Chalaque

Scotland Yard has given the codename ‘Chalaque’ to refer to the U.S. president for security reasons during his upcoming state visit to the United Kingdom May 24-26. Indarjit Singh, a Punjabi speaker in the UK who is director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, told the Sunday Times the word ‘is sometimes used when we want to denigrate someone who we think is too clever for their own good’. Another Punjabi speaker told the paper the word Chalaque is ‘not considered rude’, but could be ‘mildly offensive’.

Elsewhere, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was in Libya this past weekend and not only rapped U.S. policies but managed to bring up the race canard..."I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for and it’s not what African-Americans stand for."

The FBI is reporting that violent crime in the U.S. declined by 5.5 percent last year. The declines signify success for aggressive law enforcement and corrections programs and comprehensive crime prevention efforts. But most of all...violent criminals are being sent to prison in larger numbers and they remain behind bars for longer periods.

Mitch Daniels decided not to run for president. His wife and her history may have contributed to his decision. Story

A joke making the rounds in Pakistan says that Bin Laden revealed his location to the CIA because he was being driven mad cooped up for five years with three wives and all the kids.

The preacher who predicted the world would end last Saturday has now recalculated and says it will end in October instead. He's getting to be like the global warming crowd. He also needs to read the Bible a little closely because it says no man knows when the end will come. No one. "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."

Not in My Back Yard...Thousands and thousands of people work or have worked in the oil patch without any problems. NIMBY people are arrogant and smug and stupid. Story

The blogger, Spengler, sees the coming collapse of Egypt..."It will look like the Latin American banana republics, but without the bananas. That is not meant in jest: few people actually starved to death in the Latin inflations. Egypt, which imports half its wheat and a great deal of the rest of its food, will actually starve." Story

The Wall Street Journal says that many Arabs are going to have a hard time finding enough bread to eat over the coming months. Bad weather and lower-than-average crops — plus climbing fuel costs — have driven up the price of wheat by 91% in less than a year. Arabs eat a lot of bread; Tunisians, Algerians and Egyptians, for example, consume almost 3 times per capita than Americans. They account for 1/3 of all the world's traded wheat.

Tim Pawlenty is in the race for president..."In the third year of Barack Obama’s presidency, unemployment is at unbearable levels, gas and food prices are skyrocketing and federal government spending is out of control. "ObamaCare" is unconstitutional, and it is already driving up health costs — not reducing them. The president’s policies simply aren’t working. And more than that, he won’t even tell us the truth about the problems we’re facing and what it’s really going to take to get America back on the right track."