News New Mexico

North Korea Fires Shells at S. Korean Island

From Xinhua - SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired Tuesday scores of artillery onto a South Korean island and into waters off the west coast of the divided peninsula, killing a South Korean soldier and prompting a return fire, officials here said. Reportedly fired at 2:34 p.m. local time, some shells landed on South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island near a tense western maritime border between the two former wartime rivals. Apart from one reported death, several residents and soldiers have also been injured, according to media reports. Read full story here:

Dollar to Become the World's Weakest Currency

From businessweek.com - Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may fall below 75 yen next year as it becomes the world’s “weakest currency” due to the Federal Reserve’s monetary-easing program, according to J.P. Morgan Chase Co. The U.S. central bank, along with those in Japan and Europe, will keep interest rates at record lows in 2011 as they seek to boost economic growth, said Tohru Sasaki, head of Japanese rates and foreign-exchange research at the second-largest U.S. bank by assets. U.S. policy makers may take additional easing steps following the $600 billion bond-purchase program announced this month depending on inflation and the labor market, he said. “The U.S. has the world’s largest current-account deficit but keeps interest rates at virtually zero,” Sasaki said at a forum in Tokyo yesterday. “The dollar can’t avoid the status as the weakest currency.” Full story here

Al Gore Parts Ways With.......Ethanol

Another Embrace

From FoxNews.com - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore reportedly has had a change of heart on ethanol, telling a conference on green energy in Europe that he only supported tax breaks for the alternative fuel to pander to farmers in his home state of Tennessee and the first-in-the-nation caucuses state of Iowa. Speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank, Gore said the lobbyists have wrongly kept alive the program he once touted. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Reuters quoted Gore saying of the U.S. policy that is about to come up for congressional review. "First-generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small. Read full story here:

Ground Zero Mosque Applies for $5 Million Grant

From hotair.com - Read this in full here or you’ll miss the enjoyable tone of befuddlement and dismay from professional centrist John Avlon, who clearly wants to defend Park51 from those darned wingnuts who object to the location and yet can’t understand why the developers would do something this tone-deaf. The smart move would have been to take advantage of the calm after the media storm to quietly fundraise among private donors and to reach out to wavering pols to reassure them about the project’s intentions. Instead, not only are they after public money, they’re trying to tap a fund that’s explicitly tied to 9/11. You wanted to know where the funding’s coming from. Well, good news: Potentially, it’s coming from you. Full story here

Obama's UN Officials Silent on Nine Anti-Israel Resolutions

From israelnationalnews.com - The United Nations Human Rights Council this month adopted nine resolutions against Israel. The United States opposed nothing. The Council, engaged in a “universal periodic review” of human rights protection in Lebanon, was examining a report by that country which expressed its objections to "the establishment of the Zionist entity on Palestinian territory.” Every United Nations member state was asked to submit a report to the Council on its national human rights record, which was then reviewed by U.N. members who engage in a short dialogue with the state representatives. Full story and video here

FBI Report: 8% of Religious Hate Crimes Against Muslims, 75% Towards Jews

From yahoo.com - WASHINGTON (AFP) – Blacks and Jews were the most likely victims of hate crimes driven by racial or religious intolerance in the United States last year, the FBI said Monday in an annual report. Out of 6,604 hate crimes committed in the United States in 2009, some 4,000 were racially motivated and nearly 1,600 were driven by hatred for a particular religion, the FBI said. Blacks made up around three-quarters of victims of the racially motivated hate crimes and Jews made up the same percentage of victims of anti-religious hate crimes, the report said. Anti-Muslim crimes were a distant second to crimes against Jews, making up just eight percent of the hate crimes driven by religious intolerance. Full FBI report here

Barbara Bush Hitting Palin to Help Jeb?

Barbara Bush

From hotair.com - That’s what Jonathan Alter argued during our panel on MSNBC’s ‘Dylan Ratigan Show’ today. Personally, I think Barbara Bush’s Palin-bashing (assuming saying she hopes Palin stays in Alaska qualifies as “bashing”) has more to do with her moderate political philosophy than it does with any strategy for helping elect her son. Having said that, I am starting to hear rumors that Jeb is telling potential prominent supporters to “keep their powder dry,” meaning not to endorse or support any 2012 candidates until they check back with him. There is no doubt that Jeb Bush is highly qualified, and if his name were “Jeb Smith,” he would be the 2012 front-runner today. In any event, this is good, fun speculation. Video here

Progressive's Obsession with Palin Unabated

Matthew Rothschild

From Progressive.org - Sunday was the day the New York Times woke up to the reality that Sarah Palin could become President. Frank Rich devoted his entire column to that possibility, and the Sunday Times Magazine gave its cover over to Palin and her coterie. I can’t tell if this is panic on the part of the Times, or an effort to warn people about what might be coming, or a signal to the Republican establishment to get out their long knives and go after her. But the prospect of Palin in 2012 is not one to be sneered at—much less hoped for, and I know a lot of Democrats are doing both. Be careful what you wish for. I can remember Democrats sneering at the prospect of Ronald Reagan winning the Republican nomination in 1980, and look what happened then. Read here:

Fears Well Founded - Velma Hart Loses Her Job

Velma Hart

From the WashingtonPost.com - Nobody is safe. Velma Hart, who burst onto the media scene after telling President Obama she was scared about her financial future, has been laid off. Hart was let go as the chief financial officer for Am Vets, a nonprofit Maryland-based veteran services organization. Like most of us, Velma Hart just wanted a little reassurance at Obama's town hall. Hart has become another casualty of the tough economy in which so many people have lost their jobs. "It's not anything she did," said Jim King, the national executive director of Am Vets. "She got bit by the same snake that has bit a lot of people. It was a move to cut our bottom line. Most not-for-profits are seeing their money pinched." King would not say whether the organization had had other layoffs. "Velma was a good employee," he said. "It was just a matter of looking at the bottom line and where could we make the best cuts and survive." Read full story here:

Irish Eyes Are NOT Smiling

From the Economist - AT THE height of the banking crisis two years ago, Ireland’s government thought it was calling the market’s bluff when it rashly promised to back all of the debts accumulated by its overheated banking sector. Stand firm, and the speculators will fold, was the wisdom of the day. As it turns out, it was the government itself that had the weaker hand, and now its bluff has been called. Having tried valiantly to restore stability to the public finances through impressively harsh austerity measures, the Irish government has been dragged down by the sheer weight of the bad loans on the balance-sheets of its banks. On November 21st, having abandoned its earlier insistence that it was not in need of a bail-out, the Irish government agreed to ask for help from its European neighbours. Its request came after a tumultuous two weeks in which the trade in Irish government bonds and those of some other European states almost dried up, and the cost of borrowing surged to unsustainable levels. Read here:

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