Watered Down Volker Report Finally Sputters Forth

Even so, the "sensitive" types at the UN are shocked...

"The 19-month investigation has caused havoc at the United Nations, whose officials say the world body was unequipped to handle a program of that size."

But from here:

http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/ch6/ch6_txt.htm...

Who works at the United Nations and what do they do there?
Economists, translators, statisticians, secretaries, TV producers, computer experts, physicians, carpenters – these are just a few of the wide variety of people with many skills and backgrounds who work as UN staff members.

The UN Secretariat employs some 7,500 staff members under the regular budget and a nearly equal number under special funding. Coming from some 170 countries, they administer the UN's policies and programmes in New York and at duty stations around the world. The UN system as a whole – the UN and its related programmes and specialized agencies, including the World Bank and the IMF – employs some 61,000 people worldwide.

Funny, thts more people than Microsoft has:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39233636,00.htm

NEWSMEAT - Hall of Fame - Political Donations of the Rich, Famous, & Powerful

Now I know who to boycott (most of 'em).

'Bill and Me'�

Mr. Freeh also heaps scorn on Mr. Clinton for his 177 last-minute pardons and commutations without consulting either the FBI or the Justice Department, contrary to established procedures. One beneficiary, Marc Rich, fled to Switzerland to avoid 50-plus indictments for fraud. Why drop the charges? Mr. Rich's socialite wife, Denise, donated more than $1 million to Democrats during the Clinton-Gore years. As Mr. Freeh writes, "the stench... should have been enough to dissuade the president. It didn't, of course. That was Bill Clinton."

Agency Probes Possible Terror Threat Leak - Yahoo! News

"'It's ironic that on the one hand the department is saying this is not a credible threat and then, if these e-mails are true, people within the department with access to classified information felt it was worth contacting their own families,' said Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The e-mails began circulating Oct. 3 — three days before Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced they were putting thousands of extra police officers on patrol in the subways in response to the possible plot to bomb the subway using briefcases or baby strollers packed with explosives.

The Daily News quoted one e-mail — purportedly penned by the unnamed son of a high-ranking Homeland Security official — in which he warns recipients: 'The only information I can pass on to you is that everyone should at all costs not ride the subway for the next two weeks in major areas of NYC.'"

Nothing like this to restore my faith, along with the founding fathers that government should only be trusted as far as you can throw it. That mistrust, not shared by nearly enough US citizens these days, is exactly what made our country great. Keep disappointing us Big Government. We need the reminders.

Miers is the wrong pick - George Will

"The wisdom of presumptive opposition to Miers' confirmation flows from the fact that constitutional reasoning is a talent -- a skill acquired, as intellectual skills are, by years of practice sustained by intense interest. It is not usually acquired in the normal course of even a fine lawyer's career. The burden is on Miers to demonstrate such talents, and on senators to compel such a demonstration or reject the nomination."

E.U. Opens Historic Talks On Membership for Turkey

"PARIS, Oct. 4 -- The European Union formally opened membership talks with Turkey early Tuesday morning, but only after bitter opposition by Austria had exposed deep apprehensions about the future of the 25-country group and the prospects of admitting a large, poor, Muslim country to its ranks."

I wonder what their problem is? In another 25 years or so all of Europe will be a large poor Muslim country. Turkey will fit right in.