Pat Dollard

The Washington Post: In the 1970s and early ’80s, having seized control of the U.N. apparatus (by power of numbers), Third World countries decided to cash in. OPEC was pulling off the greatest wealth transfer from rich to poor in history. Why not them? So in grand U.N. declarations and conferences, they began calling for [...]

Three cheers for human sperm!

USA Today: The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data. Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses [...]

The Washington Post: Highly trained personnel employed with the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide sometimes operated side by side with CIA field officers in Iraq and Afghanistan as the agency undertook missions to kill or capture members of insurgent groups in those countries, according to a former government official and a source [...]

The Washington Post: The energized “tea party” movement, which upended this year’s political debate with noisy anti-government protests, is preparing to shake up the 2010 elections by channeling money and supporters to conservative candidates set to challenge both Democrats and Republicans. Buoyed by their success in capsizing a moderate Republican candidate this fall in Upstate [...]

The Washington Times: A group of 28 Republican lawmakers from Western states is fighting efforts by Democrats in the House and Senate to quietly expand the scope of the Clean Water Act, the federal government’s main tool for regulating the quality of the nation’s waterways. The lawmakers sent a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy [...]

FOX News: Fish food in Missouri. Bicycle racks in wealthy Georgetown. Water taxis to “nowhere” in Connecticut. These are among the 11 most wasteful spending projects before Congress this year, according to two Republican congressmen — who with their party have kept up the drumbeat this week against what they say is excessive federal spending. [...]

FOX News: A spectacular spiral of light was seen over the north of the country on Wednesday, prompting theories it was caused by a meteor, the Northern Lights or even aliens. But now Russia has revealed that its latest test-firing of its new intercontinental missile ended in failure — at the same time observers witnessed [...]

News Busters: Did you know that if you don’t believe man is responsible for global warming you’re a prehistoric cavedweller completely unaware of what’s going on in the world? So said MSNBC’s Chris Matthews during a discussion on Wednesday’s “Hardball” when he referred to Sarah Palin and everybody else that doesn’t agree with Nobel Laureate [...]

The Washington Examiner: In 1998, when the Clinton White House found itself in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal, one of its key defense strategies was to attack the conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife as the dark power behind the allegations against the president. The Clinton camp believed Scaife to be “the Goldfinger of the [...]

Financial Times: Bankers in the City of London reacted with fury to UK government plans to levy an immediate 50 per cent supertax on banks’ bonus payouts, saying the move played into the hands of rival financial centres. In his annual pre-Budget report, outlining government spending and revenue plans, Alistair Darling, the UK finance minister, [...]

OSLO (AP) – President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday with humble words, acknowledging his own few accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war and promising to use the prestigious award to “reach for the world that ought to be.” A wartime president honored for peace, Obama became the [...]