Opec Panics as Oil Drops to $70 a Barrel

From the Financial Times:

Opec on Thursday brought forward to next week an emergency meeting to consider a cut in production after oil prices dropped to less than $70 a barrel for the first time in more than a year on worries about a global recession.

The move coincided with fresh calls from those countries within the oil producing cartel that are heavily dependent on oil revenues for their budgets – most notably Iran, the organisation’s perennial hawk – to cut output. Ecuador and Qatar also supported slashing production.

Even Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s most powerful member, which initially opposed the 500,000 barrel a day cut announced last month and is close to the US, appears to be in agreement that the group needs to reduce its production.

The kingdom, which boosted its output by far more than any other Opec member when prices were high and supply was struggling to keep up with demand, has already cut some shipments, according to ship tracking data.

Opec had said that it would need to pump about 31.3m barrels a day in the first quarter of next year to balance the market, well below its current output of 32.2m b/d, suggesting that the cartel sees a need to cut output by almost 1m b/d.

Ben Dell, of Sanford C. Bernstein a New York research firm, said Opec would need to make an additional cut of 1m barrels a day in order to avoid a glut in the market in 2009.

“Such a large cut in production is only likely to come from Saudi Arabia as the other Opec members are levered to higher oil prices in order to maintain their spending programmes,” said Mr Dell in a report.

The meeting will be the biggest test in more than a decade of Opec’s resolve and power to form a cohesive unit to stop tumbling oil prices.

The group will have to act decisively in its round of cuts because otherwise it runs the risk of pushing down prices even further as traders write it off as toothless.

Opec’s decision to meet next Friday came after investors sold commodities en masse amid worries that the credit crunch had mutated into a global toxic economic crisis that would damp demand for raw materials.

In its monthly report, the cartel said that even if governments were successful in unfreezing credit markets in the near future, “the fallout on the real economy from the financial market headwinds is expected to be ­considerable”.

Looks like things are tough all over. And OPEC is looking to keep them tough for the rest of us.

Secret Service: Liberals Lied About “Kill Him” Comment at Palin Rally

Shocking I tell you. The left in America are known for their fairness and even temperament. From the TimesLeader.com:

SCRANTON – The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Obama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”

News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”

In law enforcement circles if you can’t “back up the story” the assumption is that you’re lying. I think reporter David Singleton has some explaining to do.

Ed Morrissey adds motive to what seems like an outright case of a reporter lying about what happened:

This was deemed so damaging to Republicans that Barack Obama mentioned it in last night’s debate. However, only Singleton managed to hear it in a crowd of thousands. The newspaper says it will stand by its story, but the reporter never bothered to look around to get a description of the alleged offender, and never bothered to get confirmation from the many people standing around him at the time.

That’s not exactly a great piece of journalism, is it? And the Times-Tribune’s editors seem a little too credulous to run an allegation, even if witnessed by their reporter, without having him get at least a couple of bystanders to agree with his recollection. We can make the same criticism of the national media, who seemed so eager to paint McCain-Palin rallies as gatherings of Deliverance-style mutants to bother checking the quality of the report.

The easier to convince people to kill us of course.

Gateway Pundit is also on this story.

Liberals won’t care however, because the myth of a hateful Palin rally is easier to accept than the idea that people simply don’t agree with them on many important issues. Liberalism is secularized dark ages Christianity where to challenge with the orthodoxy makes you, in the Liberals mind, not just wrong but deliberately rejecting the Truth and thus evil. Tell a liberal raising taxes on large companies means they’ll raise prices on products and lay off workers and you’ll be accused of shilling for them and working against “the people” even if you’re just some guy running a few websites for a living. Tell that same liberal you support the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms and you’re called a redneck or worse, despite often being much better educated. Support a candidate they don’t and they’ll try to destroy your business.

Be a woman who became successful and holds traditional values, the values Liberalism’s light was to burn away from we heathen masses, and you’ll find yourself on the butt end of a smear campaign where any lie about you, no matter how nonsensical (I’ve heard she’s a “witchhunter”) is taken as having to be true.

Years from now, despite the report by the Secret Service, some liberal will be lecturing Republicans about our hateful rallies, while studiously ignoring Liberal calls for Republicans to be put in camps. We are closer to civil war than we have been since the late 1800s and I only hope we on the right understand the threat this naked hatred and dementia represents and are prepared to fight to protect our homes and families. We Republicans have been been so vilified that violence against us is becoming increasingly common. If Obama wins, it will become public policy as his “civilian defense corp” takes to the streets SS-style and starts the pogrom all Liberals secretly wish would happen.

Ohio Democrat Poll Worker Attacks Man Who Catches Her Stealing Votes for Obama

And the man who blew the whistle on her ended up being suspended even though he was the victim of a violent assault. From Ohio.com:

Both Summit County poll workers involved in a physical altercation at a local nursing home over a ballot dispute have been placed on unpaid leave by the elections board.

But Republican poll worker George Manos, who filed a police report on the incident, claims he is the victim and shouldn’t be punished. He said he thinks it is retaliation for him speaking up.

”I guess what I should have done is not report it,” Manos, 75, said in a phone interview Tuesday.

The board and Cuyahoga Falls police are investigating the incident, which occurred about noon Friday at the Gardens of Western Reserve nursing home. Manos told police that Democratic poll worker Edith Walker jumped on his back and struck him in the head three or four times after he confronted her for allegedly mismarking a female resident’s ballot — showing her voting for Sen. Barack Obama, instead of Sen. John McCain.

The ballot scuffle has since gained national attention, including being discussed on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and listed on the Drudge Report.

The board immediately placed Walker, 73, on leave without pay. Marijean Donofrio, the board’s Democratic director, decided to do the same for Manos on Tuesday morning, pending a decision by the board at a meeting next Tuesday. She said she consulted with John Manley with the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office,
who thought it was prudent for both employees to be on leave.

”It’s not a scare tactic,” Donofrio said. ”If one is not permitted to work, the other should be treated the same.”

How asinine. Why should a man who tried to defend a nursing home resident’s right to cast a vote the way she wants and then was assaulted for it be “treated the same” as a violent cretin who changed some poor womans vote to support her candidate?

Manos said the dispute happened when it was Walker’s turn to help a female resident with her ballot. He said Walker asked the woman who she wanted to vote for and the woman said McCain.

Manos said he got suspicious when Walker marked on the upper part of the ballot — where Obama’s name is listed — rather than on the bottom where McCain’s name appears. When Walker was finished with the woman’s ballot, he said he told her he wanted to see the ballot but she refused.

Manos said he grabbed the ballot and took it over to two other poll workers for them to inspect. He said the ballot was marked for Obama.

Manos said Walker jumped on his back, wrapping her legs around his legs. He said she put her left arm around his neck, while using her other hand to hit him on the head. He said the other poll workers pulled Walker off him.

Manos said Walker ran over, grabbed the ballot and ran back to her table. When Manos and the other poll workers looked at the ballot, he said both Obama and McCain were marked.

The voter was given a new ballot and able to indicate her presidential pick.

Manos, a former stockbroker who served in the military, said his neck has been sore since the incident and he might go to the doctor to be examined. He said he thinks Walker intentionally mismarked the ballot and tried to cover it up.

”It was obvious,” he said. ”She knew what she was doing.”

Yeah and so does the person who suspended Manos. The Democrats are stealing this election and we can’t sit by and let it happen. If Obama wins, we riot.

h/t Pagan Power

Thanks for Making Us Look Good Harlem

As if Pam Spaulding and Francis Holland (read his comments) weren’t cringe worthy enough in their slavish obedience to the pet causes White liberals, including getting the Bi-racial son of a Kenyan Communist who was raised by a White family in a Muslim country elected the first “Black” president, Black folk in Harlem have given every American with ties to the Black community a new reason to shake our heads ruefully and dream of what could have been:

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Oy. Almost all these people are fairly conservative if you take them at their word, so at best they’ve been bamboozled by White liberals who are taking advantage of them, but that can be only half the equation.

As I was saying in conversation just recently the Black community allows White Liberals (and Marxists) to dictate to them what to think through their well paid surrogates like Communist shill Jesse Jackson and race baiting riot monger Al Sharpton.

Roy Innis and CORE has always had a much more positive role in both Black empowerment and racial equality and certainly a more positive message that worked to lift Blacks from poverty while Jackson and Sharpton (and Spaulding and Holland) continue to work to keep Blacks dependent on the non-existent largess of White Liberalism which has at it’s core the White Supremacist philosophy of Marxism.

More than 30 years of cultural and intellectual Liberalism, pumped into the Black community by the venomous fangs of White Marxist teachers, “community organizers”and their Judas lackies has decimated Africa-Americans. And now these same people look away as the new favored minorities, Latinos and Muslims, exterminate Blacks in racist pogroms and vicious hate crimes that people like Spaulding and Holland never report on. Holland has told me directly that he will never report on Latino hate crimes against Blacks because it “won’t get Obama elected.”

Meanwhile Black folk don’t even know what the Democrat platform is. Instead too many Blacks, including many in my own family, simply vote the way some White guy told Al Sharpton to tell them to vote. What happened to self-determination? What happened to pride?

They were beaten out of Black folks on the new plantations of the north: the White run educational system.

Free yourselves! If you want to vote Obama I understand that but at least know what his policies are. There are people alive today who risked their lives for you to be able to fully participate in the system without being beholden to White interest so the least you can do is take five goddamn minutes out of your day to learn what candidate supports the majority of your views.

Level 3 Sex Offender Allowed to Work with Vulnerable Women in NYC

More than 30 years ago Max Lindeman was one of two men who who raped and tortured a nun in Harlem in a grotesque crime that included the assailants cutting 27 crosses into the victim. Lindeman did a little over 13 years in jail before being released in 1995 and registered as a Level 3 offender. He then set about making a new life for himself in New York as a well respected liberal activist.

His new job at the Center for Community Alternatives puts him in charge of a program that serves vulnerable women, but even before that it seems that Lindeman was quite the Democrat man about town. Here’s his CCA bio:

Max Lindeman comes to the Center for Community Alternatives as Senior Director of Court Services after working with the Fortune Society for more than 11 years, most recently as Associate Vice President. Max also has extensive experience in substance abuse and performance-based programming, clinical and quality assurance skills, and has worked in private practice providing individual and group psychotherapy. He has served on the New York County Democratic Nomination Committee for Supreme Court Judges. Max has an undergraduate degree, as well as Paralegal and Criminal Justice certificates, from Marist College; an MSW from Yeshiva University; and is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Welfare at Yeshiva, examining the factors associated with successful re-entry into society following incarceration.

Here’s the website of The Fortune Society which you’ll be unsurprised to see is very concerned criminals who are eligible to vote do so. What’s more concerning is the idea that a man who raped, sodomized and mutilated a nun and was judged to be in the category of highest risk of re-offending upon release has been involved in the selection of Judges in New York. It explains a lot about New York doesn’t it?

From The Post:

A man who served time in the brutal rape and torture of a Harlem nun nearly 30 years ago has shockingly forged a new life helping to pick judges and working in an office that solely deals with female defendants – despite being registered as a high-risk sex offender.

Max Lindeman, 50, recently became the senior director of court services for the Center for Community Alternatives – an organization that works to get nonviolent offenders into counseling and drug-treatment programs rather than face imprisonment.

While Lindeman oversees programs for men, women and teens, his desk is in a Manhattan office that serves only women.

This is the same man who pleaded guilty to the 1981 attack on a nun who was beaten and raped inside a Harlem church. Twenty-seven crosses were carved into her flesh with a nail file.

He was released in 1995 after more than 13 years in jail and remains a registered Level 3 sex offender, the highest-risk category.

Lindeman’s presence in the office “makes a mockery of a sanctuary for women,” said a person familiar with the situation.

His bio on the center’s Web site also says he has served on the New York County Democratic Nomination Committee, which selects who runs for state Supreme Court judgeships.

CCA officials argue that his story is one of redemption. And Lindeman says he is simply trying to help others avoid his mistakes.

“I’ve been out of prison for 14 years – and I haven’t hurt anyone,” he said.

That we know of. You’ll excuse me if I don’t take the word of a level 3 sex offender who has wrangled himself a job where he has power of women. Read the rest and tell me you think this is a good idea.

But New York liberals think it’s a great one. They think that a depraved sadist can simply turn over a new leaf, that allowing him to work in an office where women looking for someone to help them is appropriate. Dozens of people think this man should have a say in picking judges, he should be involved in people’s sobriety, should be able to vote. It’s outrageous.

There is nothing which paints a starker contrast between New York liberals and the rest of America than their acceptance of man who has done such terrible things into their lives. Some will argue that Lindeman deserves a second chance but does that mean we allow him to pick our judges? Council our children who are addicted to drugs? Run an office where women facing jail time think their last hope for freedom resides?

This is madness but this particular madness has a name. Liberalism.

h/t Hot Air