Climate Change: The Associated Press warns that the new administration won't have much time to save the planet from a global warming apocalypse. Never mind that the "ticking time bomb" is a dud.
Read More: Global Warming
The temperature at Denver International Airport dropped to 18 below zero on Sunday, breaking the previous record of 14 below set in 1901. White Sulphur Springs, Mont., reported 29 below to the National Weather Service, breaking the record of 17 below set in 1922. Meanwhile, ice storms ravage the Northeast and the upper Midwest.
This is not a local phenomenon. Hong Kong had the second-longest cold spell since 1885. Cold in northern Vietnam destroyed 40% of the rice crop and killed 33,000 head of livestock. The British Parliament debated climate change as London experienced the first October snow since 1934.
Presumably this has all been reported by the Associated Press. But according to a weekend AP report, this is all an illusion and "2008 is on a pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line." Rather than being "evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming." Oh.
The report, which includes no comments from any skeptic, says global warming "is a ticking time-bomb that President-elect Obama can't avoid." It warns "warming is accelerating. Time is running out, and Obama knows it." Especially if he relies on AP wire reports.
Problem is, nature didn't get the memo. Geophysicist David Deming found that for the first time since the 18th century, in the days before SUVs, Alaskan glaciers grew this year instead of retreating. Fairbanks had its fourth coldest October in 104 years of records.
U.S. Geological Survey glaciologist Bruce Molnia reported: "On the Juneau Icefield, there was still 20 feet of new snow on the surface of the Taku Glacier in late July." It was the worst summer he'd seen in two decades.
As the Anchorage Daily News reports, "Never before in the history of a research project dating back to 1946 had the Juneau Ice Field witnessed the kind if snow buildup that came this year. It was similar on a lot of other glaciers too."
The consequence of melting glaciers and sea ice is supposed to be rising sea levels. The poster children for this phenomenon are low-lying coral islands such as the Maldives and Tuvalu. Again, the facts are ignored in the quest for headlines.
The satellite record shows the sea level has actually fallen four inches around Tuvalu since 1993, when the $100 million international TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite project record began.
As in other places around the world, sea-level changes have many natural explanations, including geologic changes in the land.
The atolls of Tuvalu rest on sinking volcanic rock on top of which new coral grows to replace the coral die-off that occurs as the volcanic rock sinks deeper into the ocean where coral does not survive. Sand is excavated for building material on Tuvalu. Excavation for building material has eroded the beach, thus giving to the casual, or biased, observer the impression of rising sea levels.
The strong El Nino of 1997-98 caused the sea level surrounding Tuvalu to drop just over one foot.
Patrick Michaels, a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C., notes that Tuvalu is near the epicenter of a region where the sea level has been declining for nearly 50 years. He has written that the decline has been so steep that, even accepting the U.N.'s median estimates of global warming over the next hundred years, Tuvalu would not return to its 1950 sea level until 2050, much less disappear under the sea.
None of this, of course, matters to the warming zealots and some major media outlets. If it's too dry or too wet, too hot or too cold, everything is caused by global warming. We believe, as do many reputable scientists, that the warming and cooling of the earth is a natural phenomenon dictated by forces beyond our control, from ocean currents to solar activity. We needn't worry about one day mooring our boats to the Washington Monument.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Winter Storm Warnings Issued From New Jersey to Nevada
Because we all know Global Warming is a dire threat to our survival, NOT!!
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Winter storm warnings were issued from New Jersey to Nevada early Tuesday as frigid temperatures, sleet and snow spread to virtually all corners of the nation.
The arctic air that blustered across the Midwest and West on Monday — dropping temperatures in some places 30 degrees in about an hour — was now targeting the East and South.
Snow and sleet warnings were posted Tuesday for parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and the Washington, D.C., area.
Forecasters in northern Illinois predicted up to 6 inches of snow and temperatures at the bitterly low depths seen Monday, when stiff, steady winds held wind chills at or near zero.
"There were some locations across the central U.S. that went from 50 to the teens," said National Weather Service meteorologist, Stephen Rodriguez. "It was a sharp, strong cold front that moved through."
The cold air mass slammed into northern Texas early Tuesday, prompting officials to shutter some overpasses because of treacherous driving conditions.
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Explosives Found, Defused in Paris Department Store
PARIS — French police neutralized five sticks of explosives discovered in the restrooms of a prestigious department store in Paris on Tuesday following a warning from a group demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.
Agence France-Presse said it received a letter from a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front saying that "several bombs" had been planted in the Printemps store.
AFP reported that the letter called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan by February next year. The bombs were supposed to go off on Wednesday, the group said.
France has about 2,600 troops serving with NATO in Afghanistan, though President Nicolas Sarkozy has said more will be sent.
French television also said five explosive devices had been defused, but police could not immediately confirm.
"Following a classic tip off, police evacuated Le Printemps store. A suspect package was found and is being examined," the police spokesman said, giving no further information.
Some French media said explosives had been found but did not have detonators attached.
The Printemps store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the city center, which is normally packed at this time of year with Christmas shoppers. Police closed off the streets around the store and were directing traffic away from the area, a Reuters reporter said.
Anti-crime brigades and demining teams have been called in.
Agence France-Presse said it received a letter from a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front saying that "several bombs" had been planted in the Printemps store.
AFP reported that the letter called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan by February next year. The bombs were supposed to go off on Wednesday, the group said.
France has about 2,600 troops serving with NATO in Afghanistan, though President Nicolas Sarkozy has said more will be sent.
French television also said five explosive devices had been defused, but police could not immediately confirm.
"Following a classic tip off, police evacuated Le Printemps store. A suspect package was found and is being examined," the police spokesman said, giving no further information.
Some French media said explosives had been found but did not have detonators attached.
The Printemps store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the city center, which is normally packed at this time of year with Christmas shoppers. Police closed off the streets around the store and were directing traffic away from the area, a Reuters reporter said.
Anti-crime brigades and demining teams have been called in.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Global warming is such a bitch!
Ok, Maybe not. Maybe it just went home for the holidays. And left North America in the Freezer!!
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/uschill.gif
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/uschill.gif
It’s This Bad
Theodore Dalrymple
Returning briefly to England from France for a speaking engagement, I bought three of the major dailies to catch up on the latest developments in my native land. The impression they gave was of a country in the grip of a thoroughgoing moral frivolity. In a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously.
This is not the charming or uplifting frivolity of Feydeau’s farces or Oscar Wilde’s comedies; it is the frivolity of real decadence, bespeaking a profound failure of nerve bound to have disastrous consequences for the country’s quality of life. The newspapers portrayed frivolity without gaiety and earnestness without seriousness—a most unattractive combination.
Of the two instances of serious matters taken with levity, the first concerned a 42-year-old barrister, Peter Wareing, attacked in the street while walking home from a barbecue with two friends, a man and a woman. They passed a group of seven teenagers who had been drinking heavily, one of whom, a girl, complained that the barrister and his friends were “staring” at them. Nowadays, English youth of aggressive disposition and porcelain-fragile ego regard such alleged staring as a justified casus belli.
The girl attacked the woman in the other party. When Wareing and his male friend tried to separate them, two of the youths, aged 18 and 16, in turn attacked them. They hit the barrister’s friend into some bushes, injuring him slightly, and then knocked the barrister to the ground, knocking him down a second time after he had struggled to his feet. This second time, his head hit the ground, injuring his brain severely. He was unconscious and on life support for two months afterward. At first, his face was so disfigured that his three children were not allowed to see him.
The doctors told his wife, a nurse, that he was unlikely to survive, and she prepared the children for their father’s death. She wrote in a journal that she kept as she sat by his bed, “Very scary feeling that all his natural life is gone.” Nevertheless, he made an unexpected, though partial, recovery. His memory remains impaired, as does his speech; he may never be able to resume his legal career fully. It is possible that his income will be much lower for the rest of his life than it would otherwise have been, to the great disadvantage of his wife and children.
One of the two assailants, Daniel Hayward, demonstrated that he had learned nothing—at least, nothing of any comfort to the public—after he had ruined the barrister’s life. While awaiting trial on bail, he attacked the landlord of a pub and punched him in the face, for which he received a sentence of 21 days in prison.
Before passing sentence for the attack on Wareing, the judge was eloquent in his condemnation of the two youths. “You were looking for trouble and prepared to use any excuse to visit violence on anyone you came by. It is the callousness of this that is so chilling. . . . You do not seem to care that others have been blighted by your gratuitous violence.”
You might have thought that this was a prelude to the passing of a very long prison sentence on the two youths. If so, however, you would be entirely mistaken. Both received sentences of 18 months, with an automatic nine-month remission, more or less as of right. In other words, they would serve nine months in prison for having destroyed the health and career of a completely innocent man, caused his wife untold suffering, and deprived three young children of a normal father. One of the perpetrators, too, had shown a complete lack of remorse for what he had done and an inclination to repeat it.
Even at so young an age, nine months is not a very long time. Moreover, when I recall that for youths like these a prison sentence is likely to be a badge of honor rather than a disgrace, I cannot but conclude that the British state is either utterly indifferent to or incapable of the one task that inescapably belongs to it: preserving the peace and ensuring that its citizens may go about their lawful business in safety. It does not know how to deter, prevent, or punish. The remarks of the policeman in charge of the case were not encouraging. He said afterward that he hoped that “the sentences . . . send a clear warning to people who think it is acceptable to consume large quantities of alcohol, then assault members of the public in unprovoked attacks.” If the law supposes that, as Mr. Bumble said in Oliver Twist, “the law is a ass—a idiot.”
As for Peter Wareing, even in his brain-damaged state, he had a better appreciation of things. He was evidently a man of some spirit: having been a salesman, he decided to study for the law, supported himself at law school by a variety of manual jobs, and qualified at the bar at the age of 40. The extent of his recovery astounded his neurosurgeon, who attributed it to Wareing’s determination and “bloody-mindedness.” He is avid to get back to work, but the contrast between the nominal 18-month sentence for his attackers and his own “life sentence,” as he called it, of struggle against disability is not lost on him. “If there were real justice,” he said, “they would have gone to prison for life.” Could any compassionate person disagree?
Perhaps the final insult is that the state is paying for him to have psychotherapy to suppress his anger. “I have this rage inside me for the people who did this,” he said. “I truly hate them.” Having failed in its primary duty, the state then treats the rage naturally consequent upon this failure as pathological, in need of therapy. On reading Peter Wareing’s story, ordinary, decent citizens will themselves feel a sense of impotent rage, despair, betrayal, and abandonment similar to his. Do we all need psychotherapy?
A second case similarly illustrates the refusal of the British state to take the lives of its citizens seriously. An engineer—Philip Carroll, the father of four—was tinkering with his car outside his home. Four drunken youths sat on a wall on his property, and he asked them to leave. They argued with him, and one of them threw a stone at his car. He chased this youth and caught him, but between 20 and 40 more youths loitering drunkenly nearby rallied round, and one 15-year-old hit the engineer to the ground, where he too banged his head and received severe brain damage. Unconscious for 18 days, he needed three operations to survive; and now he too has an impaired memory and might never work again.
According to his parents, the culprit, Michael Kuba-Kuba, felt deeply ashamed of what he had done, but this did not in the least prevent him during the trial from claiming (unsuccessfully, in the event) that he had been acting in self-defense. This does not sound like genuine shame to me but rather an attempt to get away with it. Before passing sentence, the judge said: “I have to try to ensure that the courts will treat incidents like this with great severity, to send out a message to other young people that violence is not acceptable.”
Another prelude, you might think, to a stiff sentence—but again you would be wrong. The young man got 12 months, of which he will serve six. Six months for the active life of a man—for having caused 30 or 40 years of disability, as well as incalculable suffering to the disabled man’s family! It is not difficult to imagine Kuba-Kuba returning from prison to a hero’s welcome, because he had simultaneously gotten away with near-murder and survived the rite of passage that imprisonment now represents. The message the judge sent out to other young people, no doubt unintentionally, was that youths may destroy other people’s lives with virtual impunity, for the British state does not care in the least about protecting them or deterring such crimes.
Two aspects of the case went unexamined in the newspapers. The first was that Kuba-Kuba’s parents were the owners of a grocery store specializing in African foods, and were deeply religious. The young man doubtless did not grow up in abject poverty, then; nor would he have derived his readiness for violence from anything his parents might have taught him.
The second was that Kuba-Kuba was a talented athlete, apparently of Olympic standard. He was a promising soccer player, so promising that several major teams were seriously interested in recruiting him. If, as seemed likely, he had made the grade, he would have become a multimillionaire by his early twenties, earning more in a year than most people in a lifetime. Lack of economic prospects and the frustration it entails can hardly explain a propensity to violence in his case, therefore.
We must look elsewhere for the source of his violent conduct. Possibly he was born a sport of nature, a creature biologically destined to violence—no doubt there are such cases. But far more likely was that an aggressive popular culture that glorifies egotistical impulsivity and denigrates self-control influenced him. Although his parents presented him, in their statements, as a paragon of virtue, he already had a conviction for theft, and he clearly hung about with teenagers who drank a lot and made a nuisance of themselves. Carroll confronted the youth who threw the stone precisely because he was exasperated by the unruly behavior that prevailed in his neighborhood, undeterred and unpunished by the state. A senior policeman said after the attack, “We have gangs of young people hanging around on street corners being abusive, intimidating and causing trouble. . . . They don’t give a damn about the police or the criminal justice system.”
And who can blame them? What deterrent, punishment, vengeance, or protection for society is six months in prison for having injured a man so badly that he did not recognize his wife or children for several months afterward, that he now has poor eyesight, has lost his sense of smell and taste, has to wear a brace on one foot and a hard hat to protect his skull, and says of himself, “I just have no interest in anything or anyone”—having previously been a highly successful man?
Having seen how the British state takes the serious lightly, let us now see how it takes the trivial seriously.
The newspapers reported the case of an Oxford student who, slightly drunk after celebrating the end of his exams, approached a mounted policeman. “Excuse me,” said the young man to the policeman, “do you realize your horse is gay?”
This was not a very witty remark, but it was hardly filled with deep malice either. It was, perhaps, a manifestation of the youthful silliness of which most of us have been guilty in our time. And Oxford was once a city in which drunken students often played, and were even expected to play, pranks on the police, such as knocking off their helmets.
The policeman did not think the student’s remark was innocent, however. He called two squad cars to his aid, and, in a city in which it is notoriously difficult to interest the police in so trivial a matter as robbery or burglary, they arrived almost at once. Apparently, the mounted policeman thought—if thought is quite the word I seek—that the young man’s remark was likely to “cause harassment, alarm or distress.” He was arrested and charged under the Public Order Act for having made a “homophobic remark.”
The young man spent a night in jail. Brought before the magistrates the following day, he was fined $140, which he refused to pay. The police then sent the case to the equivalent of the district attorney, who brought the student before the courts again but had to admit that there was not enough evidence to prove that his conduct had been disorderly.
The degree to which political correctness has addled British consciousness, like a computer virus, and destroyed all our traditional attachment to liberty, is illustrated by the words of one of the student’s friends who witnessed the incident. “[His] comments were . . . in jest,” he said. “It was very clear that they were not homophobic.” In other words, the friend accepted the premise that certain remarks, well short of incitement to commit violence or any actual crime—words that merely expressed an unpopular or intolerant point of view—would have constituted reasonable grounds for arrest. One consequence of the liberal intelligentsia’s long march through the institutions is the acceptance of the category of Thoughtcrime. On the other hand, political correctness permits genuine incitement to murder—such as the behead those who insult islam placards carried by Muslim demonstrators in London four months after the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper—to go completely unpunished. Other people, other customs.
Goodness knows how much time of how many people this episode in Oxford had wasted, and at what cost to the taxpayer—all in a country with the highest rate of crime (that is to say, of real crime) in the Western world. I could not help comparing the alacrity with which the police dealt with the “homophobic” remark with their indifference to an act of arson my wife witnessed shortly before we left England.
She noticed some youths setting fire to the contents of a dumpster just outside our house, a fire that could easily have spread to cars parked nearby. She called the police.
“What do you expect us to do about it?” they asked.
“I expect you to come and arrest them,” she said.
The police regarded this as a bizarre and unreasonable expectation. They refused point-blank to send anyone. Of course, if they had promised to make every effort to come quickly but had arrived too late, or even not at all, my wife would have understood and been satisfied. But she was not satisfied with the idea that youths could set dangerous fires without arousing even the minimal interest of the police. Surely, some or all of the youths would conclude that they could do anything they liked, and move on to more serious crimes.
My wife then insisted that the police should at least place the crime on their records. Again, they refused. She remonstrated with them at length, and at considerable cost to her equanimity. At last, and with the greatest reluctance, they recorded the crime and gave her a reference number for it.
This was not the end of the matter. About 15 minutes later, a more senior policeman telephoned to upbraid her and tell her she had been wasting police time with her insistence on satisfaction in so trivial a matter. The police, apparently, had more important things to do than suppress arson. Goodness knows what homophobic remarks were being made while the youths were merely setting a fire that could have spread, and in the process learning that they could do so with impunity.
It is not difficult to guess the reason for the senior policeman’s anger. My wife had forced his men to record a crime that they had no intention whatever of even trying to solve (though, with due expedition, it was eminently soluble), and this record in turn meant the introduction of an unwanted breath of reality into the bogus statistics, the manufacture of which is now every British senior policeman’s principal task—with the sole exception of enforcing the dictates of political correctness, thereby to head off the criticism levied at them for many decades by the liberal Left—not always without an element of justification. Proving their purity of heart is now more important to them than securing the safety of our streets: and thus Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
Another story in the newspaper then caught my eye: the government wanted to ban smoking in British prisons.
At first sight, this might seem like a serious rather than a frivolous idea. More than nine-tenths of prisoners smoke, and, if they continue to do so, about a half of them will die prematurely as a result. The evidence that smoking is bad for the health has long since been overwhelming and incontrovertible. Therefore, the government could reasonably claim that the proposed ban was evidence of its solicitude for the welfare of the most despised of all sections of society, prisoners. And after all, what could be more serious, less frivolous, than saving lives, or trying to do so?
In general, I am not sentimental about the rights of prisoners. I don’t think the proposed ban infringes any of their rights; but it seems to me that there are plenty of reasons for treating prisoners decently and humanely other than the observance of their supposed rights. Decency and humanity are goods in themselves, after all. The proposed ban was not only hypocritical but gratuitously cruel and inhumane, and likely to prove ineffective into the bargain.
But it would be wrong even if effective.
Smoking is not illegal in Britain, and the government derives large revenues from the consumption of tobacco, indeed far larger than the profits of the tobacco companies. It uses these revenues not to lessen the taxes of non-smokers but merely as one among many other sources of revenue. Although high taxation on tobacco does discourage smoking, that is not, and never was, its primary aim.
At bottom, the proposal looks like the arbitrary bullying of a defenseless population in a fit of Pecksniffian moral enthusiasm. It is to deprive that population of a small privilege long accepted by custom and usage. And, of course, the moral enthusiasts of the government will not bear the practical cost of enforcing the ban; the prison wardens will. The proposal is an example
of the soft and creeping totalitarianism that comes with unctuous offers of benefits and avowals of purity of intention, rather than the boot-in-the-face variety of Orwell’s description. It is the insinuation of the government into the nooks and crannies of everyday life, on the pretext that people are incapable of deciding anything for themselves. Everyone is a child for whom the government is in permanent loco parentis (except children, of course, who can consent to sex at age 16 and are to be given the vote at the same age, if Chancellor Brown has his way).
The newspapers confirmed what I had long perceived before I left Britain: that the zeitgeist of the country is now one of sentimental moralizing combined with the utmost cynicism, where the government’s pretended concern for the public welfare coexists with the most elementary dereliction of duty. There is an absence of any kind of idealism that is a necessary precondition of probity, so that bad faith prevails almost everywhere. The government sees itself as an engineer of souls (to use the phrase so eloquently coined by Stalin with regard to writers who, of course, were expected to mold Homo Sovieticus by the power of their words). Government thus concerns itself with what people think, feel, and say—as well as with trying to change their freely chosen habits—rather than with performing its one inescapable duty: that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety. It is more concerned that young men should not smoke cigarettes in prison or make silly jokes to policemen than that they should not attack and permanently maim their elders and betters.
One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions—for example, about social justice—that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Not coincidentally, Britain has serious economic problems, even if the government has managed so far—in the eyes of the world, at least—to paper over the cracks. Unpleasant realities cannot be indefinitely disguised or conjured away, however.
Therefore I have removed myself: not that I imagine things are much better, only slightly different, in France. But one does not feel the defects of a foreign country in quite the same lacerating way as the defects of one’s native land; they are more an object of amused, detached interest than of personal despair.
Returning briefly to England from France for a speaking engagement, I bought three of the major dailies to catch up on the latest developments in my native land. The impression they gave was of a country in the grip of a thoroughgoing moral frivolity. In a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously.
This is not the charming or uplifting frivolity of Feydeau’s farces or Oscar Wilde’s comedies; it is the frivolity of real decadence, bespeaking a profound failure of nerve bound to have disastrous consequences for the country’s quality of life. The newspapers portrayed frivolity without gaiety and earnestness without seriousness—a most unattractive combination.
Of the two instances of serious matters taken with levity, the first concerned a 42-year-old barrister, Peter Wareing, attacked in the street while walking home from a barbecue with two friends, a man and a woman. They passed a group of seven teenagers who had been drinking heavily, one of whom, a girl, complained that the barrister and his friends were “staring” at them. Nowadays, English youth of aggressive disposition and porcelain-fragile ego regard such alleged staring as a justified casus belli.
The girl attacked the woman in the other party. When Wareing and his male friend tried to separate them, two of the youths, aged 18 and 16, in turn attacked them. They hit the barrister’s friend into some bushes, injuring him slightly, and then knocked the barrister to the ground, knocking him down a second time after he had struggled to his feet. This second time, his head hit the ground, injuring his brain severely. He was unconscious and on life support for two months afterward. At first, his face was so disfigured that his three children were not allowed to see him.
The doctors told his wife, a nurse, that he was unlikely to survive, and she prepared the children for their father’s death. She wrote in a journal that she kept as she sat by his bed, “Very scary feeling that all his natural life is gone.” Nevertheless, he made an unexpected, though partial, recovery. His memory remains impaired, as does his speech; he may never be able to resume his legal career fully. It is possible that his income will be much lower for the rest of his life than it would otherwise have been, to the great disadvantage of his wife and children.
One of the two assailants, Daniel Hayward, demonstrated that he had learned nothing—at least, nothing of any comfort to the public—after he had ruined the barrister’s life. While awaiting trial on bail, he attacked the landlord of a pub and punched him in the face, for which he received a sentence of 21 days in prison.
Before passing sentence for the attack on Wareing, the judge was eloquent in his condemnation of the two youths. “You were looking for trouble and prepared to use any excuse to visit violence on anyone you came by. It is the callousness of this that is so chilling. . . . You do not seem to care that others have been blighted by your gratuitous violence.”
You might have thought that this was a prelude to the passing of a very long prison sentence on the two youths. If so, however, you would be entirely mistaken. Both received sentences of 18 months, with an automatic nine-month remission, more or less as of right. In other words, they would serve nine months in prison for having destroyed the health and career of a completely innocent man, caused his wife untold suffering, and deprived three young children of a normal father. One of the perpetrators, too, had shown a complete lack of remorse for what he had done and an inclination to repeat it.
Even at so young an age, nine months is not a very long time. Moreover, when I recall that for youths like these a prison sentence is likely to be a badge of honor rather than a disgrace, I cannot but conclude that the British state is either utterly indifferent to or incapable of the one task that inescapably belongs to it: preserving the peace and ensuring that its citizens may go about their lawful business in safety. It does not know how to deter, prevent, or punish. The remarks of the policeman in charge of the case were not encouraging. He said afterward that he hoped that “the sentences . . . send a clear warning to people who think it is acceptable to consume large quantities of alcohol, then assault members of the public in unprovoked attacks.” If the law supposes that, as Mr. Bumble said in Oliver Twist, “the law is a ass—a idiot.”
As for Peter Wareing, even in his brain-damaged state, he had a better appreciation of things. He was evidently a man of some spirit: having been a salesman, he decided to study for the law, supported himself at law school by a variety of manual jobs, and qualified at the bar at the age of 40. The extent of his recovery astounded his neurosurgeon, who attributed it to Wareing’s determination and “bloody-mindedness.” He is avid to get back to work, but the contrast between the nominal 18-month sentence for his attackers and his own “life sentence,” as he called it, of struggle against disability is not lost on him. “If there were real justice,” he said, “they would have gone to prison for life.” Could any compassionate person disagree?
Perhaps the final insult is that the state is paying for him to have psychotherapy to suppress his anger. “I have this rage inside me for the people who did this,” he said. “I truly hate them.” Having failed in its primary duty, the state then treats the rage naturally consequent upon this failure as pathological, in need of therapy. On reading Peter Wareing’s story, ordinary, decent citizens will themselves feel a sense of impotent rage, despair, betrayal, and abandonment similar to his. Do we all need psychotherapy?
A second case similarly illustrates the refusal of the British state to take the lives of its citizens seriously. An engineer—Philip Carroll, the father of four—was tinkering with his car outside his home. Four drunken youths sat on a wall on his property, and he asked them to leave. They argued with him, and one of them threw a stone at his car. He chased this youth and caught him, but between 20 and 40 more youths loitering drunkenly nearby rallied round, and one 15-year-old hit the engineer to the ground, where he too banged his head and received severe brain damage. Unconscious for 18 days, he needed three operations to survive; and now he too has an impaired memory and might never work again.
According to his parents, the culprit, Michael Kuba-Kuba, felt deeply ashamed of what he had done, but this did not in the least prevent him during the trial from claiming (unsuccessfully, in the event) that he had been acting in self-defense. This does not sound like genuine shame to me but rather an attempt to get away with it. Before passing sentence, the judge said: “I have to try to ensure that the courts will treat incidents like this with great severity, to send out a message to other young people that violence is not acceptable.”
Another prelude, you might think, to a stiff sentence—but again you would be wrong. The young man got 12 months, of which he will serve six. Six months for the active life of a man—for having caused 30 or 40 years of disability, as well as incalculable suffering to the disabled man’s family! It is not difficult to imagine Kuba-Kuba returning from prison to a hero’s welcome, because he had simultaneously gotten away with near-murder and survived the rite of passage that imprisonment now represents. The message the judge sent out to other young people, no doubt unintentionally, was that youths may destroy other people’s lives with virtual impunity, for the British state does not care in the least about protecting them or deterring such crimes.
Two aspects of the case went unexamined in the newspapers. The first was that Kuba-Kuba’s parents were the owners of a grocery store specializing in African foods, and were deeply religious. The young man doubtless did not grow up in abject poverty, then; nor would he have derived his readiness for violence from anything his parents might have taught him.
The second was that Kuba-Kuba was a talented athlete, apparently of Olympic standard. He was a promising soccer player, so promising that several major teams were seriously interested in recruiting him. If, as seemed likely, he had made the grade, he would have become a multimillionaire by his early twenties, earning more in a year than most people in a lifetime. Lack of economic prospects and the frustration it entails can hardly explain a propensity to violence in his case, therefore.
We must look elsewhere for the source of his violent conduct. Possibly he was born a sport of nature, a creature biologically destined to violence—no doubt there are such cases. But far more likely was that an aggressive popular culture that glorifies egotistical impulsivity and denigrates self-control influenced him. Although his parents presented him, in their statements, as a paragon of virtue, he already had a conviction for theft, and he clearly hung about with teenagers who drank a lot and made a nuisance of themselves. Carroll confronted the youth who threw the stone precisely because he was exasperated by the unruly behavior that prevailed in his neighborhood, undeterred and unpunished by the state. A senior policeman said after the attack, “We have gangs of young people hanging around on street corners being abusive, intimidating and causing trouble. . . . They don’t give a damn about the police or the criminal justice system.”
And who can blame them? What deterrent, punishment, vengeance, or protection for society is six months in prison for having injured a man so badly that he did not recognize his wife or children for several months afterward, that he now has poor eyesight, has lost his sense of smell and taste, has to wear a brace on one foot and a hard hat to protect his skull, and says of himself, “I just have no interest in anything or anyone”—having previously been a highly successful man?
Having seen how the British state takes the serious lightly, let us now see how it takes the trivial seriously.
The newspapers reported the case of an Oxford student who, slightly drunk after celebrating the end of his exams, approached a mounted policeman. “Excuse me,” said the young man to the policeman, “do you realize your horse is gay?”
This was not a very witty remark, but it was hardly filled with deep malice either. It was, perhaps, a manifestation of the youthful silliness of which most of us have been guilty in our time. And Oxford was once a city in which drunken students often played, and were even expected to play, pranks on the police, such as knocking off their helmets.
The policeman did not think the student’s remark was innocent, however. He called two squad cars to his aid, and, in a city in which it is notoriously difficult to interest the police in so trivial a matter as robbery or burglary, they arrived almost at once. Apparently, the mounted policeman thought—if thought is quite the word I seek—that the young man’s remark was likely to “cause harassment, alarm or distress.” He was arrested and charged under the Public Order Act for having made a “homophobic remark.”
The young man spent a night in jail. Brought before the magistrates the following day, he was fined $140, which he refused to pay. The police then sent the case to the equivalent of the district attorney, who brought the student before the courts again but had to admit that there was not enough evidence to prove that his conduct had been disorderly.
The degree to which political correctness has addled British consciousness, like a computer virus, and destroyed all our traditional attachment to liberty, is illustrated by the words of one of the student’s friends who witnessed the incident. “[His] comments were . . . in jest,” he said. “It was very clear that they were not homophobic.” In other words, the friend accepted the premise that certain remarks, well short of incitement to commit violence or any actual crime—words that merely expressed an unpopular or intolerant point of view—would have constituted reasonable grounds for arrest. One consequence of the liberal intelligentsia’s long march through the institutions is the acceptance of the category of Thoughtcrime. On the other hand, political correctness permits genuine incitement to murder—such as the behead those who insult islam placards carried by Muslim demonstrators in London four months after the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper—to go completely unpunished. Other people, other customs.
Goodness knows how much time of how many people this episode in Oxford had wasted, and at what cost to the taxpayer—all in a country with the highest rate of crime (that is to say, of real crime) in the Western world. I could not help comparing the alacrity with which the police dealt with the “homophobic” remark with their indifference to an act of arson my wife witnessed shortly before we left England.
She noticed some youths setting fire to the contents of a dumpster just outside our house, a fire that could easily have spread to cars parked nearby. She called the police.
“What do you expect us to do about it?” they asked.
“I expect you to come and arrest them,” she said.
The police regarded this as a bizarre and unreasonable expectation. They refused point-blank to send anyone. Of course, if they had promised to make every effort to come quickly but had arrived too late, or even not at all, my wife would have understood and been satisfied. But she was not satisfied with the idea that youths could set dangerous fires without arousing even the minimal interest of the police. Surely, some or all of the youths would conclude that they could do anything they liked, and move on to more serious crimes.
My wife then insisted that the police should at least place the crime on their records. Again, they refused. She remonstrated with them at length, and at considerable cost to her equanimity. At last, and with the greatest reluctance, they recorded the crime and gave her a reference number for it.
This was not the end of the matter. About 15 minutes later, a more senior policeman telephoned to upbraid her and tell her she had been wasting police time with her insistence on satisfaction in so trivial a matter. The police, apparently, had more important things to do than suppress arson. Goodness knows what homophobic remarks were being made while the youths were merely setting a fire that could have spread, and in the process learning that they could do so with impunity.
It is not difficult to guess the reason for the senior policeman’s anger. My wife had forced his men to record a crime that they had no intention whatever of even trying to solve (though, with due expedition, it was eminently soluble), and this record in turn meant the introduction of an unwanted breath of reality into the bogus statistics, the manufacture of which is now every British senior policeman’s principal task—with the sole exception of enforcing the dictates of political correctness, thereby to head off the criticism levied at them for many decades by the liberal Left—not always without an element of justification. Proving their purity of heart is now more important to them than securing the safety of our streets: and thus Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
Another story in the newspaper then caught my eye: the government wanted to ban smoking in British prisons.
At first sight, this might seem like a serious rather than a frivolous idea. More than nine-tenths of prisoners smoke, and, if they continue to do so, about a half of them will die prematurely as a result. The evidence that smoking is bad for the health has long since been overwhelming and incontrovertible. Therefore, the government could reasonably claim that the proposed ban was evidence of its solicitude for the welfare of the most despised of all sections of society, prisoners. And after all, what could be more serious, less frivolous, than saving lives, or trying to do so?
In general, I am not sentimental about the rights of prisoners. I don’t think the proposed ban infringes any of their rights; but it seems to me that there are plenty of reasons for treating prisoners decently and humanely other than the observance of their supposed rights. Decency and humanity are goods in themselves, after all. The proposed ban was not only hypocritical but gratuitously cruel and inhumane, and likely to prove ineffective into the bargain.
But it would be wrong even if effective.
Smoking is not illegal in Britain, and the government derives large revenues from the consumption of tobacco, indeed far larger than the profits of the tobacco companies. It uses these revenues not to lessen the taxes of non-smokers but merely as one among many other sources of revenue. Although high taxation on tobacco does discourage smoking, that is not, and never was, its primary aim.
At bottom, the proposal looks like the arbitrary bullying of a defenseless population in a fit of Pecksniffian moral enthusiasm. It is to deprive that population of a small privilege long accepted by custom and usage. And, of course, the moral enthusiasts of the government will not bear the practical cost of enforcing the ban; the prison wardens will. The proposal is an example
of the soft and creeping totalitarianism that comes with unctuous offers of benefits and avowals of purity of intention, rather than the boot-in-the-face variety of Orwell’s description. It is the insinuation of the government into the nooks and crannies of everyday life, on the pretext that people are incapable of deciding anything for themselves. Everyone is a child for whom the government is in permanent loco parentis (except children, of course, who can consent to sex at age 16 and are to be given the vote at the same age, if Chancellor Brown has his way).
The newspapers confirmed what I had long perceived before I left Britain: that the zeitgeist of the country is now one of sentimental moralizing combined with the utmost cynicism, where the government’s pretended concern for the public welfare coexists with the most elementary dereliction of duty. There is an absence of any kind of idealism that is a necessary precondition of probity, so that bad faith prevails almost everywhere. The government sees itself as an engineer of souls (to use the phrase so eloquently coined by Stalin with regard to writers who, of course, were expected to mold Homo Sovieticus by the power of their words). Government thus concerns itself with what people think, feel, and say—as well as with trying to change their freely chosen habits—rather than with performing its one inescapable duty: that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety. It is more concerned that young men should not smoke cigarettes in prison or make silly jokes to policemen than that they should not attack and permanently maim their elders and betters.
One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions—for example, about social justice—that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Not coincidentally, Britain has serious economic problems, even if the government has managed so far—in the eyes of the world, at least—to paper over the cracks. Unpleasant realities cannot be indefinitely disguised or conjured away, however.
Therefore I have removed myself: not that I imagine things are much better, only slightly different, in France. But one does not feel the defects of a foreign country in quite the same lacerating way as the defects of one’s native land; they are more an object of amused, detached interest than of personal despair.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
YOU CAN’T STEAL MY CHRISTMAS
AS per Marginalized Action Dinosaurs request
YOU CAN’T STEAL MY CHRISTMAS
I don’t know who they are
Saying I can’t greet the crowd
The way that I want to
Can’t say CHRISTMAS out loud.I walk into a business place
See things that I rather not see
But dare I not say CHRISTMAS
And ask for a ‘holiday’ tree.
What happened to freedom of speech
And living in the land of the free
How can they take my CHRISTMAS money
But can’t say MERRY CHRISTMAS to me.
Men and women have given their lives
So we could still go free
I wonder how they would feel
At saying ‘HOLIDAY’ TREE.
Come on CANADA let’s wake up
Don’t let our freedom escape
If they get by with doing this
What else will they take.
This is starting to get out of hand,
And I’ve begun to keep track
Well I’ve just about had enough
I’M TAKING CHRISTMAS BACK.
So MERRY CHRISTMAS CANADA
I hope this gets all over the net
If we all stand united and take freedom back
‘Twill be our best CHRISTMAS YET!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY
Friday, October 31, 2008
NOAA: U.S. breaks or ties 115 cold and sets 63 new snowfall records
H/T Watts Up With That?
Of course many of you that live in this weather already know this, but there is an early start to winter this year, not only in the USA, but also in London, where it snowed in October for the first time in over 70 years.
So far, no mention of this broadly distributed U.S. record event in the mainstream media. There are a few individual mentions or record lows in Florida. See this Google News search.
Here, from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), is a list of these new or tied records for October 29th, 2008.
I find the -25 below in Alaska interesting, since it bested the old record by 4 degrees.
Here are the 115 new or tied low temperature records:
Of course many of you that live in this weather already know this, but there is an early start to winter this year, not only in the USA, but also in London, where it snowed in October for the first time in over 70 years.
So far, no mention of this broadly distributed U.S. record event in the mainstream media. There are a few individual mentions or record lows in Florida. See this Google News search.
Here, from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), is a list of these new or tied records for October 29th, 2008.
I find the -25 below in Alaska interesting, since it bested the old record by 4 degrees.
Here are the 115 new or tied low temperature records:
Friday, October 24, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
I am a FREE Canadian
I am a Canadian,
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold
for myself and for all mankind.
a free Canadian,
free to speak without fear,
free to worship God in my own way,
free to stand for what I think right,
free to oppose what I believe wrong,
free to choose those who shall govern my country.
This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold
for myself and for all mankind.
This could be the game changer
H/T Pat Dollard
Someone with the unlikely name of Molotov Mitchell has produced a 10 minute and 52 second video [watch it below] that could well change the terms of the election -- if enough people watch it. Illuminati Productions has posted it to YouTube. They have provided the voting public a very professionally and engagingly done video generation equivalent of a long detailed article in a place like American Thinker.
It makes accessible to the general public some of the serious questions about Obama's citizenship status that have been vetted almost exclusively in the conservative web world. You can't get most voters to focus on print media in order to entertain a series of hard questions on what seems like a far-fetched notion. Especially those voters who rely on the Big Media. They figure that if this were true, they would have heard about it from the old familiar faces.
But you can get people to watch 11 minutes of interesting video raising a slew of questions for Obama, in fact cornering him, on the question of his birth, citizenship, and eligibility for office as POTUS under the Constitution. Especially if people start talking about the video. It's called viral distribution. A friend emails an Obama-supporting friend and dares him or her to watch.
A lifelong Democrat who has held political office and been a committeeman, Philip Berg, has brought suit over the real questions raised by the absence of a valid Obama birth certificate. His narrative of the various questions Obama has refused to answer is devastating. Graphics and sound are well-deployed to avoid tedium as factual data is conveyed in a way that allows viewers to absorb it. When he contrasts Obama's behavior when challenged (use perfectly valid legal technicalities to delay) with John McCain's full disclosure of all documentary evidence under a similar challenge (remember the flap over his birth in the Panama Canal Zone? -- who raised those questions, anyway?), there is no doubt in a viewer's mind that there is something seriously wrong here.
We are talking about the Presidency and this guy stonewalls?
The only way Obama can satisfactorily respond is to release his suposed Hawaiian birth certificate. If he has it, why hasn't he released it? If he does release it, game over. So why drag this out on technical grounds? It doesn't make sense.
If this video gets widely viewed and discussed, Obama's support will crumble in the face of continued stonewalling.
I am grateful for the efforts of the people who put this op together. It is brilliantly timed. I do know that there are one or more smart Democrats who haven't forgiven Obama and who don't want to see him elected. They know how to design and implement really effective plans to get things done.
They might even want to get Obama thrown off the ballot and replaced by the second place finisher before Election Day. Or, if the Democratic Party stonewalls and the court delays, pick up the pieces.
Watch it and see what you think.
Someone with the unlikely name of Molotov Mitchell has produced a 10 minute and 52 second video [watch it below] that could well change the terms of the election -- if enough people watch it. Illuminati Productions has posted it to YouTube. They have provided the voting public a very professionally and engagingly done video generation equivalent of a long detailed article in a place like American Thinker.
It makes accessible to the general public some of the serious questions about Obama's citizenship status that have been vetted almost exclusively in the conservative web world. You can't get most voters to focus on print media in order to entertain a series of hard questions on what seems like a far-fetched notion. Especially those voters who rely on the Big Media. They figure that if this were true, they would have heard about it from the old familiar faces.
But you can get people to watch 11 minutes of interesting video raising a slew of questions for Obama, in fact cornering him, on the question of his birth, citizenship, and eligibility for office as POTUS under the Constitution. Especially if people start talking about the video. It's called viral distribution. A friend emails an Obama-supporting friend and dares him or her to watch.
A lifelong Democrat who has held political office and been a committeeman, Philip Berg, has brought suit over the real questions raised by the absence of a valid Obama birth certificate. His narrative of the various questions Obama has refused to answer is devastating. Graphics and sound are well-deployed to avoid tedium as factual data is conveyed in a way that allows viewers to absorb it. When he contrasts Obama's behavior when challenged (use perfectly valid legal technicalities to delay) with John McCain's full disclosure of all documentary evidence under a similar challenge (remember the flap over his birth in the Panama Canal Zone? -- who raised those questions, anyway?), there is no doubt in a viewer's mind that there is something seriously wrong here.
We are talking about the Presidency and this guy stonewalls?
The only way Obama can satisfactorily respond is to release his suposed Hawaiian birth certificate. If he has it, why hasn't he released it? If he does release it, game over. So why drag this out on technical grounds? It doesn't make sense.
If this video gets widely viewed and discussed, Obama's support will crumble in the face of continued stonewalling.
I am grateful for the efforts of the people who put this op together. It is brilliantly timed. I do know that there are one or more smart Democrats who haven't forgiven Obama and who don't want to see him elected. They know how to design and implement really effective plans to get things done.
They might even want to get Obama thrown off the ballot and replaced by the second place finisher before Election Day. Or, if the Democratic Party stonewalls and the court delays, pick up the pieces.
Watch it and see what you think.
Friday, October 10, 2008
What Caused Our Economic Crisis?
H/T The Mouthpeace
How Congress Failed To Protect Our Economy
How We Win This Debate: Tell America To Google The Facts!
How Congress Failed To Protect Our Economy
How We Win This Debate: Tell America To Google The Facts!
Liberal admits Carbon Tax won't reduce emissions
H/T Bourque Newswatch
Liberal candidate Bob Friesen made a startling admission this week during Manitoba's only televised federal election campaign debate.
I was on the media panel for the debate and was surprised to hear Friesen admit his own party's carbon tax plan might not result in households reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
The former turkey farmer, who is running in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia against Tory incumbent Steven Fletcher, was trying to explain how his party's carbon tax would help reduce emissions in Canada.
The whole purpose of the plan is to reduce emissions by "putting a price on carbon."
Friesen used all the scripted buzz words like how we have to put a tax on pollution in order to reduce our output and how -- inexplicably -- all Canadians would be better off financially.
Unfortunately for Friesen, when you drill down on the issue and examine how it would actually affect an average family, the plan falls apart.
It falls apart because the taxes imposed on a family would likely have little to no effect on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. It wouldn't change their behaviour.
It's something even Friesen, after I pressed him on the issue, admitted to.
"It might not change behaviour," Friesen acknowledged during the debate.
Well, if it's not going to change behaviour, then it's just a straight tax grab.
According to the Liberal's Green Shift plan, an average Canadian family who heats their home with natural gas would pay up to $266 a year in carbon taxes on their gas bill.
HAVE TO HEAT HOMES
I asked Friesen how that would encourage families in Winnipeg -- who already lower their thermostats at night and already have well-insulated homes -- to use less natural gas.
They have to heat their homes.
And if they have to a pay a $22-a-month carbon tax, they're still going to heat their homes. There's not much they can do to change behaviour.
Friesen agreed. Which means the plan doesn't work.
Even if you accept the Liberal's argument they would cut income taxes by an equal amount, the plan still doesn't work because it doesn't reduce emissions.
If you raise a consumption tax by $266 and cut income taxes by $266, all you've done is taken money from one pocket and put it into another.
And you haven't reduced emissions.
Besides, the Liberal's numbers don't even add up.
They claim an average family would pay about $250 a year from the carbon tax. But on natural gas alone, the party estimates the average household would pay between $228 and $266. Well, that brings the household to an average of $247 before including all the other carbon taxes.
For example, the carbon tax would be applied to diesel. So everything that gets shipped by truck -- which is almost everything -- will go up in price. If you drive a diesel vehicle, your price is going up. If you live in the north where transportation costs are already high, a carbon tax would see prices soar further.
And your bus pass would go up, too.
Under the Liberal plan you would pay a 95-cent carbon tax on a 20-pound tank of propane. Again, it's not going to make you have fewer BBQs. It's simply a straight tax.
Electricity costs would also go up under the carbon tax. The carbon tax would be applied to coal, which generates a lot of Canada's electricity.
But it would also apply in provinces like Manitoba, which still relies on natural gas and coal as backups to hydro power.
The upshot is a carbon tax would cost an average Canadian household much more than $250 a year.
And it wouldn't result in fewer emissions.
Even Bob Friesen understands that.
You can watch him on Shaw Cable Channel 9 Sunday at 6 p.m. during a rebroadcast.
ASTONISHING VIDEO EVIDENCE FOUND!!! the Clinton administration admitting their policy of "BANK AFFIRMATIVE ACTION".
Amazing, just amazing. This whole debacle was created by a succession of Democrats, and they now blame Republicans. Carter created it (CRA), Clinton loosened up requirements, Obama sued banks to get them to make very risky mortgages available to low income, high risk people. To make banks comply with Clinton's "Bank Affirmative Action" requirements. Barney Frank and the democrats blocked any efforts to reign in and oversee the looming crisis. But Hey, Blame Bush. These people should be in jail, not elected office!
Read more...
Read more...
Dion Screws up, again and again and again
H/T Dr Roy's Thoughts
In an attempt to have an English interview with CTV, Mr Dion couldn't wrap his head around a straight forward easy question. This Joker wants to be Prime Minister of a predominantly English speaking nation, and can't understand simple English? I think that after the election he should go back to academia and study a little more English.
Listen to the lame excuse offered by Geoff Regan(L).
In an attempt to have an English interview with CTV, Mr Dion couldn't wrap his head around a straight forward easy question. This Joker wants to be Prime Minister of a predominantly English speaking nation, and can't understand simple English? I think that after the election he should go back to academia and study a little more English.
Listen to the lame excuse offered by Geoff Regan(L).
Thursday, October 9, 2008
74% of CEOs Believe Obama Would Be Disastrous for the Nation
H/T Newsbusters
By Noel Sheppard
Created 2008-10-09 10:29
With the nation in the middle of what is being regularly reported as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a new poll found that 74 percent of America's top business leaders fear "an Obama presidency would be disastrous for the country."
Don't be surprised if you didn't hear about this, for virtually no major mainstream press outlet felt it was important to share with the public.
Do you think Obama-loving media would be so apathetic if this poll found an overwhelming majority of business leaders were scared about what a McCain presidency would do to the economy?
Despite the answer, our supposedly impartial press seem totally disinterested in Chief Executive magazine's just-released survey [1] which found some CEOs worried that if implemented "[Obama's] programs would bankrupt the country within three years" (emphasis added, h/t Jazz from Hell [2], photo courtesy Time.com):
Chief Executive magazine’s most recent polling of 751 CEOs shows that GOP presidential candidate John McCain is the preferred choice for CEOs. According to the poll, which is featured on the cover of Chief Executive’s most recent issue, by a four-to-one margin, CEOs support Senator John McCain over Senator Barack Obama. Moreover, 74 percent of the executives say they fear that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for the country.
“The stakes for this presidential election are higher than they’ve ever been in recent memory,” said Edward M. Kopko, CEO and Publisher of Chief Executive magazine. “We’ve been experiencing consecutive job losses for nine months now. There’s no doubt that reviving the job market will be a top priority for the incoming president. And job creating CEOs repeatedly tell us that McCain’s policies are far more conducive to a more positive employment environment than Obama’s.” [...]
“I’m not terribly excited about McCain being president, but I’m sure that Obama, if elected, will have a negative impact on business and the economy,” said one CEO voicing his lack of enthusiasm for either candidate, but particularly Obama.
In expressing their rejection of Senator Obama, some CEOs who responded to the survey went as far as to say that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.” In fact, the poll highlights that Obama’s tax policies, which scored the lowest grade in the poll, are particularly unpopular among CEOs.
Despite the poll's findings, from what I can tell, even though this study was disseminated by [3] PRNewswire, it has garnered very little mainstream media attention.
Think that would be the case if these business leaders were so negative about McCain's economic policies?
No, I don't either!
By Noel Sheppard
Created 2008-10-09 10:29
With the nation in the middle of what is being regularly reported as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a new poll found that 74 percent of America's top business leaders fear "an Obama presidency would be disastrous for the country."
Don't be surprised if you didn't hear about this, for virtually no major mainstream press outlet felt it was important to share with the public.
Do you think Obama-loving media would be so apathetic if this poll found an overwhelming majority of business leaders were scared about what a McCain presidency would do to the economy?
Despite the answer, our supposedly impartial press seem totally disinterested in Chief Executive magazine's just-released survey [1] which found some CEOs worried that if implemented "[Obama's] programs would bankrupt the country within three years" (emphasis added, h/t Jazz from Hell [2], photo courtesy Time.com):
Chief Executive magazine’s most recent polling of 751 CEOs shows that GOP presidential candidate John McCain is the preferred choice for CEOs. According to the poll, which is featured on the cover of Chief Executive’s most recent issue, by a four-to-one margin, CEOs support Senator John McCain over Senator Barack Obama. Moreover, 74 percent of the executives say they fear that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for the country.
“The stakes for this presidential election are higher than they’ve ever been in recent memory,” said Edward M. Kopko, CEO and Publisher of Chief Executive magazine. “We’ve been experiencing consecutive job losses for nine months now. There’s no doubt that reviving the job market will be a top priority for the incoming president. And job creating CEOs repeatedly tell us that McCain’s policies are far more conducive to a more positive employment environment than Obama’s.” [...]
“I’m not terribly excited about McCain being president, but I’m sure that Obama, if elected, will have a negative impact on business and the economy,” said one CEO voicing his lack of enthusiasm for either candidate, but particularly Obama.
In expressing their rejection of Senator Obama, some CEOs who responded to the survey went as far as to say that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.” In fact, the poll highlights that Obama’s tax policies, which scored the lowest grade in the poll, are particularly unpopular among CEOs.
Despite the poll's findings, from what I can tell, even though this study was disseminated by [3] PRNewswire, it has garnered very little mainstream media attention.
Think that would be the case if these business leaders were so negative about McCain's economic policies?
No, I don't either!
In Canada spies are us
H/T Canada Free Press
by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com
January 26, 2005
Operation Sidewinder. It sounds like a Hollywood spy movie starring Harrison Ford.
For a long time, Sidewinder moldered on the shelf as just another conspiracy theory.
In reality, Sidewinder was a controversial report put together by a small but hard-working team of RCMP and CSIS (Canadian Security & Intelligence Service) officials.
It was Sidewinder that sounded the first alarm bells that China is one of the greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry.
But even after Sidewinder was side swiped by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, intelligence proves that there is no doubt that an active Chinese Intelligence Service has been able to gain influence on vital sectors of the Canadian economy, including real estate, high technology and security. The bottom line is that this unprecedented influence gave China ongoing access to economic, political and some military intelligence in Canada.
Operation Sidewinder met with a fate that silenced ringing alarm bells. Officially entitled Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial Links in Canada, it was buried. Following orders from persons unknown, CSIS watered down Sidewinder’s worrisome conclusions and replaced it with a revised document called, Echo.
CSIS officials maintain that they buried Sidewinder because it relied on nothing more than conspiracy theories--even though http://www.asianpacificpost.com heralded the news in August 2003 that some 3,500 Chinese spy companies had been identified operating in Canada and the United States.
While CSIS claimed that conspiracy caused them to go mum, other intelligence sources are saying that political pressure forced CSIS to abandon the Sidewinder report.
Read on...
by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com
January 26, 2005
Operation Sidewinder. It sounds like a Hollywood spy movie starring Harrison Ford.
For a long time, Sidewinder moldered on the shelf as just another conspiracy theory.
In reality, Sidewinder was a controversial report put together by a small but hard-working team of RCMP and CSIS (Canadian Security & Intelligence Service) officials.
It was Sidewinder that sounded the first alarm bells that China is one of the greatest ongoing threats to Canada’s national security and Canadian industry.
But even after Sidewinder was side swiped by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, intelligence proves that there is no doubt that an active Chinese Intelligence Service has been able to gain influence on vital sectors of the Canadian economy, including real estate, high technology and security. The bottom line is that this unprecedented influence gave China ongoing access to economic, political and some military intelligence in Canada.
Operation Sidewinder met with a fate that silenced ringing alarm bells. Officially entitled Chinese Intelligence Services and Triads Financial Links in Canada, it was buried. Following orders from persons unknown, CSIS watered down Sidewinder’s worrisome conclusions and replaced it with a revised document called, Echo.
CSIS officials maintain that they buried Sidewinder because it relied on nothing more than conspiracy theories--even though http://www.asianpacificpost.com heralded the news in August 2003 that some 3,500 Chinese spy companies had been identified operating in Canada and the United States.
While CSIS claimed that conspiracy caused them to go mum, other intelligence sources are saying that political pressure forced CSIS to abandon the Sidewinder report.
Read on...
AMERICA HAS ENOUGH OIL TO BE THE # 1 OIL-PRODUCING NATION IN THE WORLD
H/T The Astute Blogger
According to NPR, the Rocky Mountains contain three times the oil of Saudi Arabia.
An oil field was just recently discovered in the South Dakota/Montana region which has three times as much oil as the Rockies.
There is also a tremendous amount of oil in the ANWR region.
All that oil, and we don't drill for it.
Why?
Because of pressure from environmentalists.
We could be winning the battle for energy independence, but instead, we choose to lose, and thus forfeit our profits into the hands of Jihadists and Communists the world over.
I repeat, we are losing because we choose to lose, and we do so, primarily because of pressure from environmentalist groups.
That's like a football team choosing to lose because of pressure from their own cheerleaders.
According to NPR, the Rocky Mountains contain three times the oil of Saudi Arabia.
An oil field was just recently discovered in the South Dakota/Montana region which has three times as much oil as the Rockies.
There is also a tremendous amount of oil in the ANWR region.
All that oil, and we don't drill for it.
Why?
Because of pressure from environmentalists.
We could be winning the battle for energy independence, but instead, we choose to lose, and thus forfeit our profits into the hands of Jihadists and Communists the world over.
I repeat, we are losing because we choose to lose, and we do so, primarily because of pressure from environmentalist groups.
That's like a football team choosing to lose because of pressure from their own cheerleaders.
Liberals crafted heavily criticized food inspection system
OTTAWA -- The architecture of the recently revamped food inspection system - an issue that has dogged the Conservatives during the federal election - was crafted when the Liberals were in power in 2005, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed.
The design of pilot tests for the Compliance Verification System (CVS), rolled out at federally regulated meat plants in April, began in August 2005, said Brian Evans, the agency's executive vice-president.
At the time, the agency was operating under the direction of former Liberal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell, who lost in the 2006 election. Ujjal Dosanjh, currently seeking re-election in Vancouver, was in charge of food-safety policy as minister of health; he now serves as health critic for the Liberals.
Read on...
The design of pilot tests for the Compliance Verification System (CVS), rolled out at federally regulated meat plants in April, began in August 2005, said Brian Evans, the agency's executive vice-president.
At the time, the agency was operating under the direction of former Liberal agriculture minister Andy Mitchell, who lost in the 2006 election. Ujjal Dosanjh, currently seeking re-election in Vancouver, was in charge of food-safety policy as minister of health; he now serves as health critic for the Liberals.
Read on...
1000 Sundays
H/T Little Green Footballs
Obama says, Rev Wright introduced me to my "Christian Faith". Which then begs the question,what were his religious beliefs before that?
Obama says, Rev Wright introduced me to my "Christian Faith". Which then begs the question,what were his religious beliefs before that?
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Archives prove Obama was a New Party member
H/T American Thinker
Thomas Lifson
Another piece in the puzzle of Barack Obama has been revealed, greatly strengthening the picture of a man groomed by an older generation of radical leftists for insertion into the American political process, trading on good looks, brains, educational pedigree, and the desire of the vast majority of the voting public to right the historical racial wrongs of the land.
The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of "fusion" failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling. But dissolving the party didn't stop the membership, including Barack Obama, from continuing to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success.
Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, explained fusion in a Human Events article:
J. Brown of Politically Drunk on Power has dug up multiple documentary sources (with hyperlinks) proving that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party, despite alleged attempts to cover up his tracks by scrubbing evidence. He or she deserves tremendous praise for doing this detective work.
Obama's career bears many signs of being helped along by the radical left. At the critical moment when he entered electoral politics, he was part of a movement to take over an established political party and direct it to the task of building a socialist America.
Hat tip: Rocco DiPippo
Thomas Lifson
Another piece in the puzzle of Barack Obama has been revealed, greatly strengthening the picture of a man groomed by an older generation of radical leftists for insertion into the American political process, trading on good looks, brains, educational pedigree, and the desire of the vast majority of the voting public to right the historical racial wrongs of the land.
The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within. The party only lasted until 1998, when its strategy of "fusion" failed to withstand a Supreme Court ruling. But dissolving the party didn't stop the membership, including Barack Obama, from continuing to move the Democrats leftward with spectacular success.
Erick Erickson, editor of RedState, explained fusion in a Human Events article:
Fusion is a pretty simple concept. A candidate could run as both a Democrat and a New Party member to signal the candidate was, in fact, a left-leaning candidate, or at least not a center-left DLC type candidate. If the candidate -- let's call him Barack Obama -- received only 500 votes in the Democratic Party against another candidate who received 1000 votes, Obama would clearly not be the nominee. But, if Obama also received 600 votes from the New Party, Obama's New Party votes and Democratic votes would be fused. He would be the Democratic nominee with 1100 votes.
The fusion idea set off a number of third parties, but the New Party was probably the most successful. A March 22, 1998 In These Times article by John Nichols showed just how successful. "After six years, the party has built what is arguably the most sophisticated left-leaning political operation the country has seen since the decline of the Farmer-Labor, Progressive and Non-Partisan League groupings of the early part of the century .... In 1996, it helped Chicago's Danny Davis, a New Party member, win a Democratic congressional primary, thereby assuring his election in the majority-black district .... The threat of losing New Party support, or of the New Party running its own candidates against conservative Democrats, would begin a process of forcing the political process to the left, [Joel] Rogers argued."
Fusion, fortunately for the country, died in 1997. William Rehnquist, writing for a 6-3 Supreme Court, found the concept was not a protected constitutional right. It was two years too late to stop Obama.
J. Brown of Politically Drunk on Power has dug up multiple documentary sources (with hyperlinks) proving that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party, despite alleged attempts to cover up his tracks by scrubbing evidence. He or she deserves tremendous praise for doing this detective work.
Obama's career bears many signs of being helped along by the radical left. At the critical moment when he entered electoral politics, he was part of a movement to take over an established political party and direct it to the task of building a socialist America.
Hat tip: Rocco DiPippo
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Banned SNL Bailout skit
Here is the banned "Saturday Night Live" Bailout skit that pastes Democrats.
Dion on spending your money
Try and keep track of how much of your money this socialist pinhead is promising to spend
Focus, People. FOCUS
A life-or-death election.
By Anne Bayefsky
Since the time of Hitler, civilization has never been so close to the brink of total catastrophe. This American election will decide whether civilization as we know it will survive. As much as economic questions are currently front and center, with blame to go all round, this is not an election primarily about corporate greed, or individuals living beyond their means, or government neglect of economic oversight. Nor is it about whether we should have gone into Iraq where, like it or not, American boots on the ground have begun to create an emerging democracy. This election is about whether there will be a nuclear holocaust.
Alarmist? I sure hope so. Isn’t it about time that we got to the point about the stakes in this election? How many more pundits do we have to watch talking about the minutae — a candidate’s look, an accent, a stumble, a slogan? We have four weeks to talk about the thing that matters most: a nuclear-armed Iran, and which candidate will prevent it.
Continue reading
By Anne Bayefsky
Since the time of Hitler, civilization has never been so close to the brink of total catastrophe. This American election will decide whether civilization as we know it will survive. As much as economic questions are currently front and center, with blame to go all round, this is not an election primarily about corporate greed, or individuals living beyond their means, or government neglect of economic oversight. Nor is it about whether we should have gone into Iraq where, like it or not, American boots on the ground have begun to create an emerging democracy. This election is about whether there will be a nuclear holocaust.
Alarmist? I sure hope so. Isn’t it about time that we got to the point about the stakes in this election? How many more pundits do we have to watch talking about the minutae — a candidate’s look, an accent, a stumble, a slogan? We have four weeks to talk about the thing that matters most: a nuclear-armed Iran, and which candidate will prevent it.
Continue reading
Monday, October 6, 2008
Dutch City Terrorized By Muslim Jihadis, Police And Government Officials Cowed Into Dhimmitude
October 5, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Dutch police are refusing to take action to quell the ongoing and increasing campaign of violence and intimidation being carried out by gangs of Moroccan Muslims in the city of Gouda. Rather than acting to halt the attacks against innocent citizens the police are ignoring the mounting terror, suggesting that nothing is out of order.
"A police officer was knifed this weekend in Gouda. As well, journalists continue to be attacked. But the municipality continues to claim that all is quiet.
Gouda hit the national news when drivers of bus company Connexxion went on strike last week. They refused to drive through the Oosterwei district any more because they say they are continually threatened and robbed there by Moroccan youths." [source, NIS News Service, http://www.nisnews.nl/public/230908_1.htm]
The local city council is displaying the same resignation to being overrun, unbelievably even to the point of dismissing the knife attack.
"Gouda council continues to claim that it is all a matter of small incidents. "It is very unpleasant of course, but a knifing is too big a word," said a spokesman for the police on the knifing of his colleague. "The knife only caught his buttock." [source, ibid]
Murderous attacks motivated by anti-Christian and anti-Semitic bigotry perpetrated by Holland's Moroccan Muslim immigrant population have been a fact of life in the near criminally tolerant European country for some time now, having most prominently come to general public attention in November 2004 when Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants, murdered and nearly decapitated the controversial film maker Theo van Gogh because of his alleged "anti-Muslim" viewpoint.
The response has been less than tepid, with most Dutch officials pretending simply, that it is not happening. For example Amsterdam's mayor Job Cohen has dismissed the concerns of the native population over the near uprising, which is taking place all over the country in areas settled by the Moroccans, and called debate over the matter in the Lower House, "out of proportion."
In Holland's Lower House MP Geert Wilders has been railing against the threat for years and is now demanding that something be done to quell the violence. Joined by fellow MP Griffith they are decrying being made the scapegoat in the case by police officials stating it should be their job to, "stop the hooligans," rather than, "criticise the Lower House."
"A police officer was knifed this weekend in Gouda. As well, journalists continue to be attacked. But the municipality continues to claim that all is quiet.
Gouda hit the national news when drivers of bus company Connexxion went on strike last week. They refused to drive through the Oosterwei district any more because they say they are continually threatened and robbed there by Moroccan youths." [source, NIS News Service, http://www.nisnews.nl/public/230908_1.htm]
The local city council is displaying the same resignation to being overrun, unbelievably even to the point of dismissing the knife attack.
"Gouda council continues to claim that it is all a matter of small incidents. "It is very unpleasant of course, but a knifing is too big a word," said a spokesman for the police on the knifing of his colleague. "The knife only caught his buttock." [source, ibid]
Murderous attacks motivated by anti-Christian and anti-Semitic bigotry perpetrated by Holland's Moroccan Muslim immigrant population have been a fact of life in the near criminally tolerant European country for some time now, having most prominently come to general public attention in November 2004 when Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants, murdered and nearly decapitated the controversial film maker Theo van Gogh because of his alleged "anti-Muslim" viewpoint.
The response has been less than tepid, with most Dutch officials pretending simply, that it is not happening. For example Amsterdam's mayor Job Cohen has dismissed the concerns of the native population over the near uprising, which is taking place all over the country in areas settled by the Moroccans, and called debate over the matter in the Lower House, "out of proportion."
In Holland's Lower House MP Geert Wilders has been railing against the threat for years and is now demanding that something be done to quell the violence. Joined by fellow MP Griffith they are decrying being made the scapegoat in the case by police officials stating it should be their job to, "stop the hooligans," rather than, "criticise the Lower House."
Friday, October 3, 2008
Who's to blame for the Financial crisis?? Democrats, that's who!
Finally, the Republicans have found a spine and are pointing the finger at the low life scum who caused it. Democrats and their "Social Experiment" have caused untold pain and suffering (around the world) for their own self gratification. BASTARDS!!!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Yuri Bezmenov- If this doesn't scare you, nothing will
Having watched this video, it explains the LEFT in Canada to a tee. Watch and then lay over the ideology and plans Liberals, NDP and greens have in store for us. This is Coming to fruition as we speak and has been slowly creeping upon us since Trudeau was in power.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Who caused “the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression?”
From Pajamas Media
The Root Cause
* According to Senator Chris Dodd (D. CT) the “root cause” of the problem is “the housing foreclosure crisis.”
Not 100% accurate, perhaps–it’s really a credit crisis–but close enough for government work, especially from someone who has just happens to chair the Senate Banking Committee and who, completely coincidentally, has been such a conspicuous beneficiary of preferential mortgages and who, also coincidentally, leads the list of those who have received campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Guess who comes in 2nd and 3rd?)
* But what caused the housing crisis to which Senator Dodd alludes? The housing “bubble.”
* And what caused the housing bubble? “Sub-prime,” i.e., risky, mortgages; that is, mortgages made to people who, in the normal course of things would have to pay a premium in order to obtain a mortgage (if they could obtain one at all) because
a) they had bad or non-existent credit
b) their income was insufficient or
c) both.
Packaging the American Dream
A home of your own. It’s part of the American dream. Work hard, save up for a down payment, pay your bills on time and, presto, you, too, can buy a home.
For decades the government has done things to help Americans to realize the dream, e.g., graciously allowing citizens to keep some of their own money to help pay for the interest on a mortgage (the official term for this is a “tax deduction,” but I prefer my locution since it emphasizes the fact that it is YOUR MONEY we are talking about).
But what about people who do not work hard (if they work at all)? What about people who have not saved up for a down payment? What about people who do not pay their bills on time (if they pay them at all)? Why shouldn’t they get to live the American dream?
That was the question that led to
”The Community Reinvestment Act” (see here for more).
* The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.
The buzz word was “affordable mortgages,” e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.
* In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls “sub-prime mortgages.”
Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages.
$1 trillion, i.e., a thousand billion dollars in sub-prime,i.e., risky, mortgages, in order to push this latest example of social engineering.
But wait: how did it force banks to do this? Easy. Introduce a federal requirement that banks make the loans or face penalties. As Howard Husock, writing in City Journal way back in 2000 observed: “Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighbourhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A’s for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count.” Way back in 1994, for example, Barack Obama sued Citibank on behalf of a client who charged that the bank “systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighbourhoods.”
* In 1997, Bear Stearns–O firm of blessed memory–was the first to get onto the sub-prime gravy train.
* Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac–were there near the beginning, too.
Anatomy of a bubble
Step 1. The intoxication: “My house is worth millions!” From 1995 - 2005, the number of sub-prime mortgages skyrocket. So did the house prices.
Step 2. The hangover: “Oh my God, my house isn’t selling. What went wrong?”
Why didn’t someone try to stop it?
Someone did: “The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago,” The New York Times, September 11, 2003.
But someone intervened to stymie the Bush administration. Who? The New York Times reports:
Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. . . . “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Why didn’t someone else ring the alarm?
Someone else did. In 2005, John McCain co-sponsored the “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act,” which among other things provided for more oversight of Freddie & Fannie. The bill didn’t pass. Guess who blocked it?
The bill was reintroduced in 2007. But again, no luck. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had friends in the Senate:
* Chris Dodd, a recipient of “sweetheart” loans from a Freddie and Fannie backed company.
* The junior senator from Illinois, i.e., Barack Obama, who turned to Jim Johnson, former head (1991-1998) of Fannie Mae, to help advise him on whom to pick for the vice-presidential slot on his ticket. From 1985 to 1990, incidentally, Johnson was managing director of Lehman Brothers. Remember them?
* You might also want to check out one of Barack Obama’s other advisors: Franklin Raines, former CEO of Freddie Mac: see here , for example, or here , or here.
Towards the end of the video, we read this salutary observation: “Everyone deserves a home, not a house of cards.”
Who gave us the house of cards? Watch the whole thing here. And then pass it along to everyone you know.
The Root Cause
* According to Senator Chris Dodd (D. CT) the “root cause” of the problem is “the housing foreclosure crisis.”
Not 100% accurate, perhaps–it’s really a credit crisis–but close enough for government work, especially from someone who has just happens to chair the Senate Banking Committee and who, completely coincidentally, has been such a conspicuous beneficiary of preferential mortgages and who, also coincidentally, leads the list of those who have received campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Guess who comes in 2nd and 3rd?)
* But what caused the housing crisis to which Senator Dodd alludes? The housing “bubble.”
* And what caused the housing bubble? “Sub-prime,” i.e., risky, mortgages; that is, mortgages made to people who, in the normal course of things would have to pay a premium in order to obtain a mortgage (if they could obtain one at all) because
a) they had bad or non-existent credit
b) their income was insufficient or
c) both.
Packaging the American Dream
A home of your own. It’s part of the American dream. Work hard, save up for a down payment, pay your bills on time and, presto, you, too, can buy a home.
For decades the government has done things to help Americans to realize the dream, e.g., graciously allowing citizens to keep some of their own money to help pay for the interest on a mortgage (the official term for this is a “tax deduction,” but I prefer my locution since it emphasizes the fact that it is YOUR MONEY we are talking about).
But what about people who do not work hard (if they work at all)? What about people who have not saved up for a down payment? What about people who do not pay their bills on time (if they pay them at all)? Why shouldn’t they get to live the American dream?
That was the question that led to
”The Community Reinvestment Act” (see here for more).
* The original Community Reinvestment Act was signed into law in 1977 by Jimmy Carter. Its purpose, in a nutshell, was to require banks to provide credit to “under-served populations,” i.e., those with poor credit.
The buzz word was “affordable mortgages,” e.g., mortgages with low teaser-rates, which required the borrower to put no money down, which required the borrower to pay only the interest for a set number of years, etc.
* In 1995, Bill Clinton’s administration made various changes to the CRA, increasing “access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities,” i.e., it provided for the securitization, i.e. public underwriting, of what everyone now calls “sub-prime mortgages.”
Bottom line? It forced banks to issue $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages.
$1 trillion, i.e., a thousand billion dollars in sub-prime,i.e., risky, mortgages, in order to push this latest example of social engineering.
But wait: how did it force banks to do this? Easy. Introduce a federal requirement that banks make the loans or face penalties. As Howard Husock, writing in City Journal way back in 2000 observed: “Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighbourhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A’s for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count.” Way back in 1994, for example, Barack Obama sued Citibank on behalf of a client who charged that the bank “systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighbourhoods.”
* In 1997, Bear Stearns–O firm of blessed memory–was the first to get onto the sub-prime gravy train.
* Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac–were there near the beginning, too.
Anatomy of a bubble
Step 1. The intoxication: “My house is worth millions!” From 1995 - 2005, the number of sub-prime mortgages skyrocket. So did the house prices.
Step 2. The hangover: “Oh my God, my house isn’t selling. What went wrong?”
Why didn’t someone try to stop it?
Someone did: “The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago,” The New York Times, September 11, 2003.
But someone intervened to stymie the Bush administration. Who? The New York Times reports:
Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. . . . “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Why didn’t someone else ring the alarm?
Someone else did. In 2005, John McCain co-sponsored the “Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act,” which among other things provided for more oversight of Freddie & Fannie. The bill didn’t pass. Guess who blocked it?
The bill was reintroduced in 2007. But again, no luck. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had friends in the Senate:
* Chris Dodd, a recipient of “sweetheart” loans from a Freddie and Fannie backed company.
* The junior senator from Illinois, i.e., Barack Obama, who turned to Jim Johnson, former head (1991-1998) of Fannie Mae, to help advise him on whom to pick for the vice-presidential slot on his ticket. From 1985 to 1990, incidentally, Johnson was managing director of Lehman Brothers. Remember them?
* You might also want to check out one of Barack Obama’s other advisors: Franklin Raines, former CEO of Freddie Mac: see here , for example, or here , or here.
Towards the end of the video, we read this salutary observation: “Everyone deserves a home, not a house of cards.”
Who gave us the house of cards? Watch the whole thing here. And then pass it along to everyone you know.
Phillips: Subversives For Obama
Another great observation from Melanie Phillips: Subversives For Obama.
Barack Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. If you were to turn up at US immigration control with a background of such associates, it’s a fair bet they wouldn’t let you off the air-bridge. Yet this man may well become President of the US! If any other candidate had had merely a fleeting relationship with William Ayers, his candidacy would have been terminated before it was even articulated — let alone what we now know about Obama’s key role in Ayers’s CAC and its funding of radical groups; let alone the fact that Obama had been mentored during his formative years by a Communist Party plant; let alone his work for organizations modeled on the seditious philosophy of Saul Alinsky; let alone his two-decade membership of a Black Power church; let alone his relationship with fraudster Tony Rezko.
And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?
Barack Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. If you were to turn up at US immigration control with a background of such associates, it’s a fair bet they wouldn’t let you off the air-bridge. Yet this man may well become President of the US! If any other candidate had had merely a fleeting relationship with William Ayers, his candidacy would have been terminated before it was even articulated — let alone what we now know about Obama’s key role in Ayers’s CAC and its funding of radical groups; let alone the fact that Obama had been mentored during his formative years by a Communist Party plant; let alone his work for organizations modeled on the seditious philosophy of Saul Alinsky; let alone his two-decade membership of a Black Power church; let alone his relationship with fraudster Tony Rezko.
And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Ulysses Reveals Global Solar Wind Plasma Output At 50-Year Low
This should be the final nail in the coffin of "Global Warming" which probably explains why it's not the lead story in all news media.
Update 1: There are now no longer any links to this article on NASA's website. This Link will take you to the one page that is left with the graphics and videos from the news conference. If it too disappears, I've downloaded it all, and will upload it if required. I find it disturbing that something this significant is buried or, at least not linked to, from NASA's main page. Even the Ulysses homepage doesn't have a link to the News conference of 23 Sept 08.
Now, from what I've read in the past (sorry, no references yet), more cosmic radiation means more clouds, more clouds and less solar radiation means colder temps. Maybe very cold! I'd say global warming will become a wish rather than a fear in the very near future.
Update 1: There are now no longer any links to this article on NASA's website. This Link will take you to the one page that is left with the graphics and videos from the news conference. If it too disappears, I've downloaded it all, and will upload it if required. I find it disturbing that something this significant is buried or, at least not linked to, from NASA's main page. Even the Ulysses homepage doesn't have a link to the News conference of 23 Sept 08.
RELEASE : 08-241
WASHINGTON -- Data from the Ulysses spacecraft, a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission, show the sun has reduced its output of solar wind to the lowest levels since accurate readings became available. The sun's current state could reduce the natural shielding that envelops our solar system.
"The sun's million mile-per-hour solar wind inflates a protective bubble, or heliosphere, around the solar system. It influences how things work here on Earth and even out at the boundary of our solar system where it meets the galaxy," said Dave McComas, Ulysses' solar wind instrument principal investigator and senior executive director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Ulysses data indicate the solar wind's global pressure is the lowest we have seen since the beginning of the space age."
The sun's solar wind plasma is a stream of charged particles ejected from the sun's upper atmosphere. The solar wind interacts with every planet in our solar system. It also defines the border between our solar system and interstellar space.
This border, called the heliopause, surrounds our solar system where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the wind of other stars. The region around the heliopause also acts as a shield for our solar system, warding off a significant portion of the cosmic rays outside the galaxy.
"Galactic cosmic rays carry with them radiation from other parts of our galaxy," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength. If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our solar system."
Galactic cosmic rays are of great interest to NASA. Cosmic rays are linked to engineering decisions for unmanned interplanetary spacecraft and exposure limits for astronauts traveling beyond low-Earth orbit.
In 2007, Ulysses made its third rapid scan of the solar wind and magnetic field from the sun's south to north pole. When the results were compared with observations from the previous solar cycle, the strength of the solar wind pressure and the magnetic field embedded in the solar wind were found to have decreased by 20 percent. The field strength near the spacecraft has decreased by 36 percent.
"The sun cycles between periods of great activity and lesser activity," Smith said. "Right now, we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated."
Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment over the sun's poles. Data Ulysses has returned have forever changed the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 18 years, or almost four times its expected mission lifetime. The Ulysses solar wind findings were published in a recent edition of Geophysical Research Letters.
The Ulysses spacecraft was carried into Earth orbit aboard space shuttle Discovery on Oct. 6, 1990. From Earth orbit it was propelled toward Jupiter, passing the planet on Feb. 8, 1992. Jupiter's immense gravity bent the spacecraft's flight path downward and away from the plane of the planets' orbits. This placed Ulysses into a final orbit around the sun that would take it over its north and south poles.
The Ulysses spacecraft was provided by ESA, having been built by Astrium GmbH (formerly Dornier Systems) of Friedrichshafen, Germany. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the upper stage boosters. The U.S. Department of Energy supplied a radioisotope thermoelectric generator to power the spacecraft. Science instruments were provided by U.S. and European investigators. The spacecraft is operated from JPL by a joint NASA-ESA team.
More information about the Ulysses mission is available on the Web at:
http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov
Now, from what I've read in the past (sorry, no references yet), more cosmic radiation means more clouds, more clouds and less solar radiation means colder temps. Maybe very cold! I'd say global warming will become a wish rather than a fear in the very near future.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Asylum Seekers: having trouble in the UK? Canada will take you!
We’ve been hearing lots of stories out of Great Britain and the rest of Europe too about immigration rules tightening. Not to fear, here is a website called “Asylum Destitution Support Network” that instructs, among other things, on how to get into Canada.
If you are in the process of seeking asylum or been refused asylum in the UK, you will not be able to apply for asylum in another member country of the European Union.
However, if your asylum claim has been refused and the Home Office do not intend to remove you by force or cannot obtain travel documents to facilitate your removal, continuing to live in the UK with out the right to work or access to the normal benefits UK citizens are entitled to, life for you in the UK will be very harsh.
Likewise you may have made a claim years ago but Home Office has failed to make a final decision.
You may wish to find another country that will accept you as an economic migrant or refugee.
Economic migrants, by the way, are people literally flowing by the millions out of their home countries trying to find work (or a welfare security net). This website instructs readers on all the programs available to them in Canada.
Refugee/Economic Admission Programmes
Many countries have ‘Refugee’ or ‘Economic’ programmes, which allow refugees or people seeking work to apply for entry into their country from another country, which is not the country of residence of the applicant.
Notably Canada, who have various schemes to facilitate entry for refugees and economic migrants.
For all the details, read on.
If you are in the process of seeking asylum or been refused asylum in the UK, you will not be able to apply for asylum in another member country of the European Union.
However, if your asylum claim has been refused and the Home Office do not intend to remove you by force or cannot obtain travel documents to facilitate your removal, continuing to live in the UK with out the right to work or access to the normal benefits UK citizens are entitled to, life for you in the UK will be very harsh.
Likewise you may have made a claim years ago but Home Office has failed to make a final decision.
You may wish to find another country that will accept you as an economic migrant or refugee.
Economic migrants, by the way, are people literally flowing by the millions out of their home countries trying to find work (or a welfare security net). This website instructs readers on all the programs available to them in Canada.
Refugee/Economic Admission Programmes
Many countries have ‘Refugee’ or ‘Economic’ programmes, which allow refugees or people seeking work to apply for entry into their country from another country, which is not the country of residence of the applicant.
Notably Canada, who have various schemes to facilitate entry for refugees and economic migrants.
For all the details, read on.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Devastating Video, Obama talks about job Ayers gave him
Why anyone with an IQ above room temperature would vote for such a terrorist loving, socialist empty-suit is completely beyond comprehension.
911 at NORTHCOM - The Marines and the Babies Seven Years Ago
Posted By Blackfive
Mr Wolf sent this as he cannot post right now:
Wolf- Just came from the memorial ceremony here at NORTHCOM. LTC (CH) Robert Leivers led the group in a ceremony here at the headquarters. During the ceremony, he relayed this little-known story from the Pentagon on 9/11:
During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flt 77 hit the Pentagon. The Chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near where the impact occurred.
This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do; there were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.
Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The director thought, 'well, there we are- on our own.' About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 others in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac and the Pentagon.
Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing- they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the West. Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children."
Wolf: The NORTHCOM chaplain then said- "I don't think any of us saw nor heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our men there.
I must say- there wasn't a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted- could we expect any less from them?? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon I've EVER heard.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Unlike muslims who purposely put their children in harms way, this is the mind set of the American (and Canadian) soldier. Protect the innocent and defenseless from harm and evil. Being the vile, dispicable, subhumans that they are, muslimes just use innocents and children, as human shields and canon fodder. What a filthy, disgusting death cult!!!
cdn.infidel
Mr Wolf sent this as he cannot post right now:
Wolf- Just came from the memorial ceremony here at NORTHCOM. LTC (CH) Robert Leivers led the group in a ceremony here at the headquarters. During the ceremony, he relayed this little-known story from the Pentagon on 9/11:
During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flt 77 hit the Pentagon. The Chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near where the impact occurred.
This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do; there were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.
Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The director thought, 'well, there we are- on our own.' About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 others in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac and the Pentagon.
Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing- they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the West. Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children."
Wolf: The NORTHCOM chaplain then said- "I don't think any of us saw nor heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our men there.
I must say- there wasn't a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted- could we expect any less from them?? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon I've EVER heard.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Unlike muslims who purposely put their children in harms way, this is the mind set of the American (and Canadian) soldier. Protect the innocent and defenseless from harm and evil. Being the vile, dispicable, subhumans that they are, muslimes just use innocents and children, as human shields and canon fodder. What a filthy, disgusting death cult!!!
cdn.infidel
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Global Warming’s Kaput; 2008 Coolest in 5 Years
H/T Newsmax.com
Monday, September 8, 2008 1:10 PM
By: Phil Brennan
The global warming theory is going into the freezer, some climate experts say.
The first half of this year was the coolest in at least five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). And the global warming that has taken place during the past 30 years is over, says geologist Don J. Easterbrook, a professor emeritus at Western Washington University.
Easterbrook, who has written eight books and 150 journal publications, predicts that temperatures will cool between 2065 and 2100 and that global temperatures at the end of the century will be less than 1 degree cooler than now. This is in contrast to other theories saying that temperatures will warm by as much as 10 degrees by 2100.
In March, Easterbrook said he was putting his “reputation on the line” by predicting global cooling.
“The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 [except for a brief el Niño interruption] and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years,” Easterbrook wrote on March 1.
Added to his assertion was the WMO revelation that the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years and that the rest of the year almost will certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average.
The global mean temperature to the end of July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research said Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
"We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years," said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. "Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say. Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it's warmer than average."
Also snowing on the global warming enthusiasts is the highly respected “Farmer's Almanac,” which predicts that the coming winter will be “catastrophic” because of bitter cold weather.
People worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the prediction of below-average temperatures for most of the U.S., says the 192-year-old publication, famed for its accuracy of 80 percent to 85 percent.
"Numb's the word," the almanac’s 2009 edition says, adding that at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder-than-average temperatures, with only the far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.
"This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people," the almanac's editor, Peter Geiger, told The Associated Press, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm.
The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February, the almanac states. Also, the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic regions can expect an unusually wet or snowy February.
read the Rest
Monday, September 8, 2008 1:10 PM
By: Phil Brennan
The global warming theory is going into the freezer, some climate experts say.
The first half of this year was the coolest in at least five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). And the global warming that has taken place during the past 30 years is over, says geologist Don J. Easterbrook, a professor emeritus at Western Washington University.
Easterbrook, who has written eight books and 150 journal publications, predicts that temperatures will cool between 2065 and 2100 and that global temperatures at the end of the century will be less than 1 degree cooler than now. This is in contrast to other theories saying that temperatures will warm by as much as 10 degrees by 2100.
In March, Easterbrook said he was putting his “reputation on the line” by predicting global cooling.
“The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 [except for a brief el Niño interruption] and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years,” Easterbrook wrote on March 1.
Added to his assertion was the WMO revelation that the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years and that the rest of the year almost will certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average.
The global mean temperature to the end of July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, Britain’s Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change research said Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
"We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years," said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. "Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say. Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it's warmer than average."
Also snowing on the global warming enthusiasts is the highly respected “Farmer's Almanac,” which predicts that the coming winter will be “catastrophic” because of bitter cold weather.
People worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the prediction of below-average temperatures for most of the U.S., says the 192-year-old publication, famed for its accuracy of 80 percent to 85 percent.
"Numb's the word," the almanac’s 2009 edition says, adding that at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder-than-average temperatures, with only the far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings.
"This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people," the almanac's editor, Peter Geiger, told The Associated Press, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm.
The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February, the almanac states. Also, the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic regions can expect an unusually wet or snowy February.
read the Rest
Modern Day Islamic Slavery
This is still going on this very day. Why are blacks moving to islam while their brethren in Africa are still being brutally enslaved by muslims???
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
UK: Queen forces families to give private information to trash collectors....
This is why I hate liberals and nanny staters
Fines and/or criminal charges should you fail to OBEY.
Bin police force residents to hand over personal medical details
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 11:41 PM on 27th May 2008
Families will be forced to name somebody to be in charge of their rubbish under a council's 'zero tolerance' approach to bin collections.
The named individual faces £100 fines and a criminal record if their household then puts the wrong rubbish in its wheelie bins, puts them out too soon, or puts them in the wrong place.
They will also be told to give officials a breakdown of everyone who lives in their home, together with intimate information including details of medical conditions.
Enlarge Rubbish
The strict questionnaire that residents will be forced to fill out about their rubbish
They will even be asked to number babies and toddlers who use disposable nappies.
Letters and forms - which threaten fines for those who fail to comply - have been developed to enforce strict recycling rules and make families and individuals obey instructions on how to put out their bins.
The demands, to be sent to homes in Tory-run Plymouth, call for the name of an adult, their age, and a signature.
Those signing are told they must 'ensure that your household conforms to our requirements'.
More...
* Taxpayers pay £1,000 a week to store 15,000 wheelie bins in a field - while council chiefs decide what to do with them
* Young mother ordered to pay £265 for putting bin out 24 hours too early
The methods were condemned by critics as draconian and intrusive. But they were condoned by the Government and town hall chiefs - which indicates they are likely to be followed around the country.
Officials at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said councils are legally obliged to make clear to households what is expected of them.
The Local Government Association, which speaks for councils, said it was vital to 'recycle as much as possible'.
Waste of time: Residents are furious because there is no way they can stop other people using their bins
The councillor in charge of Plymouth's rubbish collections, Michael Leaves, has produced the scheme to 'send a clear message of zero tolerance to those individuals or businesses who continue to spoil our environment'.
Letters drawn up to be sent to those suspected of breaking rules warn that 'if you fail without reasonable excuse to comply with any requirement specified in this notice you will be liable on summary conviction to a fine'.
Officials said the forms are designed to go to a 'minority' of the population - a definition that means they could be sent to as many as 50,000 homes.
Messages written by officials say that ignoring rubbish rules is a growing problem and that it is difficult to identify which bin belongs to which family so that fines can be imposed and prosecutions brought.
The questionnaires are intended to go out with the letters threatening fines. Headed 'wheeled bin information form', they ask families to provide the number of adults and children in their home and to give reasons why they might have trouble putting the bins out as demanded by council rules.
Other questions ask for 'reasons why a member of your household generates more rubbish than average (eg a medical condition)'.
The form continues: 'Please nominate an adult from your household who will take legal responsibility for your bins.'
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Councils have taken away rubbish for more than 100 years without needing to know people's medical histories, so they shouldn't be asking these intrusive questions now.'
Christine Melsom, of the council tax protest group Is It Fair?, said: 'My advice to people who get these letters is to throw them in the bin. Just make sure it's the right bin.'
A council spokesman said: 'The letter, which has not yet been approved, is something we were preparing for those who do not heed initial warnings.
'We are looking at a questionnaire, which would include more detailed questions such as how many people are in a household and whether they have any medical needs that we need to take into account that will enable us to help them rather than prosecute them.'
Fines and/or criminal charges should you fail to OBEY.
Bin police force residents to hand over personal medical details
By Steve Doughty
Last updated at 11:41 PM on 27th May 2008
Families will be forced to name somebody to be in charge of their rubbish under a council's 'zero tolerance' approach to bin collections.
The named individual faces £100 fines and a criminal record if their household then puts the wrong rubbish in its wheelie bins, puts them out too soon, or puts them in the wrong place.
They will also be told to give officials a breakdown of everyone who lives in their home, together with intimate information including details of medical conditions.
Enlarge Rubbish
The strict questionnaire that residents will be forced to fill out about their rubbish
They will even be asked to number babies and toddlers who use disposable nappies.
Letters and forms - which threaten fines for those who fail to comply - have been developed to enforce strict recycling rules and make families and individuals obey instructions on how to put out their bins.
The demands, to be sent to homes in Tory-run Plymouth, call for the name of an adult, their age, and a signature.
Those signing are told they must 'ensure that your household conforms to our requirements'.
More...
* Taxpayers pay £1,000 a week to store 15,000 wheelie bins in a field - while council chiefs decide what to do with them
* Young mother ordered to pay £265 for putting bin out 24 hours too early
The methods were condemned by critics as draconian and intrusive. But they were condoned by the Government and town hall chiefs - which indicates they are likely to be followed around the country.
Officials at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said councils are legally obliged to make clear to households what is expected of them.
The Local Government Association, which speaks for councils, said it was vital to 'recycle as much as possible'.
Waste of time: Residents are furious because there is no way they can stop other people using their bins
The councillor in charge of Plymouth's rubbish collections, Michael Leaves, has produced the scheme to 'send a clear message of zero tolerance to those individuals or businesses who continue to spoil our environment'.
Letters drawn up to be sent to those suspected of breaking rules warn that 'if you fail without reasonable excuse to comply with any requirement specified in this notice you will be liable on summary conviction to a fine'.
Officials said the forms are designed to go to a 'minority' of the population - a definition that means they could be sent to as many as 50,000 homes.
Messages written by officials say that ignoring rubbish rules is a growing problem and that it is difficult to identify which bin belongs to which family so that fines can be imposed and prosecutions brought.
The questionnaires are intended to go out with the letters threatening fines. Headed 'wheeled bin information form', they ask families to provide the number of adults and children in their home and to give reasons why they might have trouble putting the bins out as demanded by council rules.
Other questions ask for 'reasons why a member of your household generates more rubbish than average (eg a medical condition)'.
The form continues: 'Please nominate an adult from your household who will take legal responsibility for your bins.'
Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Councils have taken away rubbish for more than 100 years without needing to know people's medical histories, so they shouldn't be asking these intrusive questions now.'
Christine Melsom, of the council tax protest group Is It Fair?, said: 'My advice to people who get these letters is to throw them in the bin. Just make sure it's the right bin.'
A council spokesman said: 'The letter, which has not yet been approved, is something we were preparing for those who do not heed initial warnings.
'We are looking at a questionnaire, which would include more detailed questions such as how many people are in a household and whether they have any medical needs that we need to take into account that will enable us to help them rather than prosecute them.'
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