Let the Race Begin .... On Your Marks ..... Get Set .............

Mondays with Tony Lee 04.04.11


President Barack Obama launched his reelection campaign with a web video. While at first blush the timing of the announcement may be puzzling because the optics imply that Obama is more focused on politicking instead of being serious about the budget and Libya, I think his announcement this week is a brilliant piece of political strategy. Obama has been getting some unfavorable coverage from the mainstream media, so now that he has officially announced his candidacy for reelection, the mainstream media and the White House press corps will surely put on their Obama jerseys again and give him favorable coverage. MSM men will get tingles up their legs and women will get all hot and tingly over the Big O’s speeches and optics.

With this bias and tilted playing field in mind, it is more imperative for prospective GOP presidential candidates to be effective messengers. I suggest that each candidate listen to 9 innings of legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully to learn how to better communicate with voters. 
— Tony Lee

VS COMMENTS

Banks, Credit-Card Issuers Warn Of Email Breach

by The Associated Press

I have received two or possibly three already that are suspicious, so I think that this is a real threat .............. BEWARE

With the possible theft of millions of consumer email addresses from an advertising company, several large companies have started warning customers to expect fraudulent emails that try to coax account login information from them.

A dozen companies said over the weekend that hackers may have learned their email addresses because of a security breach at a Dallas-based company called Epsilon that manages email communications.

Among the affected companies are banks like Capital One Financial Corp., Barclays Bank, U.S. Bancorp and Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and retailers like Best Buy Co., TiVo Inc., Walgreen Co. and Kroger Co.

The College Board, the not-for-profit organization that runs the SATs, also warned that a hacker may have obtained student email addresses.

Walt Disney Co.'s travel subsidiary, Disney Destinations, sent emails warning customers on Sunday.

Epsilon said Friday that its system had been breached, exposing email addresses and customer names but no other personal information.

The email addresses could be used to target spam. It's also a standard tactic among online fraudsters to send emails to random people, purporting to be from a large bank and asking them to login in at a site that looks like the bank's site. Instead, the fraudulent site captures their login information and uses it to access the real account.

Oh, yea, but what I meant was ...................

You just have to admire the "guts" of these sports "experts" and their commentary. None of them have been right yet, but they still, with straight face, tell us what this or that team has to do to win. I don't think any of them have any idea what's going on, they just like wearing those nice suits, expensive shirts and bawdy ties.

They start from "scratch" every time they speak. They forget about how wrong they have been, brush off all those erroneous predictions, and start their "blabbing" all over.

They all have all the qualifications it takes to be politicians. They can say one thing, be wrong, and say something else, or, have reasons WHY, their predictions did not come true.

Plus, I think there are now more "sports" analysts and announcers than there are participants in the games.

Sunday Morning Food for Thought

Gubmint and How de Gubmint Works


Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions, a time keeper and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year, and we are $918,000 over budget. We must cut back." So they laid off the night watchman..

NOW slowly, let that sink in.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY..... during the Carter Administration?

No?

Didn't think so!

Bottom line: We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency...the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready?? It was very simple . . . and, at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977 TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND, NOW, IT'S 2011 -- 34 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES, AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?"

A little over 34 years ago, 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes -- the good old Federal bureaucracy!!

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY OVER TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?

Hello-o-o-o-o!! Anybody Home?

Tiny Paws Kitten Rescue takes in 33 cats rescued from local apartment

Written by Anna Sudar

NEWARK -- About two years ago, Kathi Brooks started Tiny Paws Kitten Rescue in her Newark home.
Working mostly on her own, she would care for pregnant cats and their kittens until she could help them find permanent families.

But last week, Brooks got a phone call that turned her small animal rescue organization upside down.

On March 22, Newark police and animal control personnel removed 49 cats and eight kittens from an apartment on North Fifth Street. Many of the cats were sick and malnourished.

When Brooks heard what had happened, she knew she had to help the cats somehow.

"I normally don't do this kind of thing," she said. "But they had nowhere else to go."

Tiny Paws Kitten Rescue took in 33 of the cats, which now live in large cages in Brooks' garage. She and a small group of friends and volunteers feed the cats, clean their litter and make sure they get good veterinary care.

Their main goal is to get the cats healthy, then get them adopted, Brooks said.

"I'm not going to give up, and neither will my friends," she said. "We'll get them homes."

HOW TO HELP

» Tiny Paws Kitten Rescue is asking for Purina Cat Chow, scoopable and gravel cat litter, Clorox wipes, paper towels, food bowls and monetary donations to pay for spaying and neutering. To make a donation or adopt a cat, call Kathi Brooks at (740) 349-3254.


» Donations and adoption inquiries also may be made to BARK Animal Rescue, which can be reached at (740) 964-9651, and Stop the Suffering, which can be reached at (740) 507-0996.


» For more information about the spay/neuter clinic at Complete Petmart, call Bob Wirick at (740) 323-0963.


» A Cat-A-Thon adoption event will take place April 15-17 at Complete Petmart, 597 Hebron Road, Heath.

High Justice

LAS VEGAS – A Las Vegas prosecutor who handled recent drug cases involving Paris Hilton and pop singer Bruno Mars has resigned following his arrest in a crack cocaine case.


Clark County District Attorney David Roger tells The Associated Press he accepted David Schubert's resignation Friday.

A telephone call to Schubert went unanswered. His lawyer, William Terry, didn't immediately respond to a message.

The 47-year-old Schubert was arrested March 19 after Las Vegas police reported watching him in a white BMW sedan buy $40 worth of rock cocaine in a neighborhood east of the Las Vegas Strip.

Schubert was a 10-year veteran prosecutor and liaison for the last two years to a federal drug task force.

He's free pending a May 19 court date on felony conspiracy and cocaine possession charges.

Japanese Dog Rescued

The Japanese coast guard have rescued a dog believed to have survived the massive tsunami of March 11 and also three weeks at sea. The dog was found on the floating roof of a house that had been washed out to sea, nearly two kilometers from the coast of Kesennuma in northern Japan.

 It evaded capture for several hours as it scrambled over the large floating rubble raft. Friday was the first day of an intensive operation to search for and recover the 18,000 people still missing and now presumed dead three weeks after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a killer tsunami.

A total of 27,500 people were either killed or are still missing. US forces, Japan's Self Defense force, Japanese police and coast guards launched a three day operation involving 120 aircraft and 65 vessels over three northern Japanese prefectures. Japanese broadcaster NTV said the Japanese Coast Guard had been hoping the dog would lead them to the pet's owner.

Once rescued, the dog captured the hearts of the coast guard when it licked its rescuers hands. The coast guard could only speculate who the dog belonged to - they could not find a name tag or ID on the collar.

Final Four tarnished by new probes into UK, UConn

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

It’s Final Four Saturday and to ring in the action there are two new media investigations into NCAA violations, this time at Kentucky and Connecticut, one half of the Bond, Schoeneck and King subregional here.

Jim Calhoun's program could find itself in hot water again if the NCAA looks into new allegations.

The New York Times said that the NCAA could potentially reopen the UConn major infractions case involving one-time recruit Nate Miles after Miles told the paper that Huskies coach Jim Calhoun “knew” of illegal payments from a booster, that he twice received improper help on standardized tests and characterized a number of Calhoun’s statements to the NCAA as “lies”.

Meanwhile, FoxSports.com is reporting a former Kentucky and Memphis basketball staffer, Bilal Bately, made illegal phone calls to recruits, including former Wildcat DeMarcus Cousins. In his job, Bately was not permitted to call recruits. He left the program in 2009.
While neither scandal is overwhelming in nature, together they represent more dings to an already banged up sport. The timing of their release serves as the latest drumbeat that college athletics are at a breaking point.

Already there are major allegations against the football programs of Auburn, Ohio State and Oregon, plus details of illegal activity and rampant fraud involving the BCS’s Fiesta Bowl. There was also this week’s report by ESPN that former LSU All-American Patrick Peterson was shopped as a high school recruit, which follows last fall’s case of Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton being shopped as a recruit. And it turns out Ohio State head football coach Jim Tressel knowingly used ineligible players for an entire season

'Tree Of Hope' Stands As Poignant Symbol In Japan

by John Burnett

When a massive earthquake struck Japan on March 11, triggering a tsunami, the city of Rikuzentakata's famous pine trees were wiped away — except for this one. Now it is a symbol of hope for a devastated nation.

On the beach facing the Pacific in a city called Rikuzentakata stands a lone pine tree whose bark is scraped and scarred from the tsunami waters. Remarkably, it is still standing tall.

Rikuzentakata has been, effectively, erased from the map of northeastern Japan. Very little remains of this historic low-lying resort town that was popular for its beautiful white-sand beach. One in 10 residents out of the population of 23,000 are dead or missing, and officials privately expect that figure to go much higher.

The great wave of March 11 scraped the city away in one of the most startling displays of complete destruction that anyone has seen along the hundreds of miles of obliterated seascape. Only a few large, gutted structures — a civic gymnasium, a hotel, a high school — remain as indicators that this was once a populated area.

The city fathers had planted pine trees along a mile and a half of beaches more than 200 years ago and they were a familiar, iconic sight for locals and tourists. Now there is one. The Japanese media have dubbed it "the tree of hope" and the stories have prompted people to drive through the apocalyptic scene to take pictures of the pine. A member of the Rikuzentakata education committee says he heard the federal government is interested in commemorating the tree.

Local resident Yasumori Matsuzaka is one of those who braved a cold late spring wind to come and see what everyone has been talking about. "This tree and all the pine trees on the beach were planted by my ancestors," he said, looking up at the tall tree, whose lower branches have been sheared off. "I have lots of feelings about it. I hope this tree becomes a symbol of rebuilding Takata."

Christina Taylor Green angel dedicated today

TUCSON - It has been nearly three months since the day Congresswoman Giffords and 18 others were shot. The Tucson community has been healing from the tragedy since. Today, an angel will help with that healing.

A sculpture in the form of an angel will be unveiled at 5 pm at James D. Kriegh Park in Oro Valley. The sculpture, titled "Freedom's Steadfast Angel of Love," stands 9 feet 11 inches tall and is a replica of the statues at Ground Zero in New York, the pentagon and the Flight 93 Crash site.

It is the first angel to be made of wreckage from all three sites.

The youngest victim from the January 8th shootings is 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green. She was an aspiring baseball player and the only girl on her little league team. She used to play baseball at the James D. Kriegh Park with the Canyon Del Oro Little League. Green was born on September 11, 2001.

The angel will be dedicated at the park in Green's honor.

Report Criticizes High Pay at Fannie and Freddie

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Regulators have approved generous executive compensation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-backed mortgage finance giants, with little scrutiny or analysis, according to a report published Thursday by the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Michael Williams at Fannie Mae got $9.3 million.

The companies, whose fates are to be decided by Congress this year, paid a combined $17 million to their chief executives in 2009 and 2010, the two full years when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were wards of the state, the report found. The top six executives at the companies received $35.4 million over the two years. Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over in September 2008, the companies’ mounting mortgage losses have required a $153 billion infusion from taxpayers. Total losses may reach $363 billion through 2013, according to government estimates.

Charles E. Haldeman Jr., a former head of Putnam Investments, the giant fund management concern, joined Freddie Mac as its chief executive in 2009. He made $7.8 million for 2009 and 2010. Fannie Mae’s chief is Michael J. Williams, who has worked at the company since 1991. He received $9.3 million for the two years. Company officials declined to comment.

Subj: The Honeymoon is over.

I received these in an email, have verified none of them, but they are all cute.........

You know the honeymoon is over when the comedians start.

The liberals are asking us to give Obama time.
We agree...and think 25 to life would be appropriate.
--Jay Leno

America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.
--Jay Leno

Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it.
--Conan O'Brien

Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser.
--Jay Leno

Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers, and threats to society.
The other is for housing prisoners.
--David Letterman

Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink,
 who would be saved?
A: America!
--Jimmy Fallon

Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers.
--Jimmy Kimmel

Q: What was the most positive result of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road.
--David Letterman

Why?

I'm watching some tennis, a tournament from Florida, and I have a question.

Why, do the tennis players have to carry and lug all of their equipment when they come on to the court. Golfers have caddies, I think that every sport, the participants don't have to lug their own equipment around. I've often wondered, a tournament, the winner just won a couple of million dollars, lifts that heavy bunch of equipment, throws it over the shoulder, and carries it off of the court.

At the start, I would think they would want to conserve all of their energy, arms and shoulders are important, why lung all that heavy stuff around. Can you imagine Donald Trump, or Bill Gates getting out of their limos and carrying their own luggage into their two thousand a night hotel?a

If I was a world class tennis player I would pay someone to carry all of my equipment, last thing in the world is to wear myself out lugging all that stuff to the court.

10 Dying U.S. Industries

by Jacob Goldstein

What kills an industry? Technological innovation or global competition.

Take a look at this list from market research firm IBISWorld. It's for U.S. industries, and it's sorted by industry size:

Wired Telecommunications Carrier
Mills
Newspaper publishing
Apparel manufacturing
Dvd game and video rental
Manufactured home dealers
Video postproduction services
Record stores
Photo finishing
Formal wear and costume rental

Six of the 10 are clearly getting killed by technology: wired telecoms (i.e. landlines); newspapers; game and video rental; video postproduction; record stores and photofinishing (i.e. photo printing).

Two of the 10 are clearly getting killed by global competition: apparel manufacturing and mills. (Mills, in this context, basically refers to what we think of as textiles — it includes textile mills, textile mills, apparel mills and carpet and rug mills.)

The other two industries on the list — manufactured home dealers and formal wear.

Formal wear, as it turns out, is getting killed indirectly by foreign competition: Globalization means tuxes and the like are cheaper. So, the report says, "consumers are more inclined to pay a marginally higher price to own their formal wear rather than rent it for each occasion."

Manufactured homes (aka mobile homes) may be the exception. The IBISWorld report argues that manufactured home sales are stagnant because the industry is not innovating, and that sales are likely to continue falling in the coming years.

But a big chunk of the industry's trouble in the past decade came from the housing and credit boom. During the boom, it became much easier for people with low incomes to get mortgages to buy traditional homes.

Thursday, March 31 schedule - A SPECIAL day for MOM Congelli

Thursday, March 31 schedule


March 31, 2011
We’re scheduled to be at Dover-Lourdes baseball, John Jay-Carmel softball and Marlboro-Pine Bush softball today. Joann Congelli, mother of Carmen, is scheduled to throw out the first pitch at the Marlboro softball opener.

Has to be a tough day for Mom ...............

BP Laptop With Claimants' Personal Data Disappears

by The Associated Press

A BP employee lost a laptop containing personal data belonging to thousands of residents who filed claims for compensation after the Gulf oil spill, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

BP spokesman Curtis Thomas said the oil giant on Monday mailed out letters to roughly 13,000 people whose data was stored on the computer, notifying them about the potential data security breach and offering to pay for their credit to be monitored. The company also reported the missing laptop to law enforcement, he said.

The laptop was password-protected, but the information was not encrypted, Thomas said.

The data included a spreadsheet of claimants' names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses. But Thomas said the company doesn't have any evidence that claimants' personal information has been misused.

"We're committed to the people of the Gulf Coast states affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident and spill, and we deeply regret that this occurred," he said.

The data belonged to individuals who filed claims with BP before the Gulf Coast Claims Facility took over the processing of claims in August. BP paid roughly $400 million in claims before the switch. As of Tuesday, the GCCF had paid roughly $3.6 billion to 172,539 claimants.

Thomas said no one will have to resubmit a claim because of the lost data.

The employee lost the laptop on March 1 during "routine business travel," said Thomas, who declined to elaborate on the circumstances.

"If it was stolen, we think it was a crime of opportunity, but it was initially lost," Thomas said.

Think of the cows: clocks go forward for the last time in Russia

Russia will be on permanent Summer time from Sunday – a move that may find favour in other countries.

Cows will be calmer, doctors happier and crooks less active.

That's the thinking as Russia puts forward its clocks for the last time this weekend.

Leading the way in an incipient global trend that rejects the notion of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, the Russian authorities believe the move will reduce human – and animal – misery.

It means Russia, which stretches across nine time zones from Kaliningrad in Europe to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific, will stay permanently on summer time from this Sunday, gaining extra daylight in the afternoons during its seemingly interminable winter.

The president, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russians were fed up with the time changes because they caused "stress and illnesses" and "upset the human biorhythm".

"It's irritating, people wake up early and don't know what to do with themselves for the spare hour," he said. "And that's not to mention the unhappy cows and other animals that don't understand the clocks changing and don't understand why the milkmaids come to them at a different time."

The only other country in Europe without switches to and from daylight saving time is Iceland, but Belarus and Ukraine are also considering abandoning the system.

Some critics suggested it was a populist move by the Kremlin to distract from more serious social issues, but many experts supported the idea

BCS conducts shallow probe as party rages on

By Dan Wetzel

The Bowl Championship Series is so troubled by the graft exposed in Tuesday’s Fiesta Bowl corruption report that it appointed a special “task force.” Among the members is an athletics director who accepted a free Caribbean cruise from the Orange Bowl just last summer.

Yes, there’s nothing like having a guy – in this case, Southern Mississippi’s Richard Giannini – who takes lavish gifts from one bowl game to judge another bowl game for giving out lavish gifts.

The obvious news from Tuesday’s 276-page Fiesta Bowl report is that longtime CEO John Junker was fired and is in major legal trouble, in part because of the eye-popping way his bowl game was run – $1,200 strip-joint bills tend to generate news interest. The real issue is that the BCS is doing what the Fiesta Bowl originally tried to do: conduct a shallow investigation and hope the party is allowed to rage on.

Tuesday revealed a bowl game involved in illegal political donations, massive kickbacks to college administrators and obscene financial abuse. In just one example, the Fiesta paid Junker’s membership at four separate country clubs in three states.

The BCS wants the problem to be seen as isolated. The task force has been empowered to “evaluate the bowl’s findings and its recommendations,” according to Penn State president Graham Spanier.

There is no mention of doing what common sense would suggest: asking what the heck the other bowls are doing and then examining their finances too. After all, the federal tax filings of some other major bowls show similar non-itemized expenditures, executive salaries and profit margins.

Spanier must belong to the popular Big Ten chapter of the Little Sisters of the Naïve if he thinks that, while milking a multimillion dollar cash cow, the only bowl executives who considered laying the corporate AMEX down at the gentlemen’s club or accepting a $27,000-per-year car allowance or throwing four-day $33,000 birthday parties were Junker and his crew.

The other BCS games? Nope, no need to even ask. Second-tier bowls which pay their executives even more than Junker’s nearly $600,000? Nothing to see here, folks.

Tokyo Sees Its Lights Go Dim, And Lifestyles Change

by Jim Zarroli

Dazzling digital billboards overlook the shopping districts, doors glide open automatically, and moving sidewalks transport people through malls and train stations.

But the earthquake and tsunami have forced the city to reduce its power usage, forcing residents to alter their lifestyles.

For a young Tokyo hipster, Shibuya is the place to see and be seen. It's a busy, noisy crossroads where people can shop, meet friends and have a drink.

Elina Ishizawa, a 22-year-old beautician, stands with a friend watching the crowd.

"When you come to Shibuya it's always a party," she says through an interpreter. "The whole city is having fun. I like to come here because it makes me feel energetic."

But these days, the mood is more somber. Because of the power shortage, giant electronic billboards that normally make evenings in Shibuya as bright as day have all been turned off.

Hidetomo Takahashi, an office worker, scans the crowd, trying to find a friend.

"Usually Shibuya is so bright you can see everyone's face even if they're far away," he says in Japanese. "But today it's so dark, it's difficult to see people approaching you."

The catastrophe of March 11 and the crippling of a major nuclear complex have dealt a big blow to Japan's power supply. Residents have been asked to contend with electricity shortages, something virtually unheard of here.

Suzuki

New Suzuki vehicles, destroyed by tsunami waters from the March 11 massive earthquake, are piled on the Suzuki company lot, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 inSendai, Miyagi prefecture, Japan. Much of Japan's auto industry, the second largest supplier of cars in the world, remains idle two weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit the country's northeast coast. Though few plants were seriously damaged by the quake, limited supplies of water and electricity have left many unable to reopen.