Wednesday, March 31, 2010

When there are more people regulating then producing you have tyranny

HOLLY PALOSI! WHAT THE HELL HAS BEEN FORCED UPON US? WHERE DO I SIGN UP FOR AN ADMINISTRATIVE HIGH PAYING GOVERNMENT JOB? I'LL TAKE #24. OR MAYBE #25.

President Obama signed a government takeover of health care into law. Below is a list of new boards & commissions created in the bill:

1. Grant program for consumer assistance offices (Section 1002, p. 37)
2. Grant program for states to monitor premium increases (Section 1003, p. 42)
3. Committee to review administrative simplification standards (Section 1104, p. 71)
4. Demonstration program for state wellness programs (Section 1201, p. 93)
5. Grant program to establish state Exchanges (Section 1311(a), p. 130)
6. State American Health Benefit Exchanges (Section 1311(b), p. 131)
7. Exchange grants to establish consumer navigator programs (Section 1311(i), p. 150)
8. Grant program for state cooperatives (Section 1322, p. 169)
9. Advisory board for state cooperatives (Section 1322(b)(3), p. 173)
10. Private purchasing council for state cooperatives (Section 1322(d), p. 177)
11. State basic health plan programs (Section 1331, p. 201)
12. State-based reinsurance program (Section 1341, p. 226)
13. Program of risk corridors for individual & small group markets (Section 1342, p. 233)
14. Program to determine eligibility for Exchange participation (Section 1411, p. 267)
15. Program for advance determination of tax credit eligibility (Section 1412, p. 288)
16. Grant program to implement health IT enrollment standards (Section 1561, p. 370)
17. Federal Coordinated Health Care Office for dual eligible beneficiaries (Section 2602, p 512)
18. Medicaid quality measurement program (Section 2701, p. 518)
19. Medicaid health home program for people with chronic conditions & grants for planning same (Section 2703, p. 524)
20. Medicaid demonstration project to evaluate bundled payments (Section 2704, p. 532)
21. Medicaid demonstration project for global payment system (Section 2705, p. 536)
22. Medicaid demonstration project for accountable care organizations (Section 2706, p. 538)
23. Medicaid demonstration project for emergency psychiatric care (Section 2707, p. 540)
24. Grant program for delivery of services to individuals with postpartum depression (Section 2952(b), p. 591)
25. State allotments for grants to promote personal responsibility education programs (Section 2953, p. 596)
26. Medicare value-based purchasing program (Section 3001(a), p. 613)
27. Medicare value-based purchasing demonstration program for critical
access hospitals (Section 3001(b), p. 637)
28. Medicare value-based purchasing program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 3006(a), p. 666)
29. Medicare value-based purchasing program for home health agencies (Section 3006(b), p. 668)
30. Interagency Working Group on Health Care Quality (Section 3012, p. 688)
31. Grant program to develop health care quality measures (Section 3013, p. 693)
32. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 3021, p. 712)
33. Medicare shared saving s program (Section 3022, p. 728)
34. Medicare pilot program on payment bundling (Section 3023, p. 739)
35. Independence at home medical practice demonstration program (Section 3024, p. 752)
36. Program for use of patient safety organizations to reduce hospital readmission rates (Section 3025(b), p. 775)
37. Community-based care transitions program (Section 3026, p. 776)
38. Demonstration project for payment of complex diagnostic laboratory tests (Section 3113, p. 800)
39. Medicare hospice concurrent care demonstration project (Section 3140, p. 850)
40. Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 982)
41. Consumer Advisory Council for Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 1027)
42. Grant program for technical assistance to providers implementing health quality practices (Section 3501, p. 1043)
43. Grant program to establish interdisciplinary health teams (Section 3502, p. 1048)
44. Grant program to implement medication therapy management (Section 3503, p. 1055)
45. Grant program to support emergency care pilot programs (Section 3504, p. 1061)
46. Grant program to promote universal access to trauma services (Section 3505(b), p. 1081)
47. Grant program to develop & promote shared decision-making aids (Section 3506, p. 1088)
48. Grant program to support implementation of shared decision-making (Section 3506, p. 1091)
49. Grant program to integrate quality improvement in clinical education (Section 3508, p. 1095)
50 . Health & Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)
51. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)
52 Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)
53. Health Resources & Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)
54. Food & Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)
55. National Prevention, Health Promotion & Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)
56. Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion , Integrative & Public Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)
57. Prevention and Public Health Fund (Section 4002, p. 1121)
58. Community Preventive Services Task Force (Section 4003(b), p. 1126)
59. Grant program to support school-based health centers (Section 4101, p.1135)
60. Grant program to promote research-based dental caries disease management (Section 4102, p. 1147)
61. Grant program for States to prevent chronic disease in Medicaid beneficiaries (Section 4108, p. 1174)
62. Community transformation grants (Section 4201, p. 1182)
63. Grant program to provide public health interventions (Section 4202, p. 1188)
64. Demonstration program of grants to improve child immunization rates (Section 4204(b), p. 1200)
65. Pilot program for risk-factor assessments provided through community health centers (Section 4206, p. 1215)
66. Grant program to increase epidemiology & laboratory capacity (Section 4304, p. 1233)
67. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 4305, p. 1238)
68. National Health Care Workforce Commission (Section 5101, p. 1256)
69. Grant program to plan health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(c), p. 1275)
70. Grant program to implement health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(d), p. 1279)
71. Pediatric specialty loan repayment program (Section 5203, p. 1295)
72. Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program (Section 5204, p. 1300)
73. Allied Health Loan Forgiveness Program (Section 5205, p. 1305)
74. Grant program to provide mid-career training for health professionals (Section 5206, p. 1307)
75. Grant program to fund nurse-managed health clinics (Section 5208, p. 1310)
76. Grant program to support primary care training programs (Section 5301, p. 1315)
77. Grant program to fund training for direct care workers (Section 5302, p. 1322)
78. Grant program to develop dental training programs (Section 5303, p. 1325)
79. Demonstration program to increase access to dental health care in underserved communities (Section 5304, p. 1331)
80. Grant program to promote geriatric education centers (Section 5305, p. 1334)
81. Grant program to promote health professionals entering geriatrics (Section 5305, p. 1339)
82. Grant program to promote training in mental & behavioral health (Section 5306, p. 1344)
83. Grant program to promote nurse retention programs (Section 5309, p. 1354)
84. Student loan forgiveness for nursing school faculty (Section 5311(b), p. 1360)
85. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors and outcomes (Section 5313, p. 1364)
86. Public Health Sciences Track for medical students (Section 5315, p. 1372)
87. Primary Care Extension Program to educate providers (Section 5405, p. 1404)
88. Grant program for demonstration projects to address health workforce shortage needs (Section 5507, p. 1442)
89. Grant program for demonstration projects to develop training programs for home health aides (Section 5507, p. 1447)
90. Grant program to establish new primary care residency programs (Section 5508(a), p. 1458)
91. Program of payments to teaching health centers that sponsor medical residency training (Section 5508(c), p. 1462)
92. Graduate nurse education demonstration program (Section 5509, p . 1472)
93. Grant program to establish demonstration projects for community-based mental health settings (Section 5604, p. 1486)
94. Commission on Key National Indicators (Section 5605, p. 1489)
95. Quality assurance & performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6102, p. 1554)
96. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6103(a)(3), p. 1561)
97. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 6103(b)(3), p. 1568)
98. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities & nursing facilities (Section 6112, p. 1589)
99. Demonstration projects for nursing facilities involved in the culture change movement (Section 6114, p. 1597)
100. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1619)
101. Standing methodology committee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1629)
102. Board of Governors for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p . 1638)
103. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (Section 6301(e), p 1656)
104. Elder Justice Coordinating Council (Section 6703, p. 1773)
105. Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (Section 6703, p. 1776)
106. Grant program to create elder abuse forensic centers (Section 6703, p. 1783)
107. Grant program to promote continuing education for long-term care staffers (Section 6703, p. 1787)
108. Grant program to improve management practices and training (Section 6703, p. 1788)
109. Grant program to subsidize costs of electronic health records (Section 6703, p. 1791)
110. Grant program to promote adult protective services (Section 6703, p. 1796)
111. Grant program to conduct elder abuse detection and prevention (Section 6703, p. 1798)
112. Grant program to support long-term care ombudsmen (Section 6703, p. 1800)
113. National Training Institute for long-term care surveyors (Section 6703, p. 1806)
114. Grant program to fund State surveys of long-term care residences (Section 6703, p. 1809)
115. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 8002, p. 1926)
116. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 8002, p. 1927)
117. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 8002, p. 1931)
118. Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 8002(c), p. 1938)
119. Multi-state health plans offered by Office of Personnel Management (Section 10104(p), p. 2086)
120. Advisory board for multi-state health plans (Section 10104(p), p. 2094)
121. Pregnancy Assistance Fund (Section 10212, p. 2164)
122. Value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers (Section 10301, p. 2176)
123. Demonstration project for payment adjustments to home health services (Section 10315, p. 2200)
124. Pilot program for care of individuals in environmental emergency declaration areas (Section 10323, p. 2223)
125. Grant program to screen at-risk individuals for environmental health conditions (Section 10323(b), p. 2231)
126. Pilot programs to implement value-based purchasing (Section 10326, p. 2242)
127. Grant program to support community-based collaborative care networks (Section 10333, p. 2265)
128. Centers for Disease Control Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
129. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
130. Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
131. Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
132. Food & Drug Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
133. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
134. Grant program to promote small business wellness programs (Section 10408, p. 2285)
135. Cures Acceleration Netwo rk (Section 10409, p. 2289)
136. Cures Acceleration Network Review Board (Section 10409, p. 2291)
137. Grant program for Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2297)
138. Grant program to promote centers of excellence for depression (Section 10410, p. 2304)
139. Advisory committee for young women's breast health awareness education campaign (Section 10413, p. 2322)
140. Grant program to provide assistance to information to young women with breast cancer (Section 10413, p. 2326)
141. Interagency Access to Health Care in Alaska Task Force (Section 10501, p. 2329)
142. Grant program to train nurse practitioners as primary care providers (Section 10501(e), p. 2332)
143. Grant program for community-based diabetes prevention (Section 10501(g), p. 2337)
144. Grant program for providers who treat a high percentage of medically underserved populations (Section 10501(k), p. 2343)
145. Grant program to recruit students to practice in underserved communities (Section 10501(l), p. 2344)
146. Community Health Center Fund (Section 10503, p. 2355)
147. Demonstration project to provide access to health care for the uninsured at reduced fees (Section 10504, p. 2357)
148. Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)
149. Indian Health demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (S. 1790, Section 112, p. 24)*
150. Office of Indian Men's Health (S. 1790, Section 136, p. 71)*
151. Indian Country modular component facilities demonstration program (S 1790, Section 146, p. 108)*
152. Indian mobile health stations demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 147, p. 111)*
153. Office of Direct Service Tribes (S. 1790, Section 172, p. 151)*
154. Indian Health Service mental health technician training program (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 173)*
155. Indian Health Service program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 192)*
156. Indian Health Service program for treat ment of domestic violence & sexual abuse (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 194)*
157. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 204)*
158. Indian youth life skills demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 220)*
159. Indian Health Service Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Treatment (S. 1790, Section 199B, p. 258)*

*Section 10221, page 2173 of H.R. 3590 deems that S. 1790 shall be deemed as passed with certain amendments.


Let's not forget the 15000+ new IRS agents whose sole job will be to make your life a holy hell.

Why All the Wounded Fawns?

Victor Davis Hanson

Why are charges of racism and political extremism suddenly in the air?

Party politics is always the norm, but what is unusual this time around is the juxtaposition between the once-soaring Obama unity rhetoric of the past and the hardball Chicago politics of the present, amid a landscape of feigned outrage that somehow politics are not "fair." A bit of history is in order.

Like it or not, throughout much of the Bush administration, the public was conditioned to believe the following:
• Filibusters were a key traditional Senate protection designed to thwart the tyranny of the majority as embodied by the Bush-Cheney steamroller (Republicans, to be fair, often damned them as obstructionist).
• Recess appointments were the desperate acts of an executive without confidence in either popular or legislative support. Popular protests were grass-roots democracy at its finest. 

• Occasional fringe groups that frequented anti-war, anti-Bush rallies, and called their president horrific epithets or threatened violence, were either irrelevant or forced into such understandable extremism by their own government's excesses.

• The once-abhorrent expression of hatred in popular culture for the president (cf. e.g., Knopf's Nicholson Baker novel Checkpoint, about killing Bush, or the Toronto Film Festival award winning a docudrama about assassinating George Bush, or Jonathan Chait's New Republic essay "The Case for Bush Hatred," or Michael Moore's abhorrent talk after 9/11 about blue/red state deaths and his empathy for terrorists in Iraq ("Minutemen" . . . "and they will win")) were not merely not abhorrent, but often creative expressions that captured the mood of popular dislike, and certainly no grounds for ostracism (cf. Moore's attendance at film openings and conventions with top Democratic politicians).
In other words, apparently few on the Left realized that in their dislike for Bush, and in their tolerance for those who hated Bush, they more or less changed attitudes toward acceptable and unacceptable public expressions of dissent. So now the public sees their sudden call for polite discourse as abject hypocrisy. Even the toxic and increasingly desperate charge of racism has little currency now, and soon will boomerang back on the accusers.

What does all this mean? A largely center-right country that polls consistently conservative apparently is beginning to think it was had in the election of 2008. A weak McCain campaign, weariness after eight years of Bush, fascination with a charismatic African-American landmark candidate, fright after the September 2008 meltdown, and Obama's centrist "purple" rhetoric all provided the margin of victory, but apparently not the margin for an intended remake of America in which the daily conditions under which we live and see the world (buying a Chevy, going to the mailbox on Saturday, attending the doctor, viewing Israel, making claims on Medicare, paying taxes, trying terrorists, etc.) would be radically altered in just a year.

For the once-giddy Left, which misinterpreted the causes of the Obama landmark victory, the current pushback is seen as somehow terribly unfair, and thus arise both their own furor and their amnesia about their own past attitudes during the Bush years. I think ultimately many "progressives," adherents to relativism, feel that the past furor over Bush in all its creepy manifestations was justified because of who Bush was; but that a similar methodology (or, in fact, far softer manifestations) of dissent toward Obama is unacceptable because of who Obama is (i.e. one can act rudely toward clearly bad people, but not rudely toward unquestionably "good" people).  It is that simple.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Don't think global warming is about totalitarianism, read this



Top Eco-Fascist Calls For End Of Freedom To Fight “Global Warming”
Population reduction enthusiast says “a few people with authority” should run the planet
Steve WatsonPrisonplanet.comTuesday, March 30th, 2010
A renowned environmentalist, known for his advocacy of population reduction as a means of offsetting climate change, has called for “a more authoritative world” where freedom comes second to tackling what he sees as the devastating effects of global warming.
Futurist James Lovelock, tells the London Guardian that he believes “It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while,” in order to save humanity.
“We need a more authoritative world.” Lovelock states.
“We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that.” the 90 year old proponent of the Gaia hypothesis adds.
“You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.”
“But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.” Lovelock concludes.
Which “people with authority” could Lovelock have in mind for this tyrannical takeover in the name of mother Earth? Certainly not the disgraced UN affiliated climate scientists, whose involvement in several recent scandals even Lovelock admits is reprehensible:
“Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I’m not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It’s the one thing you do not ever do. You’ve got to have standards.” he states in the interview.
Lovelock also has little faith in renewable energies, carbon trading or cap and tax schemes, which he previously told the New Scientist are “verging on a gigantic scam”:
Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.
Lovelock repeats this sentiment in his latest interview with the Guardian, noting:
I don’t know enough about carbon trading, but I suspect that it is basically a scam. The whole thing is not very sensible. We have this crazy idea that we are setting an example to the world. What we’re doing is trying to make money out of the world by selling them renewable gadgetry and green ideas. It might be worthy from the national interest, but it is moonshine if you think what the Chinese and Indians are doing [in terms of emissions].
So, perhaps Lovelock would point to his friends at The Optimum Population Trust, a notorious UK-based public policy group that campaigns for a gradual decline in the global human population to what it sees as a “sustainable” level.
Lovelock became a patron of the thinktank in 2009. In a statement released by the trust to mark the appointment, Lovelock called on the environmental movement as a whole to “recognise the truth and speak out” on the link between rising human numbers and global warming.
Lovelock said: “Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.”
He added: “How can we possibly decrease carbon emissions and land use while the number of emitters and the space they occupy remorselessly increases? When will the environmentalists who claim to be green recognise the truth and speak out?”
So, essentially Dr Lovelock advocates the destruction of freedom in order that an overriding authoritative global power can oversee the radical stemming of the planet’s human population – nice.
Roger Martin, chair of OPT, said of Lovelock’s appointment: “We desperately need to remember that future population growth is not a ‘fact’ to be passively accepted but something over which we have control, and that limiting it could therefore play a major role in curbing emissions. Tragically, the green movement has chosen to forget this. With the help of eminent individuals such as James Lovelock, we will do our best to remind them.”
The OPT also has as patrons controversial primatologist and environmentalist Jane Goodall, who thinks that caging chimps and other apes is better for them than letting them live free in the wild; Professor Aubrey Manning, president of the UK’s Wildlife Trusts; and Sir Crispin Tickell, the ex-diplomat credited with the “greening” of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The OPT also boasts as a patron BBC darling wildlife broadcaster and film-maker Sir David Attenborough, who has called for a one child policy like that of Communist China to be implemented in Britain. The proposal is one of the OPT’s main initiatives.
The think tank is also home to Jonathon Porritt, former chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, who has stated that Britain’s population must be cut in half from around 60 million to 30 million if it is to build a sustainable society.
We have exhaustively exposed the nonsense behind the idea that the Earth’s current population levels are exceeding sustainable levels and are contributing to devastating climate change, however, Lovelock and his ilk at the OPT remain in positions of influence.

Lovelock is also an ardent advocate of geoengineering the planet in the name of controlling the climate. In 2007 Lovelock proposed laying vast swathes of pipes under the world’s oceans in order to pump water from the bottom of the seas – rich in nutrients, but mostly dead – to the top. The idea being that the action would encourage algae to breed, absorb more carbon and release more dimethyl sulphide into the atmosphere, a chemical known to seed sunlight reflecting clouds.
Effectively, Lovelock wants to try and block out the sun, the source of all life on this planet – nice.
Lovelock is also a member of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, an organization that has thrown its full weight behind the global warming movement, lending its absolute support for legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 80%, a process that will devastate the global economy and living standards.
This organization has been even more vehement than national governments in its advocacy of the man-made cause of global warming, calling for such drastic CO2 cuts to be made in the short term, not even by the usual target date of 2050.
“In his most recent book The Vanishing Face of Gaia, Lovelock concludes that the damage caused by overpopulation, species decline and carbon emissions is already so great that modern civilisation is finished.” notes James Delingpole at the London Telegraph.
“Before the end of this century, he argues, rising sea levels and overheating will have rendered whole swathes of our planet uninhabitable and such few survivors as there are will have to make do as best they can.” Delingpole adds.
Lovelock, The Royal Society and the OPT may sound like crazy nutcases, but unfortunately for us, they are extremely influential within the environmental movement. They are also far from alone in their thinking.
Mass sterilization, one child policies and a“Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death were all core concepts put forth by John P. Holdren, the man now in control of science policy in the United States, in his co-authored 1977 book, Ecoscience.
Holdren and his colleagues are now at the forefront of efforts to combat “climate change” through similarly insane programs focused around geoengineering the planet. As we reported in April 2009, Holdren advocates “Large-scale geoengineering projects designed to cool the Earth,” such as “shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays,” which many have pointed out is already occurring via the spraying of chemtrails.
Is Holdren another one off mad kook that has somehow wormed his way into a position of great influence? Not according to leading NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, who fully endorses Holdren’s view that industrial civilization should be destroyed to save the planet.
The same talking points raised by the OPT and James Lovelock have been re-iterated again and again by public policy groups and environmentalists, as well as the most influential scientists in the US government.
While you and I may think the notions of sterilization and depopulation could never be accepted by the public, those very concepts are now being embraced and popularized as the way forward for humanity.
Linking environmental policy to depopulation agendas opens the door to eugenics and it is no surprise that through that door have come pouring hordes of elitist filth just begging to be on the front line of the extermination policy.
While they peddle their insane proposals, backed by rampant fearmongering over climate change on behalf of our governments and the mainstream media, it is we who are charged with saving the planet and our place on it by exposing their nefarious agenda of mass depopulation before it is too late.

The nightmare Britain has become...

Pet shop owner fined £1,000 and told to wear an electronic tag... for selling a GOLDFISH to a boy aged 14Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262250/Pet-shop-owner-sold-goldfish-boy-hauled-court-ordered-wear-electronic-tag.html#ixzz0jhuqEo9Z
They have the largest number of surveillance cameras and soon everyone will wear an ankle bracelet. And, we all thought The Prisoner series was just fiction.

Somali pirates: are they a protected class?

Pirate attacks return to record levels

When a jar of marbles is about to fall over do you grab the neck of the jar or wait until marbles are rolling around the floor to pick them up?
We know full well where these pirates launch from but we will not attack those sites because we are stuck on some sort of international niceness. Or, is it now impermissible to kill pirates because of their skin color or religion?
As the old saying goes: "when you need help in seconds, the police are only minutes away.

Believe Al Gore then you believe in movie fantasy

Gulf Stream 'is not slowing down'
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.
Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.
A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.
The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The stream is a key process in the climate of western Europe, bringing heat northwards from the tropics and keeping countries such as the UK 4-6C warmer than they would otherwise be.
It forms part of a larger movement of water, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is itself one component of the global thermohaline system of currents.
Between 2002 and 2009, the team says, there was no trend discernible - just a lot of variability on short timescales.
“ The Atlantic overturning circulation is still an important player in today's climate ” Josh Willis, Nasa
The satellite record going back to 1993 did suggest a small increase in flow, although the researchers cannot be sure it is significant.
"The changes we're seeing in overturning strength are probably part of a natural cycle," said Josh Willis from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
"The slight increase in overturning since 1993 coincides with a decades-long natural pattern of Atlantic heating and cooling."
Short measures
The first observations suggesting the circulation was slowing down emerged in 2005, in research from the UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC).
Using an array of detectors across the Atlantic and comparing its readings against historical records, scientists suggested the volume of cold water returning southwards could have fallen by as much as 30% in half a century - a significant decline.
The surface water sinks in the Arctic and flows back southwards at the bottom of the ocean, driving the circulation.
However, later observations by the same team showed that the strength of the flow varied hugely on short timescales - from one season to the next, or even shorter.
But they have not found any clear trend since 2004.
Rapid relief
The NOC team now has a chain of instruments in place across the Atlantic, making measurements continuously.
"In four-and-a-half years of measurement, we have found there is a lot of variability, and we're working to explain it," said NOC's Harry Bryden.
The quantities of water involved are huge, varying between four million and 35 million tonnes of water per second.
The array is part of the UK-funded Rapid project, which aims to refine understanding of potentially large climate change impacts that could happen in short periods.
Professor Bryden's team calculates that their system is good enough to detect a long-term change in flow of about 20% - but it has not happened yet.
He believes the JPL approach - using satellite altimeters, instruments that can measure sea height precisely, and the Argo array of autonomous floating probes - could potentially add useful data to that coming from long-term on-site monitoring arrays.
But, he points out: "The method concentrates only on the upper [northward] flow - it doesn't give you much information on the returning flow southward."
Fantasy and reality
Driven by Hollywood, a popular image of a Gulf Stream slowdown shows a sudden catastrophic event driving snowstorms across the temperate lands of western Europe and eastern North America.
That has always been fantasy - as, said Josh Willis, is the idea that a slow-down would trigger another ice age.
"But the Atlantic overturning circulation is still an important player in today's climate," he added.
"Some have suggested cyclic changes in the overturning may be warming and cooling the whole North Atlantic over the course of several decades and affecting rainfall patterns across the US and Africa, and even the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic."
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Democrats=unions=a civilian draft


Union Chain Mail: A Card Check Cautionary Tale
By Sean Higgins

Over at the Washington Examiner, Mark Hemingway highlights a case which shows just how the Employee Free Choice Act might work in practice if it were ever enacted. The act would make union organizing radically easier by replacing federally monitored elections with alternate methods, such as the following:
One day last fall, approximately 40,000 private day care owners in Michigan woke up to discover they had become members of a public sector union. Most had no idea what was coming.
Here’s how it happened: The United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees worked with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission to conduct a vote-by-mail union election.
Of the 40,000 day care workers in the state, only 6,000 responded to the ballot they received in the mail. But that was enough for the state to declare all of the day care owners would henceforth be represented by the newly organized Child Care Providers Together Michigan union.
If 40,000 day care workers suddenly having to pay union dues weren’t enough, Hemingway notes where the money comes from: Michigan’s Department of Human Services collects the $3.7 million in union dues by taking money out of child care subsidies the state pays to day care providers.
As Hemingway wryly notes: “The union says it will use this money to lobby the state for bigger child care subsidies — no doubt needed to cover the newly created $3.7 million shortfall they’re using to pay themselves.”
The column is the first in a week-long series Hemingway is writing. Capital Hill will keep you posted on other good tidbits.

Love Che? Then you love violence.

Apple iPhone: 'Che, si, Glenn Beck, no'Humberto Fontova
The same Apple Corp. which introduced the Che IPhone app we posted about last month -- now regards Glenn Beck as a hate-monger!
So far as we know, Beck has never had said anything comparable to Che's bloodthirsty and racist rhetoric
"My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood...Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any surrendered enemy that falls in my hands! With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!" (From Che's own diaries, later immortalized as The Motorcycles Diaries, though we note that executive producer Robert Redford "overlooked" this unquestionably dramatic citation for his movie.)
"Hatred as the central element of our struggle!...Hatred that is intransigent....Hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine...We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow!... The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we'll destroy him! These hyenas (Americans) are fit only for extermination. We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm! The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!" (thus spake the icon of flower-children)
"Don't Shoot! I'm Che! I'm worth to you more alive than dead!" The plea was whimpered with a Eddie Haskell-in-front-of June Cleaver-esque smile on Oct. 8th 1967 in Quebrada de Yuro, Bolivia, as Che dropped his fully-loaded weapons. At the time, Che, dragging along his guerrilla charge Willi, was trying to slink away from a firefight when confronted by two Bolivian soldiers.
That's exactly two flunky Communist guerrillas facing two Bolivian soldiers, by the way. But then, Che's bloodthirsty bluster (see above) always had a habit of evaporating when facing men (or boys) capable of defending themselves. His stock-in-trade was blasting their skulls apart from five feet while they were bound and gagged. (Amazingly, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro overlooked any depictions of such guaranteed drama in their recent movie.)
"The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."
"What will our Revolution would do for blacks?--why, we'll do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!"
"The negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths" (as if Che had room to talk)
("Viva Che!" bellowed Jesse Jackson while arm in arm with Fidel Castro in Havana in 1984. "I'm like Che with a bling!" sings rapper Jay Z.)
"The solutions to the world's problems lie behind the Iron Curtain.....If the nuclear missiles had remained we would have fired them against the heart of the U.S. including New York City. The victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims." (look for Che t-shirts and any and all "Peace" demonstrations.)
"Mexicans are a rabble of illiterate Indians." (Note the numerous Che T-shirts and banners at May Day demonstrations by Mexican immigrants)
"Bolivian campesinos are simply Animalitos" (Note Bolivian President Evo Morales' frequent genuflections to the ghost of Che Guevara and to his puppeteer, Fidel Castro.)
"Youth must refrain from ungrateful questioning of governmental mandates. Instead they must dedicate themselves to study, work and military service. The very spirit of rebellion is reprehensible. ("Che is our fifth band member!" Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello).

Obama's appointments are "far out" and not in a good way

Majority of D.A.s in state oppose Obama nominee
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Forty-two of California's 58 county district attorneys are opposing President Obama's nomination of Goodwin Liu to the federal appeals court in San Francisco, saying they believe the UC Berkeley law professor is hostile to the death penalty.
In a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the prosecutors attacked a paper Liu coauthored in 2005 that criticized death penalty decisions by Samuel Alito, then President George W. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court.
The paper did not state its authors' views of the death penalty, but said Alito's opinions "show a disturbing tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings." The district attorneys said Liu's critique shows he would vote as a judge to overturn nearly every death sentence.
The document "demonstrates beyond serious question that his views on criminal law, capital punishment and the role of the federal courts in second-guessing state decisions are fully aligned" with an appeals court that is "far out of the judicial mainstream," the prosecutors said.
They included two Bay Area district attorneys, Ed Berberian of Marin County and David Paulson of Solano County.
In response, the White House released a letter from the state's prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, saying Liu would "further the cause of justice and follow the law and Constitution for all parties ... including crime victims and peace officers."
The dueling messages continued a partisan battle for public opinion over Liu's nomination to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 39-year-old professor has drawn rave reviews from academic colleagues and the American Bar Association. But conservatives have branded him a liberal activist and criticized his support for affirmative action, same-sex marriage and the view that constitutional rights evolve over time.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a confirmation hearing last week because of Republican objections and is scheduled to take up the nomination April 16.
Liu's 2005 critique of the death penalty opinions that Alito authored as a federal appeals court judge in Philadelphia included a case in which a prosecutor had removed all three black prospective jurors from a panel that proceeded to condemn a black defendant to death. The prosecution had also removed all African Americans from juries in three other trials in the county that year.
Alito dissented from a ruling overturning the death sentence and said the statistics did not prove the prosecution had been racially biased in picking juries. Liu said Alito's reasoning was later rejected by the Supreme Court and illustrated his willingness to excuse constitutional flaws in death penalty cases.
That demonstrates Liu's bias, said the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a conservative organization. The foundation said Liu had distorted the Supreme Court ruling in order to "indict and convict prosecutors of racism on flimsy evidence."

Tempest in a teapot or canary in the coal mine?

South Africa's ANC defends "Kill the Boer" song
By Peroshni Govender
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's ruling party on Tuesday defended the singing of an apartheid-era song with the words "Kill the Boer" in a row that has raised fears of increasing racial polarisation.
The African National Congress dismissed a ruling by a regional high court last week that uttering or publishing the words would amount to hate speech and violate the constitution put in place after the end of white minority rule.
"These songs cannot be regarded as hate speech or unconstitutional," ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe told a news conference. "Any judgment that describes them as such is impractical and unimplementable."
The recent singing of the song by firebrand ANC youth wing leader Julius Malema, who argues that black South Africans have not benefited enough from 16 years of democracy, drew anger from whites and other minority groups.
The lyrics of the song, sung in Zulu, translate as "kill the farmer, kill the Boer", referring to the former ruling white minority.
"Most people realise that this is a struggle song but many whites cannot help but feel that they are being targeted," said Marius Roodt a researcher at the South African Institute of Race Relations.
"The ANC needs to be sympathetic to the feelings of minorities especially if there is a perception created that they endorse inflammatory statements.
President Jacob Zuma has repeatedly stressed the importance of reconciliation in what became known as the "Rainbow Nation" after the relatively peaceful transition from apartheid.
But the controversy over the lyrics puts the ANC in a difficult position both because of the historic importance of the struggle for South Africa's majority and Malema's popularity.
Mantashe said the song was only a means of ensuring South African history was remembered and not meant as an incitement to violence against whites -- who make up about a tenth of South Africa's 50 million population.
The fact that most whites are still far more prosperous than most blacks angers many black South Africans, who feel they have not enjoyed the benefits they expected from ANC rule since 1994.
But Zuma, visiting a shanty town for poor whites outside Pretoria on Tuesday, stressed the importance of South Africans living together.
"We are a government that is committed to all South Africans, regardless of colour, race or creed," Zuma told the group, part of an estimated 450,000 white South Africans who are estimated to be living in poverty.

Another arrow in the heart of liberal lies.

Published on NewsBusters.org (http://newsbusters.org)
MSNBC Shocker: Firearms Deaths Fall As Gun Restrictions Ease
By Noel Sheppard
Created 03/29/2010 - 11:02
What's the likelihood of an EXTREMELY liberal media outlet publishing an article about firearm related homicides declining while permits to carry concealed weapons increase?
About as likely as Keith Olbermann saying something nice about Sarah Palin, right?
Well, on Wednesday, MSNBC.com actually published a piece [1] with the following shocking headline:
Shhh. Wait. It got better (h/t CNSNews [2] via Weasel Zippers [3]):
Americans overall are far less likely to be killed with a firearm than they were when it was much more difficult to obtain a concealed-weapons permit, according to statistics collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control. [4] But researchers have not been able to establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
In the 1980s and ’90s, as the concealed-carry movement gained steam, Americans were killed by others with guns at the rate of about 5.66 per 100,000 population. In this decade, the rate has fallen to just over 4.07 per 100,000, a 28 percent drop. The decline follows a fivefold increase in the number of “shall-issue” and unrestricted concealed-carry states from 1986 to 2006.
The highest gun homicide rate is in Washington, D.C., which has had the nation’s strictest gun-control laws for years and bans concealed carry: 20.50 deaths per 100,000 population, five times the general rate. The lowest rate, 1.12, is in Utah, which has such a liberal concealed weapons policy that most American adults can get a permit to carry a gun in Utah without even visiting the state.
The decline in gun homicides also comes as U.S. firearm sales are skyrocketing, according to federal background checks that are required for most gun sales. After holding stable at 8.5 to 9 million checks from 1999 to 2005, the FBI reported a surge to 10 million in 2006, 11 million in 2007, nearly 13 million in 2008 and more than 14 million last year, a 55 percent increase in just four years.
It must be noted that all of these vital statistics appeared on the third and final page of this article where likely few readers would see them.
Regardless, the data were supported by charts specifically showing how gun-related deaths have declined as the number of states opting for "shall issue" permits increased:
CNSNews's Joe Schoffstall elaborated [5]:
In this decade, the gun-homicide rate has fallen to 4.07 per 100,000, which equates to a 28 percent reduction in homicides with the use of firearms. This decline in homicides follows a five-fold increase in a “shall-issue” (requirement of a permit to carry a concealed handgun, but where the granting of the permit is subject only to meeting certain criteria laid out in the law) and unrestricted concealed-carry laws in states from 1986 to 2006, reported MSNBC.com. According to federal background checks conducted on the sale of most firearms, the decline in homicides comes as U.S. firearm sales are skyrocketing. [...]
The nation's highest gun homicide rates are in Washington, D.C., with 20.50 deaths per 100,000 people, five times the general rate. Yet the District of Columbia has the strictest gun-control laws in the nation. The lowest rate of gun-related homicides is in Utah: 1.12 deaths per 100,000 people. Utah’s gun-control policy [6] is very unrestricted.
All in all a very surprising piece from one of the nation's most liberal news outlets that would have been far better if the vital statistics hadn't been buried near the end.
Source URL:http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/03/29/msnbc-shocker-firearms-deaths-fall-gun-restrictions-ease

Only liberal Democrats trusted him in the first place

Obama And Israel: The Trust Is Gone
By: Ed Koch Date: Monday,
I consider the Obama administration's recent actions against the Israeli government to be outrageous and a breach of trust.

The timing of the Israeli government's announcement, while Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem, that 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem would be built for Jews, was unfortunate and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for it, but it did not mark any change in the Israeli government's policy. That policy is and has long been to allow construction of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem.

Now a little history. In 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing the creation of a Jewish state within the British Mandate of Palestine. After it declared independence in 1948, Israel was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Although Israel repelled the attack, Jordan conquered East Jerusalem, separating it from its Western half.

Ultimately, a cease-fire was arranged by the UN and for the next 19 years, until 1967, Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, including the old city, which historically had been the capital of King David's ancient kingdom. In 1967, the Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria again sought to destroy the State of Israel, but Israel prevailed in six days and conquered the Jordanian-held East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip.

During the 19 years Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, it expelled all the Jews living in what was historically the Jewish Quarter, and destroyed every synagogue and the homes of the Jews. When Israel reunited all of Jerusalem, Jews were, of course, allowed to live in any part of the city, and today, more than a quarter-million Jews live in East Jerusalem. Numerous Arabs live there as well.

For quite some time and certainly since the Gaza War, the Palestinian Authority has broken off direct negotiations with Israel which had been ongoing since about 1993, in an effort to create two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, living side-by-side in peace. This so-called two-state solution always seemed out of reach, notwithstanding the efforts of Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to jumpstart negotiations.

President Obama has sought to revive the negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. He called on Netanyahu to assist by committing Israel to stop building new apartments in East Jerusalem and new settlements on the West Bank. In a move that Hillary Clinton, according to The New York Times, praised as "unprecedented," Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month settlement moratorium on the West Bank.

However, he refused to stop Jews from living in any part of East Jerusalem, which is considered by Israelis to be an inseparable part of their capital. Both the Palestinian Authority and the U.S. government, ultimately accepted Netanyahu's offer, albeit grudgingly, and the Palestinian Authority agreed to engage in indirect talks through the American mediator George Mitchell.

Given this history, it was a shock to Israeli and American supporters of Israel to have Biden, a great friend of Israel, make the extraordinary harsh statement he made denouncing the future construction of 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem.

But even more disturbing than the vice president's reaction were the comments and implicit threats voiced by Secretary of State Clinton in a telephone conversation she had with Netanyahu.

What is most disturbing about the truly harsh and inflammatory rhetoric of both Biden and Clinton is that, according to the Times, Obama himself may have ordered them to make the statements they made.

Obama and his administration's overly harsh public reaction to the construction in East Jerusalem appears to have emboldened Israel's enemies and provided a cover for their extremist views. It has also created a serious crisis of confidence among the Israeli public that it can depend on this administration for its security.

There were fence-mending efforts last week when Netanyahu met with Obama, but relations will never be the same again. Humpty Dumpty has been broken and the absolute trust needed between allies is no longer there. How sad it is for the supporters of Israel who put their trust in President Obama.


Ed Koch served as mayor of New York from 1978 to 1990.

How could you have trusted a man who sat in the Rev. Wright's church for 20 years?

Jew hater or leftist?

Man arrested for threatening to kill Eric CantorPosted:

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - A 33-year-old Pennsylvania man has been arrested for threatening to kill Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, according to a Justice Department announcement today.
Today, a two-count complaint and warrant was filed charging Norman Leboon with threatening to kill United States Congressman Eric Cantor and his family.
As set forth in the affidavit to the complaint and warrant, in or about late March, 2010, Leboon created and then transmitted a YouTube video to Google over the internet, in which he threatened to kill Congressman Cantor and his family. No harm came to the Congressman or his family as a result of Leboon's threats.
"The Department of Justice takes threats against government officials seriously, especially threats to kill or injure others," said Levy. "Whether the reason for the threat is personal or political, threats are not protected by the First Amendment and are crimes."
If convicted of all the charges, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 15 years imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, a fine up to $500,000, and a $200 special assessment.

Is Obama stoking Jew hatred?

Hate crimes force Jews out of Malmo

Notice also that the Mayor of Malmo who does nothing to protect the Jews is a left winger.

Trying to shore up falling trust in the UN?

Independent experts to review pandemic handling - WHO
Reuters - Tuesday, March 30
* Review to start in April, first report in May
* Alleged exaggeration, conflicts of interest
By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA, March 29 - A group of independent experts will review how the H1N1 pandemic has been handled to ensure that the next global health emergency is dealt with better, a top World Health Organisation official said on Monday.
The H1N1 influenza outbreak, which began in April last year, was marked by controversies over whether the WHO and public health authorities had exaggerated the risks of H1N1 and created unnecessary alarm by declaring it a 'pandemic'.
The WHO has also been criticised for its pandemic alert system that focuses on geographical spread of the outbreak rather than its severity, and on alleged conflicts of interests between health officials and experts and vaccine makers.
The review will examine how well the WHO and its 193 member states prepared for and responded to the swine flu outbreak, whether the risks were fully understood or exaggerated and poor countries' access to vaccines, WHO flu expert Keiji Fukuda said.
"The bottom line for doing this is to identify what do we need to do to get better," he told a briefing.
About 17,000 people have died from laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1 but the WHO says the real death toll is many times higher and it is too soon to say whether the outbreak, declared a full pandemic in June last year, is over.
Fukuda said an assessment would be made by the United Nations agency's emergency committee, but no date has been set.
It remains unclear whether H1N1 has been more deadly than seasonal flu, which kills thousands of people each year, but it is clearly milder than some of the 20th century pandemics in which millions died.
The virus has subsided in North America, where it originated last year, and in Europe, but there is increased activity in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Central and South America as the southern hemisphere enters its winter, Fukuda said.
The WHO is continuing to ship donated vaccines to poor states in a complex operation, and has now reached 25 developing countries. Drug makers such as GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis have been producing H1N1 vaccines.
The review, starting in April, will be conducted by 29 experts, drawn by WHO regional offices from a pool of scientists and public health officials nominated by member states.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan will report their preliminary findings to the WHO's annual World Health Assembly in May, with the final report due to be ready for the 2011 World Health Assembly, Fukuda said.

Anger is a Right

Greg Gutfeld explains the difference between 'good' anger and 'bad' anger:

So as the anger surrounding the health care bill escalates, many in the media are reporting how the anger surrounding the health care bill is escalating!

Now I've been down this road so many times I could navigate it blindfolded and covered in peanut butter.

It goes like this: for the media, anger is only okay if its targets meet their stereotypical, romanticized criteria. Meaning: the corporation, the conservative, the daddy who never loved them.

Here's a list of people doing angry things the media is okay with:

-People calling Bush a Nazi
-Students and non students rioting on college campuses
-Animal rights freaks dousing rich folks with paint
-Actors wishing average folks would get rectal cancer
-Bureaucrats labeling military vets as potential violent right wing extremists
-Radical environmentalists advocating violence against loggers
-Pranksters throwing pies at conservative commentators (you know, somehow they never pie Michael Moore, which makes him sad; he likes pie)

But this health care bill anger is different from all that - not just because it's right, but because it involves Obama. And being angry at Obama is like being mad at Santa Claus. How can you be mad at Santa, when he brings us so many gifts?

And so, this anger is scary! It's a mark of incivility! It's deadly!

But you have a right to be angry. Unlike the entitlements we're saddled with until death, being angry is free and actually works! But we need to define why we're angry - instead of letting our adversaries do it for us.

We are angry not because we lost, but that we lost to losers. I'm not talking about Obama, or the Dems. They're winners, sadly. I'm talking about progressivism. The reason why I'm angry, my friends are angry, and my imaginary unicorn Captain Sparkles is angry - is because the greatest, most winningest country in the history of the world, just embraced the loser's doctrine.

For two hundred plus years we've kicked ass, and we're now choosing the belief system of the idiots whose asses we've kicked.

So that's why I'm angry. And why you're angry too.

And when jackasses try to take away your right to be angry - by calling it racist or extremist - tell them they're the racists. Because it's those tools who assume that anger can only be about race. And if they disagree with you, then clearly they're not just racists - but probably homophobic cannibals, too.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Historical truth seems to offend the Hollywood MSM types

This piece is a wonderful dissection of Hollywood's irrational love affair with Fidel and Communism. You certainly cannot trust them to give a historically accurate review of anything. They treat Obama in the same way.
Andy Garcia’s ‘The Lost City’—When Film Critics Turn Historians

In his movie The Lost City, about an upper middle-class Cuban family crumbling during free Havana’s last days, director and star Andy Garcia, along with fellow Cuban-exile screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante, insist on depicting some historical truth about Cuba.
This unforgivable gaffe blasted the bugles for a pile-on by critics. Their fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba, of Che, of Fidel, and of Cubans in general were badly jolted. Their annoyance and scorn spewed forth in review after review.

If only Garcia’s characters had spoken with accents like John Belushi’s as a Saturday Night Live Killer Bee! If only they’d dressed like The Three Amigos! If only they’d hammed it up like Cheech Marin! If only they’d mimicked the mannerisms and gait of Freddie Prinze in Chico and the Man! If only the women had piled a roadside fruit stand on their head like Carmen Miranda in Road to Rio! If only the cast had looked like the little guy who handles my luggage at the hotel in Cancun! Or the guys who do my lawn! Everybody knows that’s what Hispanics look like!
If only masses of Cubans had been shown toiling in salt mines like Spartacus, or picking crops like Tom Joad ,or getting lashed by a vicious landlord like Kunta Kinte, or hustling for a living like Ratso Rizzo!
“In a movie about the Cuban revolution, we almost never see any of the working poor for whom the revolution was supposedly fought,” sniffed Peter Reiner in The Christian Science Monitor. “The Lost City misses historical complexity.”
Actually, what misses is Mr. Reiner’s historical knowledge. Garcia and Infante knew full well that “the working poor” had no role in the stage of the Cuban Revolution shown in the movie. Cuba’s anti-Batista rebellion was led and staffed overwhelmingly by Cuba’s middle and especially upper classes. To wit: twice during the rebellion, Castro called for a “National Strike” against the Batista dictatorship – and threatened to shoot workers who reported to work. And twice Cuban workers blew a loud and collective raspberry at their “liberators,” reporting to work en masse.
“Garcia’s tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few,” harrumphed Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice. “Poor people are absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason—or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about.”
What was “absolutely absent” was Mr. Atkinson’s knowledge about the Cuba Garcia depicts in his movie. His crack about that “moneyed 1 per cent” and especially his “peasant revolution” epitomize the clichéd idiocies broadcast by Castro’s propaganda ministry and dutifully parroted by America’s idiotic chattering classes even fifty years later.
“The impoverished masses of Cubans who embraced Castro as a liberator appear only in grainy, black-and-white news clips,” snorted Stephen Holden in The New York Times. “Political dialogue in the film is strictly of the junior high school variety.”
It’s Holden’s education on the Cuban Revolution that’s of the “junior high school variety.” Actually it’s Harvard Graduate School variety. Many more imbecilities about Cuba are heard in Ivy League classrooms than in most rural junior high schools.
“It fails to focus on the poverty-stricken workers whose plight lit the fires of revolution,” complained Rex Reed in the New York Observer.
Generally, you’re better off attempting rational discourse with the Flat-Earth Society then with such as the Rex Reed above, but nonetheless I’ll try to dispel the fantasies of pre-Castro Cuba still cherished by America’s most prestigious academics and its most learned film critics. Even better, I’ll use a source generally esteemed by liberal highbrow types, the United Nations.
Here’s a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) report on Cuba circa 1957: “One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class,” it starts. “Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8-hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6 per cent of gross national income. In the U.S. the figure is 70 per cent, in Switzerland 64 per cent. 44 per cent of Cubans are covered by Social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S.”
In 1958, Cuba had a higher per-capita income than Austria and Japan. Cuban industrial workers had the 8th highest wages in the world. In the 1950’s Cuban stevedores earned more per hour than their counterparts in New Orleans and San Francisco.
The Anti-Batista rebellion (not revolution) was staffed and led overwhelmingly by college students and professionals. Unemployed lawyers were prominent (take Fidel Castro himself). Here’s the makeup of the “peasant revolution’s” first cabinet, drawn from the leaders in the Anti-Batista fight: 7 lawyers, 2 University professors, 3 University students, 1 doctor, 1 engineer, 1 architect, 1 former city mayor and a Colonel who defected from the Batista Army. A notoriously “bourgeois” bunch as Che himself might have put it.
By 1961 however, workers and campesinos (country folk)-made up the overwhelming bulk of the anti-Castroite rebels, especially the guerrillas in the Escambray mountains. That (genuine) guerrilla war would REALLY make for an action-packed and gut-wrenching war movie. Hear that, Messieurs Soderbergh and del Toro?
If by some miracle such a movie ever got made, you can bet these learned critics would pan it too. Who ever heard of poor country-folk fighting against their benefactors Fidel and Che?
The New York Times‘ Stephen Holden also sneers at Garcia’s implication that “life sure was peachy before Fidel Castro came to town and ruined everything.” In fact, Mr. Holden, before Castro “came to town,” Cuba took in more immigrants (primarily from Europe) as a percentage of population than the U.S., And at a time when Cubans could get a U.S visa for the mere asking and emigrate with all their property, family, etc., more Americans lived in Cuba than Cubans in the U.S. Furthermore, inner tubes were used in truck tires, oil drums for oil, and Styrofoam for insulation. None were cherished black market items for use as flotation devices to flee the glorious liberation while fighting off hammerheads and tiger sharks.
The learned Mr. Holden is also annoyed by “buffoonish parodies of sour Communist apparatchiks barking orders.” Apparently, Communist apparatchiks should be properly depicted as somewhat misguided social workers, or as slightly overzealous Obama operatives.
It’s no “parody,” Mr. Holden, that the “apparatchiks” Garcia depicts in his movie jailed and murdered a higher percentage of their countrymen in their first three months in power than Hitler and his apparatchiks jailed and murdered in their first three years. It’s the equivalent of complaining the guards and police in Schindler’s List or Julia come across as hackneyed caricatures. Instead let’s portray them with more “complexity,” as misguided idealists who followed a leader who unshackled the German working class from its subservience to snooty barons, who eradicated Germany’s unemployment and who ended Germany’s national humiliation at the hands of Europe’s premier imperialist powers.
How would that go over with you learned critics?
Andy Garcia showed it precisely right. In 1958 Cuba was undergoing a rebellion, not a revolution. Cubans expected political change, not a Stalinist cataclysm. But no surprise that such distinctions are much too “complex” for the typical film critic to grasp.

A history of violence from the left

More Thoughts On Liberal Political Violence

The Democrats have tried to change the subject away from their health care debacle by claiming that conservatives are threatening violence against them. Their complaints are pathetic where they are not out-and-out lies (e.g., Clyburn and Lewis), and they have taken a lot of well-deserved criticism. It is liberals, not conservatives, who rely on ad hominem attacks, outrageous allegations and violent imagery. We talked about this on our radio show today, and several callers reminded us of a particularly sorry episode of liberal violence that, for some reason, has not gotten much attention: the 2008 Republican convention in St. Paul.
I attended the convention and remember the terrorist acts that were carried out by anti-Republican protesters very well. They threw bricks through the windows of buses, sending elderly convention delegates to the hospital. They dropped bags of sand off highway overpasses onto vehicles below. Fortunately, no one was killed.
These were anti-Bush and anti-Republican protesters. Is it a stretch to think that some of them, at least, may have been inspired by over-the-top, hateful attacks on the Bush administration by Democratic Congressmen, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Michael Moore, who was a guest of honor at the Democrats' own convention, various show business personalities, and many other leading liberal figures? I don't think so. We haven't seen that sort of hate campaign since the Democrats went after Abraham Lincoln. It seems unlikely that none of the "protesters" who tried to commit murder were inspired by those liberal voices.
Yet, hardly anyone seems to be aware of the violence that took place in 2008. At most, the story was treated with a ho-hum attitude in the press. For some reason, political violence was not a concern less than two years ago. Yet today, we can hardly imagine what would happen if a group of tea partiers were to drop sandbags off a highway overpass, trying to kill motorists below. Liberal reporters' heads would explode. But this is exactly what anti-Republican Party protesters did in 2008, and no one cared. To my knowledge, not a single Democratic politician condemned this anti-Republican violence or attempted in any way to distance the Democratic Party from it.
Keep that in mind next time you hear a Democrat whining about the Republican effort to "fire Nancy Pelosi."

The Democrats want us to love our oppressor

Democrats' deafness reaps hate mail
NOLAN FINLEY
People get loud and angry when they feel as if they're being ignored.
Unfortunately, they sometimes also get ugly.
Democrats stubbornly refused to listen to the tremendous public outcry against their health care package. They attempted to minimize the protests and marginalize the protesters. But now that they've shoved the bill down America's throat, they're feigning shock -- and even fear -- at the vehemence of the backlash.
They say they're being terrorized by potentially violent opponents of the health care bill, and produce stacks of letters, e-mails and phone messages they claim make them fearful of their lives.
Sprinkled among them are what may be a few legitimate threats. This is a wholly unacceptable way to react to losing a political fight, and should be dealt with seriously by law enforcement agencies.
But most of what is being passed off as menacing is nothing more than old-fashioned hate mail. Much of it is crude and offensive, a lot of it is inappropriate, but it doesn't rise to the level of a threat.
For example, the office of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, is under guard after he received a mountain of angry messages for flip-flopping on abortion funding. Many of the message senders call him vile names and bid him a miserable end. But they stop short of warning of intent to do harm.
Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, takes as a threat a message expressing the wish that he die a slow and painful death from cancer. That's nasty business. But it's no worse than the e-mails that pop into my inbox.
For a long stretch, I heard from a detractor who wanted me separated from body parts that I'm rather fond of. I felt intensely unloved, but never in danger of losing my vitals.
There's nothing new here. Hatred has been part of politics for some time. Ask former President George W. Bush about his mail. Bush loathers even made a movie fantasizing about his assassination.
The real threat presented by the hate mail is to the Democratic pretense that they've passed a bill demanded and welcomed by the American people. Neither Stupak nor Schauer can say with any credibility that their votes represented the will of their right-of-center Michigan districts.
Nor can the Democratic caucus as a whole. Democrats won the White House and control of Congress on the votes of a broad majority of the country. Then they declared a mandate to govern on behalf of their narrow partisan base.
That's why people are angry. They feel betrayed. And they don't get a sense that their feelings matter in Washington.
Elections have consequences. But so does political arrogance. Democrats made a higher priority of delivering a political victory for President Barack Obama than serving the nation with good policymaking.
Now they're learning that the majority isn't silent. If Democrats keep pretending not to hear the people, they'll only grow louder and angrier.
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News.

Leftist tyranny or fascism, both fit nicely

Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill
By: Byron YorkChief Political Correspondent

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has summoned some of the nation's top executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment that the new national health care reform law will cost their companies hundreds of millions of dollars in health insurance expenses. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances -- a move one committee Republicans describes as "an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats' flawed health care reform legislation."
On Thursday and Friday, the companies -- so far, they include AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M -- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. Now, both retirees and current employees of those companies are wondering whether the new law could mean reduced or canceled benefits for them in the future.
The news is an embarrassment for Democrats. As President Obama and congressional leaders tout the purported benefits of the new health care law, some of the nation's biggest companies are saying it will mean higher costs and fewer benefits -- not exactly what Democrats want to hear in the days after their historic victory.
So Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill's opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.
Waxman's demands came Friday in letters to several executives. "After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance," Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be "evaluating prospective changes" to its health care benefits for all workers.
Waxman's letter suggests he does not accept the company's decision. "The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern," Waxman wrote to Stephenson, in addition to letters to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Caterpillar CEO James Owens, and Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen. The companies' decisions, Waxman wrote, "appear to conflict with independent analyses."
Waxman's demands for documents are far-reaching. "To assist the Committee with its preparation for the hearing," he wrote to Stephenson, "we request that you provide the following documents from January 1, 2009, through the present:
(1) any analyses related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T; and (2) any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T. We also request an explanation of the accounting methods used by AT&T since 2003 to estimate the financial impact on your company of the 28 percent subsidy for retiree drug coverage and its deductibility or nondeductibility, including the accounting methods used in preparing the cost impact statement released by AT&T this week.
Waxman's request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.
The particular problem for the companies involves the prescription drug coverage they offer retired workers. In 2003, when President Bush and the Republican Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement, they offered a tax break to companies that continued to provide drug coverage for their retirees, rather than forcing them into the Medicare system. The new national health care bill ends that tax break, making it more expensive for the companies to continue offering the coverage. Ultimately, some analysts believe, the companies will stop covering the retirees, pushing them into the government system.
Waxman's action took Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee by surprise. Contacted Saturday, Texas Rep. Michael Burgess, who is the ranking Republican on the investigations subcommittee, said, "The timing of the letters and the hearing and the scope of information requested looks an awful lot like an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats' flawed health care reform legislation, which is unfortunately the law of the land."
Burgess added, "I heard from several businesses back home in North Texas that the Democrats' health reform would be bad for business, so I am not surprised that companies are beginning to announce that it will cost them&hellipI look forward to hearing more from the officials at these companies about the adverse effects of the Democrats' health reform will have on their business."
In coming days, Republicans are likely to emphasize the costs, both financial and human, of the new law. In an interview Thursday, Rep. Tom Price, head of the House Republican Study Committee, said his party's first priority will be to "identify as often as possible the detrimental and remarkably consequential effects of this bill on communities." Price specifically pointed to the Caterpillar and Deere announcements as examples of what GOP lawmakers will cite as the adverse effects of the law. (At the time Price spoke, AT&T had not yet announced its decision.)
Given that, it's no wonder Democrats are planning an aggressive campaign against the businesses involved. Elections are coming up, and Democratic leaders are in no mood to hear discouraging words about what they regard as their signature achievement.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

This is how socialized medicine works

The devolution of a modern health care system. Your health is completely captive to the bureaucrats. It won't be long before our health care system looks more like what goes on at animal shelters.


Hospital wards to shut in secret NHS cuts
Tens of thousands of NHS workers would be sacked, hospital units closed and patients denied treatments under secret plans for £20 billion of health cuts.

By Jon Swaine and Holly Watt

Internal NHS documents show cuts are expected to fall on hospital services Photo: GETTY
The sick would be urged to stay at home and email doctors rather than visit surgeries, while procedures such as hip replacements could be scrapped.
The plans have emerged as health chiefs draw up emergency budgets that cast doubt on pledges by Gordon Brown to protect “front line services” in the NHS.

Documents show that health chiefs are considering plans to begin sacking workers, cutting treatments and shutting wards across the country.
The proposals could lead to:
10 per cent of NHS staff being sacked in some areas.
The loss of thousands of hospital beds.
A reduction in the number of ambulance call-outs.
Medical professionals being replaced by less qualified assistants.
The plans are contained in a series of internal NHS documents uncovered by The Daily Telegraph.
The final details of the plans are not due to be announced until the autumn, well after the country has gone to the polls for the general election.
The Conservatives and health campaigners said the public deserved to know the true extent of cuts at their local surgeries and hospitals before voting.
Last year all English health authorities were ordered by Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, to reconsider their plans after the recession forced the Government to freeze health spending from April next year.
This left a ''black hole’’ of up to £20 billion in health budgets up to 2014, prompting the drawing up of new proposals by the 10 strategic health authorities (SHAs).
They had until Friday to submit their plans to Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary. He is under pressure from the Treasury to show how money will be saved to help bring down Britain’s record £167 billion deficit.
In Wednesday’s Budget, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, repeated that the £20 billion would come through “efficiency savings” and not key services.
Documents produced by several of the SHAs show how the cuts are, in fact, expected to fall on hospital services.
In the South East Coast region, which covers Surrey, Kent and Sussex, up to £1.6 billion must be saved.
A document marked “restricted” and circulated among SHA board members suggests 10,000 of the region’s 100,000 NHS workers may lose their jobs. “The new financial environment demands that the trend in workforce growth must be reversed,” it said, adding bosses must reduce employee numbers by 10 per cent “or further”.
The document said staffing in the acute sector, covering hospitals, “can be expected to decline faster and further” than elsewhere.
Job losses will be “starting in the coming year”, it states. Mr Brown has repeatedly promised Labour will not start making significant cuts to public spending until 2011. A spokesman for the South East Coast SHA said the document was a discussion paper and not a final plan.
In London, which faces £5 billion in cuts, documents show managers believe up to £2 billion can be saved from community care budgets, which cover GPs’ surgeries. This would include “changing how patients get in contact with and receive services, such as through greater use of the internet and email”.
An internal presentation by NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, which spans Sheffield, York, Hull and north Lincolnshire, made similar suggestions. The SHA, which is expected to make about £2 billion in cuts, proposed directing more patients to “teleservices such as NHS Direct”. Meanwhile, £450 million could be saved in London by banning clinical procedures “that have little or no benefit to those receiving them, for example some joint replacements”.
NHS North West, which oversees Greater Manchester and Liverpool, is expected to make about £2 billion savings. It is preparing to close an A&E unit in Rochdale during evenings before scrapping it altogether next year.
In the East region, covering Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, up to £2 billion is to be cut. The SHA proposes shifting services out of hospitals and making social workers take over some treatments. It is estimated that savings of about £2.4 billion will need to be made by NHS West Midlands, £2 billion in the South West, £1.3 billion in South Central, £1 billion in the North East and £800 million in the East Midlands.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “We will be clear with trusts that they must not make short-term cuts that harm patient care.”

If ever there was a headline...

that called for Groucho Marx famous line: "Who you gonna believe your lying eyes or me" this is it.


Northern winter fifth warmest on record

Middle East style terrorism adopted by LEFTIST narco-terorists

Package bomb kills 12-year-old boy in Colombia
By VIVIAN SEQUERA (AP)

BOGOTA — A package bomb killed a 12-year-old boy who may have been given it to take to a police station after school in Colombia's turbulent, coca-growing southwest, authorities said Friday.
The boy, still in his school uniform, died about 4 p.m. Thursday in the blast, which also injured two officers at the police station in the town of El Charco, authorities said.
Narino state Gov. Antonio Navarro said the bomb exploded as the boy approached the station.
It was not known who gave the boy the package, which was estimated to contain about 10 kilos (22 pounds) of explosives, or how it was detonated, the local judicial police chief, Bairon Javier Botina, told The Associated Press by phone. All that remained of the boy were his legs, he said.
The top security official in El Charco, Cristiano Pinillo, told the AP that "it's possible the boy was used to deliver the parcel to the station," adding that no such thing had ever happened in the town of 29,000 people.
A drug-trafficking right-wing criminal gang called Los Rastrojos and leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, operate in the remote region, where people live off fishing and farming, including coca, the basis of cocaine.
Colombia's armed forces commander, Gen. Freddy Padilla, called the act repugnant as it "violated every norm of international humanitarian law."
Interior Minister Fabio Valencia offered a $53,000 reward for information leading to those responsible.
The boy died a day after a car bomb set off in the administrative center of Buenaventura, Colombia's main Pacific port in the adjacent state of Valle del Cauca, killed nine people and injured 36. There was no claim of responsibility.
Such bombings have been rare in recent years owing in large part to President Alvaro Uribe's offensive against the FARC, which has pushed Colombia's long-running conflict to remote regions.
However, critics of Uribe, who was barred by a court last month from running for a third consecutive four-year term, accuse him of doing little to constrain violent drug gangs in the provinces.

Another gift from Hugo Chavez' canoodling with the Iranians. Also remember that FARC was very happy Obama was elected (learned from captured computers) and the Democrats have long supported Latin American revolutionaries.