Obama, Chavez and Hillary upset with Hondurans because they won’t let their leftist president remain in office for life like Castro and Chavez

By Mick Gregory

Did CNN or MSNBC report the details? 

Hugo Chávez’s socialist-building efforts suffered a minor setback yesterday when the Honduran military were ordered by the Honduras Supreme Court to expell its leftist president  Mel Zelaya for abusing the nation’s constitution.

Zeaya, with the help of Chavez wanted to hold an illegal special election last Sunday that would change the Honduran Constitution and allow him to remain “El Presidente” for life. That is a model set by Fidel Castro and followed by Hugo Chavez. 

 This report is from the Wall Street Journal:

El President l Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo Chavez in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya’s abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya’s next move will be. It’s not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating “the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter” and said it “should be condemned by all.” Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya’s foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. “We won’t go backwards,” one sign said. “We want to live in peace, freedom and development.”

Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.

For Hondurans who still remember military dictatorship, Mr. Zelaya also has another strike against him: He keeps rotten company. Earlier this month he hosted an OAS general assembly and led the effort, along side OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza, to bring Cuba back into the supposedly democratic organization.

The OAS response is no surprise. Former Argentine Ambassador to the U.N. Emilio Cárdenas told me on Saturday that he was concerned that “the OAS under Insulza has not taken seriously the so-called ‘democratic charter.’ It seems to believe that only military ‘coups’ can challenge democracy. The truth is that democracy can be challenged from within, as the experiences of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and now Honduras, prove.” A less-kind interpretation of Mr. Insulza’s judgment is that he doesn’t mind the Chávez-style coup.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem. In failing to come to the aid of checks and balances, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Insulza expose their true colors.

Progressive Democrats set stage to bring back ‘The Fairness Doctrine’

The Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine” is  about to be forced on America by the Democratic party. 

It is a throw back to FDR when Democrats (America’s socialists) were in complete power in the government and the Fairnes Doctrine is anything but fair. Look for a name change here. 

President Reagan ended the “Fairness Doctrine”

 

As heard on the Bill Press Radio Show on Thursday, February 5, 2009:

Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) spoke with Bill about the possible return of the Fairness Doctrine in some form.

BILL PRESS: So, is it time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?

SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else — I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.

BILL PRESS: Can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United States Senate this year, to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?

SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I have already had some discussions with colleagues and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.

Obama Creating the United Socialist States of Amerika — trillions spent on Big Government programs

Back in the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! Back in the USSA! 

WE GOT YOUR  MONEY     GONNA SPEND YOUR  MONEY   GONNA PRINT SOME MORE  MONEY

 

Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said Gibbs was trying to create a distraction by responding to Limbaugh.

“What we are seeing is a desperate attempt by Democrats to distract attention away from a multi-trillion dollar spending spree taking place in Washington,” Ferrier said. “Creating a boogeyman to change the subject does nothing to alter the fact that there are 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, that the economic stimulus bill contained no Republican input or that their budget would increase taxes on all Americans.”

Mick Gregory

The EU is on the verge of crumbling as Obama and Gordy Brown use the banking crisis to nationalize and build more power for central government.

Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, and a time when one chapter ended and another began.

The scale and the speed of the global banking crisis has at times been almost overwhelming, and I know that in countries everywhere people who rely on their banks for savings have been feeling powerless and afraid. But it is when times become harder and challenges greater that across the world countries must show vision, leadership and courage – and, while we can do a great deal nationally, we can do even more working together internationally. — Gordy Brown, UK Prime Minister

Anyone who took Economics 101 remembers the root cause of inflation — the central government prints massive amounts of currency. Change is coming. Inflation is coming my friends. From near zero under Bush (the evil one) to what may rival Zimbabwa in about a year or two. 

What will happen to the Democrat/Socialist Party’s plan to tax “only the rich?” We will all be the rich. Any two income household making over $210,000 will be taxed at the super high rates of Jimmy Carter, LBJ and FDR. 

That is coming. Bet on it. We will be wards of the state with more than 50 percent of our wealth taxed by the Democrats. The home mortgage deduction has been taken away from those like Joe the Plumber. Welcome to the USSA. We don’t know how lucky we are, eh! 

 

 

 

Back on Uncle Sam’s plantation 
Star Parker – Syndicated Columnist – 2/9/2009 8:00:00 AM

 

Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside thewelfare state and my own transformation out of it.

I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas — a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on 
capitalism. 
 
I talked about government programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), Emergency Assistance to Needy Families with Children (EANF), Section 8 Housing, and Food Stamps.

A vast sea of perhaps well-intentioned government programs, all initially set into motion in the 1960s, that were going to lift the nation’s poor out of poverty.

A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mindsets from “How do I take care of myself?” to “What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?”

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems — the kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others.

The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broke n black families.

Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

I had the privilege of working on welfare reform in 1996, passed by a Republican Congress and signed 50 percent.

I thought we were on the road to moving socialism out of our poor black communities and replacing it with wealth-producingAmerican capitalism.

But, incredibly, we are going in the opposite direction.

Instead of poor America on socialism becoming more like rich American on capitalism, rich America on capitalism is becoming like poor America on socialism.

Uncle Sam has welcomed our banks onto the plantation and they have said, “Thank you, Suh.”

Now, instead of thinking about what creative things need to be done to serve customers, they are thinking about what they have to tell Massah in order to get their cash.

There is some kind of irony that this is all happening under our first black president on the 200th anniversary of the birthday ofAbraham Lincoln.

Worse, socialism seems to be the element of our new young president. And maybe even more troubling, our corporate executives seem happy to move onto the plantation.

In an op-ed on the opinion page of the Washington Post, Mr. Obama is clear that the goal of his trillion dollar spending plan is much more than short term economic stimulus.

“This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America ‘s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, and education.”

Perhaps more incredibly, Obama seems to think that government taking over an economy is a new idea. Or that massive growth in government can take place “with unprecedented transparency and accountability.”

Yes, sir, we heard it from Jimmy Carter when he created the Department of Energy, the Synfuels Corporation, and the Department of Education.

Or how about the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 — The War on Poverty — which President Johnson said “…does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done. It charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.”

Trillions of dollars later, black poverty is the same. But black families are not, with triple the incidence of single-parent homes and out-of-wedlock births.

It’s not complicated. Americans can accept Barack Obama‘s invitation to move onto the plantation. Or they can choose personal responsibility and freedom.

Does anyone really need to think about what the choice should be?

 

China and Cuba drilling for oil off Florida’s coast. The Democrats say the U.S. can’t.

Mick Gregory

The Republicans have hit a political gusher. The Democrat/socialists hiding under the friendly Green flag of environmentalism are being exposed today. I predict the Democrats will vote against the issue of drilling off U.S. coasts.

This while Cuba and China begin drilling off the Florida/Cuba shore. They will have their straw in our oil reserve milkshake.

Next, I predict, President Bush will issue an Executive Order opening up drilling.

The coastal reserves are estimated to be 18 billion barrels from 20-year-old studies. That is the short estimate equal to the amount of oil the U.S. would produce in almost 10 years (that’s 3,600 days producing 5 million barrels per day). The coastal reserves are also nearly equal to what some experts believe can be recovered at Anwar Reserve in Alaska. The reserve that the Democrats and Jimmy Carter put under lock and key over 20 years ago as well.

Tonight, look for the new reality show called “Black Gold” syndicated on cable channels across the country on TruTV. It’s a show that drills down into the ongoing oil explorations going on in West Texas today.

The U.S. still has oil! In fact, almost 70 percent of the oil in mature wells, some over 100 years old, is attainable with today’s technology.

The timing is right for U.S. oil industry stocks to rise. Meanwhile, the world market of crude will soon fall to below $100 in my guestimation.

Four major league oil companies are in negotiations for contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein socialized the oil companies and grabbed power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, BP and Chevron — and a number of oil-service companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to press releases.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will begin the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since Hussein ordered the burning of his country’s oil fields and the start of the Iraq war.

UPDATE: Time to ask why the Democrat Congress doesn’t do anything about the oil crisis.

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

Major national poll finds 70% of U.S. believe newspaper journalists are out of touch with reality — Newspapers are now the last source of news at only 10%

Mick Gregory

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most adults think all forms of journalism are important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a “We Media/Zogby Interactive” online poll showed.

Nearly half of the 1,979 adults who took the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than 1/3 watch television to get their news, while 11 percent listen to radio and 10 percent read newspapers.

Newspapers are now at the bottom of the heap. What is the NYT trading at today? Next…

The New York Times Co.’s continued struggles with declining advertising revenue, circutlation, unehtical yellow journalism smear tactics and the bling support for the old guard, the Clinton machine, prompted Standard and Poor’s to caution Friday that it is inching closer to cutting the company’s debt ratings. That is a rare and serious threat.

The office at Standard & Poor’s said it placed all of the New York Times’ ratings, including its key long-term corporate credit rating, on CreditWatch with negative implications. In plain English, that means the rating agency is leaning heavily toward a downgrade unless current financial trends at the company improve.

Why the drop? A dissident investor stepped up pressure on The New York Times Co. Friday, formally proposing its own slate of four directors and saying the company needs to take more drastic action to compete online.
Harbinger Capital, an investment firm that now owns about 19 percent of the company, filed its own proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing its nominees for directors to be elected at the Times’ annual meeting April 22.

The Times has already filed its own full slate of director nominees, but has said it was still considering whether to accept Harbinger’s candidates.

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the company’s board was interviewing the Harbinger nominees. She declined to comment further on their proxy filing.

The looming proxy battle comes as the Times and other U.S. newspapers are facing huge challenges in adapting to the steady migration of readers and advertising dollars to the Internet. An economic slowdown coupled with a deep slump in the housing market is worsening the situation.

Earlier Friday, the Times reported that its newspaper advertising fell 11.4 percent in January, with a 22.6 percent dropoff in classified advertising, a once cash cow business for newspapers that is vulnerable to competition from online rivals like Craigslist, eBay and Yahoo.

The New York Times is hedging its future. They are big investors in WordPress.com.

Newspaper jobs at 15-year low. A Harbinger of things to come.

U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in advertising/marketing-services — agencies and other firms that provide marketing and communications services to marketers — broke a record in November (769,000). Marketing consulting strongly lead that growth.

Companies still invest in marketing, but they have more options now such: digital initiatives, direct marketing, promotions and events, just to name a few. That creates more opportunities for consultants to help define strategies.

Meanwhile, dissident shareholder Harbinger Capital Partners has increased its stake in newspaper publishing company New York Times Co. to 11.8 percent, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. The Harbinger investors are going to take control and eventually do away with the two-tier stock that gives all the voting rights to the elitist family while they spend the investors money on global trips and penthouse condos.
Harbinger, working together with Firebrand Partners founder Scott Galloway, a New York University business professor, has criticized the Times for not aggressively building up its digital businesses.

The investors have nominated four candidates for election to the board at the Times’ annual shareholder meeting on April 22.

On Tuesday, Harbinger reported owning 16.9 million shares of the New York-based publishing company. Earlier this month, Harbinger disclosed that it had raised its stake to more than 10 percent from 5 percent.

Ad agencies also have evolved, expanding beyond simply creating and placing ads. Indeed, Ad Age DataCenter research has shown that U.S. marketing-communications agencies collectively in 2005 for the first time generated less than half of their revenue from traditional media and media planning/buying.

Falling stocks

Marketing consultancies over the past year added 14,500 jobs (up 10.8%), nearly matching staff cuts at newspapers (down 16,900 or 4.7%), reported in AdAge.

Funny, that’s what I am, a marketing consultant now.

Meanwhile, back at the Bay Area newspapers the staff of the left over Knight-Ridder papers that were bought by the fire sale specialists, Dean Singleton’s Media News Group. The publisher told the entire staff that this is the first time the Contra Costa Times lost money since 1991, again about 15 years ago. Isn’t that something?

So we’re announcing today that we’re extending to all employees a one-time voluntary separation opportunity, commonly known as a buy-out. Everyone except Operating Directors and me will get the opportunity to apply for a buy-out. Each of you will have the opportunity to apply. We are distributing a packet with all the details. If you don’t get one within 24 hours, by 2 p.m. Wednesday, please contact your department manager or Human Resources.

Here are some of the things I hope you’ll keep in mind as you review the buy-out information:

Your getting a packet is not in any way a reflection on your performance or value to the company. Everyone is getting a packet.

Announcements regarding the need to reduce costs also were made this afternoon in San Jose, at the Mercury News, and in San Ramon, at the Shared Services Center. This is a BANG-wide effort.

This program is part of a general cost reduction program. We also will be taking other steps unrelated to our compensation costs to bring down operating expenses. We’ll have more to say later about these other steps, such as limiting days for inserting and reducing the size of the TV tab.

We are not announcing the number of job eliminations. For one thing, the number can change depending on who applies and is accepted for a buy-out. Second, we are seeking a dollar savings, not a reduction in a specific number of jobs. But I will say this: The number of jobs that will be eliminated will be significant. So each employee needs to give the buy-out opportunity full consideration.

Applying for a buy-out doesn’t mean you’ll get one. The decision whether or not to accept a buy-out application will be made by senior management based on our business needs.

If we do not get and accept enough buy-out applications to reach our cost savings goal, we will have to do involuntary layoffs. We won’t know where we stand on layoffs until after the buy-out acceptance deadline, which will be March 3rd. Very quickly thereafter, we will make a decision on layoffs.

To encourage employees to apply for a buy-out, the severance benefits for voluntary buy-outs are twice the severance benefits for involuntary layoffs. The severance payouts and benefits associated with buy-outs and layoffs are contained in the information packet.

These are very difficult times. They demand that we move quickly and decisively. It is easy to get discouraged, to wonder about the future of newspapers and companies like ours. Personally, I still believe in the power of newspapers and, specifically, the power of our newspapers and Web sites. We deliver the biggest media audience in the East Bay, and that will be the key to our growth in the future as we rebound from these economic challenges. And we will rebound.

The senior management team appreciates your understanding and continued dedication to moving us forward.

John Armstrong, President & Publisher

Happy Birthday Fidel Castro. Where are you?

Mick Gregory

Can’t brother Raul roll big brother Fidel Castro out in a chair to wave to his grateful legions of supporters? Is Fidel dead?

He’s 80 or 81 today. Hello Hugo Chavez! Are you going to tell your followers what great shape Fidel is in? If the Democrats get back “The Fairness Doctrine” we would be hearing that Fidel is fine, he’s excercising today.

If as Michael More says, Cuba has the best health care system in the world, why did Fidel fly in a doctor from Madrid, Spain? Better yet, why not fly one in from Houston’s M.D. Anderson, or Methodist Hospitals? That wouldn’t fit the propaganda machine. But it may have kept papa alive.

Democrats to Tax Cigars at $10 each. What would JFK have said about that?

Look at how the Democrat party has evolved from the days of JFK, a president who loved good cigars.

Mick Gregory

This is bald faced communism, just like practiced by Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

“I’m not sure in the history of man, since our forefathers founded the country in 1776, that there’s ever been a tax increase of 20,000 percent,” said Newman, who runs the Tampa business founded by grandfather Julius Caesar Newman. “They had the Boston Tea Party for less than this.”

When it comes to tobacco sales, cigars are just a speck compared to cigarettes. In 2006, the nearly 400-billion cigarettes sold domestically dwarfed the 5.3-billion cigars.

But cigars are intertwined with Tampa’s lineage.

Though the local industry has shriveled from foreign competition and domestic consolidation, cigarmaking still employs more than 1,000 in Tampa. About 900 work at the factory, offices and warehouse of Hav-a-Tampa, owned by foreign tobacco giant Altadis.

–St. Petersburg Times report

Oops — there go 68 more Mercury News jobs — this time to India

Mick Gregory

A few dozen members and supporters of Northern California’s Media Workers Union picketed the Mercury News on Tuesday over the shutdown of the paper’s composing room and outsourcing of its work to India.

A total of 68 jobs will be eliminated next week, said Gloria La Riva, president of the typographical sector of the Northern California Media Workers Union. Some 40 jobs are being eliminated Monday from the newsroom, where many workers are represented by the Newspaper Guild. The content management system using CSS can be operated any where on earth in near real time. The people in Pune India speak and write the Queen’s English.

Many of the big corporations have been offshoring “mechanical” functions like simple Web design for years.

“We recognize the challenging financial climate in the industry, but we think that layoffs will damage the newspaper,” said Guild executive officer Luther Jackson, who joined demonstrators in a show of solidarity. “We think we should address the revenue side as opposed to further cutting into the viability of the paper through expense cuts.”

The Media Workers Union has vowed to continue fighting the layoffs. “Even if we’re kicked out of here, even if it takes a long time, we will get our jobs back,” La Riva said.

Ms. La Riva ran as VP of the United States on the Socialist Party of America ticket a few years ago. I know the charming activist. You may have seen her on C-Span a few times. She wanted to be included in the Democrat party primary debates.

She has visited Papa Fidel Castro on serveral occasions. I asked her if she could bring me back some Cubanos. She said she was against smoking.

These are the leaders of unions in power at the daily newspapers that cast the news for you every day. These are the newspapers who help elect Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein.

Did you read that in your San Francisco Chronicle or Mercury News? The Fairness Doctrine never included newspapers.

There is a seamy underbelly of America’s news industry that is just now being exposed by blogs and talk radio.
No wonder the Democrats want to bring back “the Fairness Doctrine.”

What? There goes another tanker truck explosion and overpass

By Mick Gregory

When will the mainstream media connect the dots? Tanker truck explosions have occured within days of each other at major highway intersections in San Francisco/Oakland, Houston, New Jersey, and Tampa-St. Petersburg.

Here are the details:

Engineers with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) are working on demolition plans for the major overpass that was destroyed a month ago by a tanker truck explosion that killed the driver.

The charred southbound lanes of the overpass are closed indefinitely as FDOT officials fear the bridge might collapse. Damage was so severe that workers had to pressure wash the bridge to get a better look at the damage.

“We have one span that we know is going to have to come down,” FDOT engineer Pepe Garcia said. “We have a number of other beams that have been identified as very suspect and likely have to be replaced.”

The damage resulted from a fuel tanker that overturned on the overpass near downtown St. Petersburg last month, causing a massive inferno that killed the driver, spilled fuel and fire into the streets below.

According to authorities, the truck’s driver failed to negotiate the turn on the overpass, flipped several times and hit a wall, setting off several explosions that knocked chunks of concrete out of the overpass. Could a remote-controlled bomb caused this?

——
And this just in, in the congested New Jersey/New York metropolitan area last Thursday:
May 10 , 2007) – New Jersey State Police tell Eyewitness News that a gasoline tanker driver was killed Thursday in a fiery crash on Interstate 195 in Monmouth County.

Traffic on I-195 was snarled in the area for several hours on Thursday night, as the highway was closed in both directions and traffic was being detoured onto nearby roads.
The westbound tanker truck was struck by a car that collided with a dump truck in the eastbound lanes and crossed over the median, state police say.

Jones said the truck driver, whose name was not released, was crossing the Allaire Road overpass at the time of the crash and apparently tried to avoid the car. However, the tanker — which was carrying 9,000 gallons of gas — struck a guard rail and rolled over at least once before it burst into flames, trapping the driver inside.
—–
Just three days before a gas tanker truck overturned, blew up and took out a pair of the busiest freeway connectors in Northern California at the Bay Bridge interchange, a similar disaster was narrowly avoided when the wheels “flew off” a double-tanker truck loaded with 8,600 gallons of fuel as it was rolling through San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
In Thursday night’s incident, the trucker was heading south on Park Presidio Drive, on his way to deliver gas to a Shell station at 19th Avenue and Lincoln Way, when the left front pair of wheels on the tanker he was towing suddenly came off.
“He didn’t even know anything was wrong until he saw the wheel pass him on the road,” said Michael Cheney, who happened to be driving the other way with his wife, Dianne, when one of the errant wheels clipped the backside of their Mitsubishi Eclipse.
According to 21-year-old student David Wong, who was just behind Cheney in his brand new BMW, sparks began flying from beneath the tanker as its undercarriage scraped along the pavement. The airborne tire that struck Cheney’s car then ricocheted off the hood and side of Wong’s car — causing $3,500 in damage — before coming to a rest in the middle of the street. The second tire disappeared into the park’s underbrush.
While waiting for the cops to arrive, — Cheney — who happens to be a mechanic for the Municipal Railway — examined the truck and found that 10 lug nuts had come off.
Scary enough that a gasoline truck loses control in the middle of the park — but even scarier is that the double size tanker crossed the Golden Gate Bridge just minutes earlier.

There are models that say such an event could melt the Golden Gate Bridge and cause it to collapse into the shipping channel.

Houston’s killer explosion happened at the major intersection of Hwys 10 and 59. The driver was killed. The overpass is heavily damaged and will take months to repair.

What’s the Homeland Security color code today?

(Note to readers, the following key words and code is planted to attract Web crawlers).

Call it tanker terrorism, terrorisim, truck bomb, LNG tanker bomb.
var bt_counter_type=1;
var bt_project_id=798;