Sunday

Former car thief Darrell Issa seeks to become "statesman"....?

The White House will need more accountants, not lawyers, when the GOP takes over the House.

The Obama administration was not corrupt in managing the stimulus; it was Congress’s mistake to fund it so freely.

That's the message Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is offering a few days before he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sounding a measured tone that is miles from the persona he projected when the chamber was under Democratic control.

During his two years in the minority, Issa was the strong-handed Republican who grabbed headlines despite having little power. He forced subpoenas, talked tough about the Obama administration and became one of the more prominent Republican lawmakers outside his party’s leadership.

Now, during his final two days before the oversight gavel is his, Issa is trying to show that the committee under his control will not conduct a perpetual witch hunt against the Obama administration. It will be a rush to cut back on government spending via doing away with waste, Issa signaled on three separate Sunday shows this week.

Issa said he would not investigate the White House's alleged job offer to outgoing Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) to nudge him out of his state's Senate primary — it turns out, he said, such offers are common even if they are wrong.

But he did give clues to who is on his radar, including Attorney General Eric Holder. On “Fox News Sunday,” Issa said Holder is to blame for lax oversight of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, election intimidation by the New Black Panther Party and WikiLeaks. He said Holder “isn’t doing enough.”

“So he's hurting this administration,” Issa said. “If you're hurting the administration, either stop hurting the administration or leave.”

The oversight committee currently has a broad mandate to review government activities but little sway over legislation. Issa said the Republican House would work on a whistleblower bill that incorporates situations like the recent leak of State Department cables – and such a bill would likely come through his committee.

“And we're going to do that right off the bat because the kind of transparency we need is not to have somebody outing what is said by diplomats in private,” Issa said in reference to the WikiLeaks revelations. “And we need to change that, and that's going to be a big part of our committee's oversight, is to get that right so the diplomats can do their job with confidence and people can talk to our government with confidence.”

Part of Issa's pre-112th Congress scene-setting includes walking back some of the more inflammatory comments he made in the past year. Instead of the Obama administration being corrupt in dealing with the stimulus – what Issa said in several ways in the past – the Californian is saying that it was partially Congress’s fault.

“It's more about Congress's mistake in funding,” Issa said.

When asked directly by host Harry Smith on CBS's "Face the Nation" whether the Obama administration is corrupt, Issa simply replied that the White House has played “fast and loose with the walking around money Congress gave them” – redistributing some of the blame to Capitol Hill.

And Issa gave some staffing suggestions to his friends in the Obama administration: It’s not lawyers you’ll need, it’s accountants to find waste in government programs.

“The president's Office of Management and Budget views $125 billion of misspending by Medicare, and yet, year after year, it doesn't change,” Issa said. “That's 10 percent of the deficit that would go away if we simply stop paying to people who don't exist their claims."

"It's more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House," Issa added. "And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be.”


 
Source: Politico

iPhone alarm glitch leaves users fuming

NEW YORK – The bells weren't ringing for many iPhone users this New Year's weekend, when thanks to a glitch the alarms on Apple's iconic mobile phones failed to go off, causing many to oversleep.

It was the second time in just a few months that the alarm function on the phone failed to activate correctly, prompting an avalanche of complaints on the social networking micro-blog Twitter.

"Dear iPhone, why didn't your alarm go off this morning? I set six of them. I've now missed church. Thanks for nothing," said one user Sunday morning.

"Some sort of digital iPhone pandemic is going on. Alarm clock failure reports are pouring in from all sources around the globe," said another Twitter user.

Apple said in a message sent to Macworld magazine that the California-based company was aware of the problem. "We're aware of an issue related to non-repeating alarms set for January 1 or 2," spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said.

"Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3."

The problem seemed to be affecting Apple's most recent versions of iPhones and iPods launched in November, but website Engadget suggested that it may also have hit earlier versions.

The problem first occurred when the clocks went back at the end of October and early November when Australian and British iPhone owners complained of being late for work because their alarms had not switched over to the new time.

Apple did not immediately respond to a query, regarding the purported glitch, on Sunday.


Source: AFP

Saturday

2011 promises to be a great year!

Editor's Note

First of all, a Happy New Year to all and hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, in spite of the challenges of the last couple of years.

Well, 2011 promises to be a great year! Now, I know there are some folks running around with prophesies and visions of doom and gloom, but I refuse to be one of those "false prophets" and will encourage everyone to understand one thing:

"What you think in your heart and confess with your mouth, will ultimately manifest itself in your life".

I have always been baffled at how easy it is for people to always see the glass half-empty, forgetting that the same glass is also half-full; it all boils down to perception. 

On my part, the last few years have been quite challenging (for a host of reasons) much like most Americans and folks across the globe, as a whole. My trials have however drawn me closer to God and as a Christian (not a religious person - yes, there is quite a difference), I have learned to treat each experience as an opportunity to learn more about myself and the people around me.

Through my experiences over the last few years, I have been privileged to come across some of the most wonderful human beings (of all races and persuasion), while also shedding a lot of "excess and disposable baggage" masquerading as friends and family.

Rather than being bitter from the experience, I have instead humbled myself and tried to see the opportunities that have been presented to me, with a view to ultimately becoming the person God wants me to be.

So, in this New Year (2011), throw away the garment of shame, pride, rebellion, despair, bitterness, reproach and derision and put on the Royal Garment of hope, perseverance, love, joy, favor, abundance and prosperity.

As Katherine Kuhlman once said, "God Can Do It Again". And yes, HE will, if you just trust HIM and decide in your heart that 2011 will not only be a great year, but it will be the beginning of the wonders that God has promised for your life, but which you never claimed.... until now.

Have a fabulous 2011 everyone!