careers, than by all means, let the rest of the democrats in Washington follow their fearless leaders over the political cliff. JD

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At least this mug shot isn’t as creepy as the last.

Perpetually troubled funnyman Andy Dick was arrested in West Virginia Saturday morning on two felony charges of first-degree sexual abuse, the Huntington Police Department confirms to E! News.

Police are keeping the details under wraps, due to the ongoing investigation, but the comedian is expected to be arraigned early this afternoon. Dick is in West Virgina for six-scheduled performances throughout the weekend at the Funny Bone Comedy Club, and, according to a club rep, Saturday night’s show will go on.

“He had two shows last night and dominated, he was on fire,” Funny Bone manager Tom Schaefer tells E!, “the best I’ve ever seen him.”

Dick was reportedly celebrating his sobriety early Friday, but a source who was with the actor throughout the day tells E! that by the end out the night, the former Celebrity Rehab castoff had fallen off the wagon.

Officers responded to a call at Rum Runners nightclub, where two victims, a bartender and clubgoer, as well as several witnesses, alleged Dick “engaged in unwanted, and uninvited groping of the two victims genital areas,” according to a statement from the Huntington PD. ”

Dick’s newest legal woes come while he’s on probation for a similar crime, following a 2008 arrest for allegedly exposing himself to and groping a teenage girl.

The actor avoided jail time but was sentenced to three years’ probation, a portion of which he needed to wear a SCRAM ankle bracelet to detect any drug and alcohol use.

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WASHINGTON — Voter discontent with the direction of the government, economy and the health care overhaul helped send Republican Scott Brown to his Senate victory in Massachusetts, a poll says.

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