Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waves after speaking at the American Bar Association International Rule of Law Symposium in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005. At left is David Andrews, former legal adviser to the State Department.

The ASSociated Press has Rice Makes Unannounced Visit to Iraq

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a personal appeal Friday for Iraqis to bridge sectarian differences, venturing to a majority Sunni Arab region of the country to ask for cooperation in the coming election.

“I want to talk about the importance of reaching across sectarian lines,” Rice said on her unannounced visit to this northern Iraqi city, which is about 60 percentIraq Arab.

Condi Rice is a wonderful representative for the United States.

Flap hopes she returns to California to either run for Governor or replace Barbara Boxer in the United States Senate.

Saying that the ‘buck stops with me,’ California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger discusses the failure of his ballot initatives in Tuesday’s special election, during a news conference held at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005. Schwarzenegger met with the press for the first time since his ballot intiatives were rejected by voters.

The ASSociated Press has Schwarzenegger Takes the Blame in Vote

Two days after voters rejected each of his four initiatives, Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger took responsibility for the stinging failures and said he learned that he needs more patience in seeking government reform.

“The buck stops with me,” he told reporters Thursday during a Capitol news conference, referring to Tuesday’s special election. “I take full responsibility for this election. I take full responsibility for its failure.”

“If I would do another ‘Terminator’ movie, I would have Terminator travel back in time to tell Arnold not to have a special election.” He also said his wife, Maria Shriver, had warned him not to go ahead with the election.

Flap bets Gale Kaufman, Don Perata and Fabian Nunez are laughing their ASSES off.

If the California Republican Party allows Arnold to be their nominee for Governor in 2006, they will have to take the MEA CULPA for the loss.

Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gale Kaufman, Maria Shriver, Don Perata, Fabian Nunez

Dr. Kenneth Matsummura (C) talks with campaign volunteers (R) Jasper Summer and Herman Waters about recalling California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Berkeley, California, October 24, 2005. Matsummura, whose inventions include the first-ever artificial liver, has launched an effort to gather a million signatures to force a recall vote on Governor Schwarzenegger, who came to office two years ago following an unprecedented recall.

The Los Angeles Times and Dog Trainer has Organs Refused While Patients Die

Over the last two years, more than 30 people died awaiting liver transplants at UCI Medical Center in Orange as the hospital turned down scores of organs that might have saved them, according to a federal report.

More than 100 UCI patients still are waiting for transplants, and 28 have joined the roster this year alone — despite a staffing shortage that dampens their prospects for a transplant.

Although patients may not know it, the UC Irvine medical center has not had a full-time liver transplant surgeon since July 2004.

The center has performed just five liver transplants this year and has consistently fallen below the minimum number required by the federal government to maintain funding, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The low number of surgeries was not for lack of offers. Between August 2004 and July 2005, the hospital received 122 liver offers, most of them from the regional organ procurement agency, which coordinates donations and offers in Southern California. But only 12 were transplanted, including two that went to the same patient because the first one failed, according to the Aug. 5 federal report, obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

Is this why the good doctor wants this?

Lou Cannon in the Los Angeles Times and Dog Trainer has What does Arnold do now?

AFTER HIS VICTORY in the 2003 recall election, Arnold Schwarzenegger was often compared to Ronald Reagan, the movie actor turned governor who parlayed his showmanship into the presidency of the United States. But after two disappointing years in Sacramento and the decisive rejection Tuesday of his package of ballot initiatives, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s reign resembles the political career of another celebrity outsider, Jesse Ventura of Minnesota.

All of these celebrities campaigned as populists against career politicians, and they disdained the Legislature. All took office burdened by inherited budget deficits. But Reagan in his first year as governor in 1967 surprised friends and foes alike by agreeing to what was then the largest tax increase ever enacted by any state, and a progressive tax at that. (Its price tag of $1 billion would be more than $5 billion in today’s dollars.)

Lou, did you read the election returns? Orange County did not turn out for Schwarzenegger. What do you think a tax increase would do for his Republican base?

Lou, Schwarzenegger is NO Ronald Reagan.

Lou, the last time we met (in the 1980′s) you told me at the Los Angeles Biltmore that Mayor of San Diego Pete Wilson would not be elected dog-catcher (before he upset Jerry Brown for a United States Senate seat – 1982).

Lou, since when are you a fan of the Meathead, Rob Reiner, class warfare and socialist redistribution schemes for universal pre-school – not kindergarten as reported in the L.A. Dog Trainer.

Lou, despite your advice, Schwarzenegger is a dead duck in November 2006.

Has Arnold’s agent called yet?

Technorati Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Cannon, Jesse Ventura, Rob Reiner

Governor and First Lady Schwarzenegger voting at polls, November 8, 2005.

The Los Angeles Times and Dog Trainer has Results Unsettle Gov.’s Supporters.

On a day of fierce recriminations, Republican allies and friends of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared shaken Wednesday by the collapse of his agenda in this week’s special election, saying he needs to recapture the confidence of voters by jettisoning some of his political advisors.

Among those distressed by the direction of the governor’s administration is First Lady Maria Shriver, who is interviewing potential candidates for senior staff jobs in the governor’s office, according to people familiar with the matter.

As rumors swirled, names surfaced of people who might be asked to join Schwarzenegger in high-level jobs. They included Democrats; one was Susan Kennedy, a California Public Utilities Commission member who had been a top aide to former Gov. Gray Davis. She declined to comment.

The Governor needs to reflect upon the words of sage and blogger Hugh Hewitt:

1. Clear out the left from inside the “horseshoe,” the Governor’s offices inside the Capitol.

2. Bring in some senior advisors with pedigrees on the right and listen to them. Ask Bruce Herchensohn to spend a couple of days a week in the offices, as a “minsiter without portfolio.” You don’t have to do a thing he recommends, but there is no more respected figure on the California right than Bruce. Associated with Bruce, but also with Reagan, is Ken Khachigian. Ask Ken to take up a post somewhere on the battlements. And raid Hoover –get Peter Robinson to convene a three day idea-fest with the folks who haven’t spent their lives trading quarter percents with Sacramento’s lobbyists.

If you are going to appoint Democrats to the bench –even one–don’t ask me to get excited about your re-election.

Governor has your agent called yet?

Bob Mulholland over at the California Democratic Party Blog is delighted that Los Angeles County voted to raise their taxes for Los Angeles Unified School Bonds. Granted a goodly number of those schools have badly deteriorated in both physical plant and educational standards.

But, school bonded indebtedness will not fix structural problems in California education – especially in the LAUSD.

Los Angeles area schools started to deteriorate with SERRANO V. PRIEST (1971 & 1976).

Mulholland takes a cheap shot at the California Republican Party for opposing certain tax bonds and measures over the years. The Democrats and Mulholland included have not found a tax or a tax increase they do not like. Tax and spend and redistribute – an old story that continues.

Taxation without accountability has taken California public schools from the top to near the bottom……and please don’t tell Flap it was the tax revolt of 1978, Howard Jarvis and Prop. 13.

Tourists walk past a burnt out bus which was set ablaze overnight in the city of Nice, southeastern France, Thursday Nov. 10, 2005. Rioters defied emergency laws that took effect last Wednesday as they set fire to vehicles in the southeasten part of France.

The ASSociated Press has Unrest Eases in France; Officers Suspended

Violence in France fell sharply overnight, the police chief said Thursday, one day after the government toughened its stance by imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners involved in riots that have raged for two weeks.

Also Thursday, the national police said eight French police officers had been suspended for their suspected role in the beating of a young man in a Paris suburb. Two of the police officers were suspected of dealing “unwarranted blows” to the man in La Courneuve, one of the difficult suburbs where unrest has broken out recently, said national police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran.

Over the past two nights, there was a notable decline in the number of car burnings — a barometer of the intensity of the country’s worst civil unrest in nearly four decades.

National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there was a “very sharp drop” in violence overnight. While youths have been battling riot police with rocks and firebombs, “there were practically no clashes with police,” he said.

Interesting performance by the Chirac government.

They do NOTHING for almost two weeks then they crack heads and then deport the miscreants.

They should evaluate what gave rise to the violence in the first instance. But, more on that in later posts.

A French anti-racism group, SOS-Racisme, called the measure illegal. The group’s president said he had asked France’s highest administrative body, the Council of State, to intervene.

“Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal is illegal,” Dominique Sopo said. SOS-Racisme said it considers Sarkozy’s measure a mass deportation, while French law requires that each expulsion be studied on a case-by-case basis. The body has 48 hours to respond.

Sarkozy, who previously inflamed passions by referring to suburban troublemakers as “scum,” said 120 foreigners have been convicted in connection with the violence. He ordered local authorities to expel them.

Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen said French nationals of immigrant backgrounds should be stripped of their French citizenship and sent “back to their country of origin” if they committed crimes.

Wonder what the MSM would say about these ideas if we were talking about the USA – Mexico border and illegal immigration here?