Saturday - May 19, 2012

ORGANIC JERKS?

Sometime during the past week I happen to see but didn’t read, an article in the health section of our paper claiming that health food may not really be all that healthy.  But I wasn’t really interested and so ignored it but for the headline.
I try when possible not to over do the yummy stuff that has added to my girth. But that is I’m sorry to say, about as far as it goes.  All the stuff that is supposed to keep me healthy and fit does not taste nearly as good as the stuff that health nazis say is gonna do me in.  He writes as he enjoys a hot cup of PG-Tips xtra strong tea (with Jersey milk which has more cream in it then reg. milk. YUM!) and a strawberry crumpet loaded with real whipped cream.

Anyway, due to things that keep me much preoccupied here, I don’t check my email everyday. But I did this morning and was greeted by the following sent to us by Doc Jeff, and so thanks doc.

H/T Doc Jeff

Does organic food turn people into jerks?

By Diane Mapes

Renate Raymond has encountered her fair share of but a recent trip to a Seattle market left her feeling like she’d stumbled onto the set of Portlandia.

“I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn’t find one so I asked the produce guy,” says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. “And he was like, ‘If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We’re organic.’ I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like ‘You didn’t bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn’t bring your own bag.’ It was like a ‘Portlandia skit.’ They were so snotty and arrogant.”

As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.

“There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. “I’ve noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if they would be more altruistic or not.”

To find out, Eskine and his team divided 60 people into three groups. One group was shown pictures of clearly labeled organic food, like apples and spinach. Another group was shown comfort foods such as brownies and cookies. And a third group—the controls—were shown non-organic, non-comfort foods like rice, mustard and oatmeal. After viewing the pictures, each person was then asked to read a series of vignettes describing moral transgressions.

SOURCE

Some of you may have seen this on CNBC and so this is for those who didn’t as well as our foreign audience.
And btw .......  how’s this for silly and if anyone understands it, speak up.

I saw some bottled water with a label that read, drawn from organic land.  WTH?

Posted by peiper     on 05/19/2012 at 02:27 AM   
Filed Under: • Health and Safety • Miscellaneous • USA •  
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   Sunday - May 13, 2012

pentagon instructor urges war. instructor no longer instructing.

If only.  A few nukes and take out Somalia too and kill (literally) two roaches with a few boom-booms. 
Hey come on. We all have our fantasies. Right? 

Or is this article already old news back home?  Of course it’s brand new to me here.

Anyway, it’s so typical of how things are these days. ONE student had a gripe. ONE! That’s all it takes I guess.

PENTAGON INSTRUCTOR URGES TOTAL WAR ON ISLAM

A red-faced Pentagon has conceded that an instructor at its Joint Forces College in Virginia for military officers was until recently teaching a course advocating “total war” with Islam that could require obliterating the holy cities of Mecca and Medina without concern for civilian deaths.

The material in the course, which officers could elect to take but was not obligatory, flew in the face of repeated assertions by the Obama administration that the war on terrorism is just that and should under no circumstances be read as an assault on a religion observed by 1.4 billion people around the world.

Details of the course were obtained by a blog on Wired.com, drawn from a presentation given by the teacher, Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, in July last year.  He suggested that destroying Islamic holy sites would follow the precedents of the nuclear strike by the allies on Hiroshima in World War II and the firebombing of Dresden. His course was called ‘Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism’.

It was suspended in April after the Pentagon received a complaint from a student and Lt. Col. Dooley, while still at the College, no longer has any teaching duties.  The FBI, meanwhile, has revealed that it too has recently been forced to revise some of its instructional materials to excise references that could have been insulting to Islam.

“It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Martin Dempsey, said at a press conference at the Pentagon. “This wasn’t about ... pushing back on liberal thought; this was objectionable, academically irresponsible.”

Dooley offered a theoretical war plan based on the need for “a direct ideological and philosophical confrontation with Islam”. In his presentation, he said:

“They hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit”. He added that as America waged that war it would be free to ignore provisions of the Geneva Convention that sets the rules for armed conflict as “no longer relevant”.

“This would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable...).” Saying Islam has already declared war on the US, Dooley called the current American stance of seeking common ground with Islamic leaders around the world as “illogical” and the better option was “waging ‘near total war’”.

“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam’,” Dooley said in the July presentation. “It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

Offered five times a year for groups of 20 at a time, the course may have been taught to as many as 800 mid-level and senior US military officers before the Pentagon closed it down.  Lt. Col. Dooley was himself a highly decorated officer who had served in Iraq, Bosnia and Kuwait among others.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 05/13/2012 at 02:17 PM   
Filed Under: • USA • War On Terror •  
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   Saturday - May 12, 2012

Brit columnist thinks Mrs Clinton has given up on looking presentable

Jan Moir writes for the Mail and can be catty at times. But she has a valid point here.
No matter what party one belongs to, you’re still representing the USA in a very public way when holding high office.
Since I don’t follow what Mrs. Clinton looks like at any given time but apparently some do, I thought I’d share this Brit take on Mrs. Clinton’s appearance.

Moir btw isn’t a consv. I don’t believe and is no fan of the American Tea Party. But her points in the article are pretty well on target.

Please try not to vomit or panic. If you feel the need, pop on a pair of lads’ mag standard issue, lead-lined crone-o-vision spectacles.

So what I am saying is the reason Hillary has gone all hairy-legged basket-weaver on everyone is not because she is giving up lipstick, but because she is giving up politics. She has no desire to run for high office again, surprise surprise. She wants to step down, saying: ‘I just want to take some deep breaths.’

In a way, she has boomeranged back to the geek from Arkansas in the bottle-neck specs, and put all that vote-winning glam stuff behind her.

Politics is not a beauty contest, but I do think those in high office should be as groomed as possible. Clinton is representing the people of America. Come on. There would be outrage, not fem-applause, if it was a male Secretary of State who was wandering around unshaven and unkempt.

Hillary also looks exhausted — and no wonder, given her gruelling schedule. Do you know what I say about that? Blusher always helps.

I’m doing this post a bit backwards because this small part of her column caught the attention of other Brit papers with one quoting Moir. But I doubt Clinton will see it and if she did, she would take little note.

Looking your best and wearing make-up is not about taking part in a beauty pageant or trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. Powerful women all over the world understand the power of image, of good grooming and polish.

Hillary is going to roam around the globe meeting important world leaders while looking like a lightly boiled bag lady. She just doesn’t care any more.

Please see the link for the gruesome pix.

JAN MOIR

Posted by peiper     on 05/12/2012 at 05:09 PM   
Filed Under: • USA •  
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   Monday - May 07, 2012

OBIT …. WW2 POSTER GIRL MARGIE STEWART … AN AMERICAN

The Telegraph is very well known for it’s obituaries, and although the focus is quite naturally on the homeland, they are still international in scope.
They have covered Americans I never heard of, including this lady. I am tardy in posting it for which I am sorry. But better late then not at all.
For one brief speck in time here on the net, her story is told briefly to a generation that is being introduced for the first time.

Margie Stewart an American. RIP

Margie Stewart, who has died aged 92, was the official US Army poster girl during the Second World War, with millions of her pin-up photos distributed to American GIs around the world.

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, she “dutifully” accepted the US government’s invitation, posing for the Hollywood portrait photographer George Hurrell, who shot pictures for three posters, each of which bore the legend: “Please get there and back. Be careful what you say or write.”

More posters were printed bearing Margie Stewart’s girl-next-door image than those of the Hollywood sirens Ann Sheridan and Betty Grable combined, an estimated 94 million circulating between 1943 and 1945.

The wartime First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, tried unsuccessfully to get them scrapped on the ground that Stewart’s wholesome image might make soldiers feel homesick. But despite Mrs Roosevelt’s best endeavours, GIs asked for more and wanted to know who the pretty girl was. Nine more posters were ordered showing Margie Stewart, pen in hand, writing letters urging American servicemen to buy war bonds and to save money to buy homes after the war.

In all, a dozen different posters featuring Margie Stewart were produced, each version carrying an encouraging message to servicemen in the US forces overseas.

By the end of 1943 she had become one of the most familiar faces in America, mobbed by soldiers on leave as well as by their wives, who approved of Margie Stewart’s wholesome, unerotic image (unlike those of Hollywood stars such as Betty Grable with her “Million Dollar Legs”; Ann Sheridan, the “Oomph girl”; the cantilevered Jane Russell; and the “peek-a-boo girl” Veronica Lake).

On a visit to London in June 1945, “Uncle Sam’s Poster Girl” — as The Daily Telegraph dubbed her — caused gridlock at Hyde Park Corner, traffic backing up Park Lane and into Oxford Street as crowds tried to catch a glimpse of her. During her stay she became a regular with the bandleader Artie Shaw at Rainbow Corner, the American Red Cross Club near Piccadilly Circus, entertaining US servicemen.

Margery Stewart was born on December 14 1919 at Wabash, Indiana. After a year studying at Indiana University, where she was elected Freshman Princess, she became a photographic model at a department store in Chicago. In 1941 she moved to Los Angeles and modelled at another store on Wilshire Boulevard. When RKO signed her to a contract in 1942, she made 20 films in short order.

Her career began with a series of small parts in Here We Go Again, The Falcon Strikes Back, Gildersleeve’s Bad Day (all 1942), and Bombardier (1943) with Pat O’Brien, Randolph Scott and Eddie Albert. Other film roles included Mexican Spitfire’s Blessed Event (1943), with Lupe Velez; Gildersleeve’s Ghost; the Frank Sinatra musical Step Lively; Road to Victory, with Cary Grant; and Music in Manhattan (all 1944), with Anne Shirley and Dennis Day.

But she never became a star. “My agent in Hollywood once asked an RKO casting director why he wasn’t giving me better parts,” she recalled. “He was honest in his response: ‘Every time I look out she’s talking to a grip, an electrician or a group of extras. That doesn’t look like a star to me.’ The truth was I never wanted to be a star. I still wanted to be me.”

When her contract with RKO was cancelled, Margie Stewart embarked on a European tour in June 1945, entertaining US troops in England, France, Belgium and Germany.

In later life Margie Stewart worked in the music industry and produced shows at the Hollywood Bowl featuring The Beatles, Barbra Streisand and The Beach Boys.

Margie Stewart married, in July 1945, Jerry Johnson, with whom she had a son.

Margie Stewart, born December 14 1919, died April 26 2012

Posted by peiper     on 05/07/2012 at 10:23 AM   
Filed Under: • OBITITUARIES • USA •  
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   Sunday - May 06, 2012

there’s deep hate, and then there’s my kinda hate. and I can’t say it all here.

I seriously hope some American patriot (won’t hold my breath) tracks down and puts a world of hurt on this filthy slag.

I hope she gets a cancer so painful that no drug will relieve it and that she won’t be able to die.

And if you think that’s HATE .... you’ve no idea of what I am not saying here. There’s so much more I could add.
Stupid suck up rotten bitch. 

And why do we have to be so kind and thoughtful towards these lice in human form.
They’re causing a bit of a problem we read. They don’t want to co-operate.  Uh huh.  How about a little gasoline on the beard and a match, Whoosh.
But just burn enough to cause extreme pain with the promise of worse on other parts.  Betcha they’d behave after a simple demonstration.
One of the lawyers says they’re concerned about a fair trial.
Right. Like the fairness and compassion shown to the victims of 9/11.

American female defense lawyer covers up in traditional Islamic dress at 9/11 Guantanamo trial ‘out of respect’ for her client’s religious beliefs

Cheryl Bormann, 52, insisted other women in court also dress ‘appropriately’

Five men charged with the 9/11 attacks appearing in public for first time in 3 years for military tribunal
Mohammed repeatedly refused to answer judge’s questions
Co-defendants delayed arraignment by kneeling in prayer, removing their headphones and reading a magazine
Prisoner Walid bin Attash put in restraint chair for unknown reasons

By Daily Mail Reporter

A female defense attorney, who is not Muslim, wore the traditional Islamic hijab to the military court staging the trial of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of the September 11 attacks yesterday.

Cheryl Bormann, 52, who represents Walid bin Attash, said that her client had demanded she wear the clothing and insisted that other women at the hearing also wear ‘appropriate’ clothes out of respect for his religion.

Today she explained her decision at Guantanamo Bay, saying she always wears the hijab around her client.

She asked that other women follow her example so that the defendants do not have to avert their eyes ‘for fear of committing a sin under their faith’, according to Fox News.

The lawyer’s decision was one of the less controversial moments during Saturday’s hearing where at times the accused openly defied the court.

Proceedings were further delayed as one of the defendants, Waleed bin Attash, appeared while being restrained in his chair.

The restraints were later removed after defense counsel had given assurances that he would ‘behave’.

Another defendant, Ramzi Binalshibh, stood up, then knelt on the courtroom floor and prayed for several minutes as a row of guards in camouflage uniforms kept a close watch.

Mohammed and his co-defendants could all face the death penalty.

‘It’s actually a joke, it feels ridiculous,’ said Jim Riches, whose firefighter son, Jimmy, died at the World Trade Center.

Mr Riches watched the hearing from a movie theater at Fort Hamilton in New York City, one of four U.S. military bases where the arraignment was broadcast live for victims’ family members, survivors and emergency personnel who responded to the attacks.

‘It’s been a mess for 11 years,’ Riches said as he stood in the rain during a break in the proceedings and described the atmosphere inside.

Riches, himself a retired firefighter who worked digging up remains in the days after September 11, said he carried with him dark memories of the days after the attacks, and he hoped that if convicted the five men would be executed.

‘I saw what they did to our loved ones - crushed them to pieces,’ he said.

more to see here

Posted by peiper     on 05/06/2012 at 05:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • muslims • Terrorists • USA •  
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   Wednesday - April 11, 2012

bear right and watch how you go

some of the comments at the Mail are clever and funny. Worth sharing.

Watch out! Astonishing video of California man so distracted by sending a text he (almost)walks into a BEAR
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
TV helicopter crews in California managed to capture an oblivious phone user walking into the path of a 500lb black bear.

La Crescenta station sheriff’s deputies and the Glendale Police Department responded, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Mark Slater.

‘We did locate about a 500, 600-pound bear in this immediate area,’ Sgt Slater said.

‘He’s been wandering through the residential area for the last several hours.’

‘Department of Fish and Game is en route,’ Slater said. ‘They have ultimate responsibility over it. Our role right now is if the bear is docile and just hunkering down, we’ll let him continue that until Fish and Game gets here.’

A police helicopter has been tracking the bear, which is believed to be the same animal that broke into a garage and pried open a refrigerator to snack on some frozen meatballs last month.

Could have had a bear hug !!
- me, some where beneath the sky , 11/4/2012 13:11

“The simple… bear-necessities..., the simple bear-necessities...! Forget about your worries and your strife...!” People walk underneath oncoming traffic whilst using mobile ‘phones all the time. Why shouldn’t they also bump into bears? I’m sure the poor creature was properly traumatised by the experience!
- Ben Russell-Gough, London, UK, 11/4/2012 13:10

Obviously his sat nav didn’t say ‘bear right ‘
- Silver Lady, Uk, 11/4/2012 13:07

This must be why Americans have the right to Bear arms .
- Gordon Bennitt, Midlands, 11/4/2012 12:57

What a chicken he is , i would have shot the bear for getting on my way . Nobody gets on my way . - Jamal, London UK, 11/4/2012 2:19
Hey Jamal!! Bad duuuuude. You know when you point your fingers and wiggle your thumb like a pistol hammer? That doesn’t actually work. - Original Ray, Liverpool, 11/4/2012 8:59

Posted by peiper     on 04/11/2012 at 07:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals • Humor • USA •  
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   Saturday - March 31, 2012

Homeland Security rules the international airways

Found today and making time to post due to interest.
Mine.
I need to find someone who can explain this to me cos frankly, I don’t understand the position being taken by Homeland Security. But then, after our last visit to the states, and many of you will recall what a nightmare that was for my Brit born wife getting through customs at LAX, it’s safe to say I don’t feel warm and fuzzy thanks to the over reaction we faced.

Oh btw, I now forget what it’s called and till last year it used to be free. When flying to the USA you must apply to immigration agency and fill out an on line form. Nothing intrusive.  They want to know where in the USA you’re going and where you’ll be staying and for how long.  In our case I listed the hotel we’d be at for a couple of nights because I had no idea what our temp. address would end up being.  Thing is, if I read this correctly, and maybe I’m not, everyone flying between say London and anywhere else that comes close to American soil will have to give info AND, they will I think be paying for the privilege.  Which if that’s true, hardly seems fair if their destination is not the USA.  ???  The article doesn’t say, but perhaps there is no charge if they aren’t coming to the US.

Well anyway, this is the take from one Brit travel writer.

Simon Calder: Fancy a trip to Mexico? The US has the final say

As the Easter holidays approach, plenty of people besides you (and possibly your family) take an interest in your travel plans – from the milkman to your insurance company, which will want to know if you intend to try anything tricky or stray into trouble zones. But starting this month, another organisation has British travellers in its sights: the US Department of Homeland Security.

Following the terrible events of 9/11, and several subsequent terrorist attempts to murder people using civil aircraft, the Americans take an understandably close interest in the identities and motives of everyone flying to the US. Before any trip to the 50 states, you must reveal your plans to the American authorities. They then make “pre-flight comparisons” against watch lists belonging to a multiplicity of agencies, including the FBI – and even the Center for Disease Control’s “Do Not Board” list. If your details match someone, you are off the plane.

Up to now, there has been a simple way to eliminate the danger of being denied boarding: don’t buy a ticket to America. But as The Independent revealed this week, you may now fly to Mexico, Cuba or eastern Canada only if the US authorities agree.

The Department of Homeland Security requires airlines to send passengers’ full names and dates of birth at least 72 hours ahead of departure. And that plane may leave the gate only when the US says so. A spokeswoman insists: “The US government has the authority to refuse entry into its territory any flight it deems to present a threat to its security.”

Consequently, British passengers flying to popular destinations such as Havana and Cancún, as well as to the major Canadian cities of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax, face the prospect of being barred from a flight by officials of a country which they do not want to visit.

While a Heathrow to Mexico City flight spends several hours traversing US airspace, other journeys covered by the new rules do not.

The Canadian carrier Air Transat warns passengers who book to fly from Glasgow to Toronto and Gatwick to Halifax – routes that do not normally touch US airspace – that failing to supply personal details “could result in passengers being refused to fly”.
Compared with the increasingly onerous demands made upon international travellers, the data demanded is not especially intrusive. But the principle is preposterous: that the US has the final say about who can fly the Atlantic.

Simon Hughes, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, says the UK Government should “engage in urgent and constructive discussions with the US authorities to make sure those travelling between Britain and Canada, Mexico and Cuba can have the same rights as people on any other journeys around the world”.

The logical conclusion of the American argument is that any plane from anywhere in the world that is technically capable of reaching the US has to be regarded as suspect. For example, our old friend the easyJet flight from Manchester to Sharm El Sheikh has enough fuel to cover the 2,551 miles to Egypt’s Red Sea coast, and at least 10 per cent more in reserve. This puts New England within reach of Manchester– so everyone on board should surely be signed off by Homeland Security too.

Homeland Security rules the international airways

Giving country A the right to decide who can fly between countries B and C is the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. You may wonder where you were when a treaty was agreed that assigns to the Americans the right to meddle with your travel plans. Surely you would have noticed.
In fact, no treaty has been negotiated because the US authorities believe none is necessary. A spokeswoman says the new rules are “consistent with US international treaty obligations”. Any airline, such as British Airways, Air Canada and Virgin Atlantic, that wants to fly to America must agree to abide by Homeland Security regulations. If these rules are extended to cover flights over, or close to, US territory, the airlines have to comply – or risk being banned by the world’s only aviation superpower.

source

Posted by peiper     on 03/31/2012 at 12:23 PM   
Filed Under: • USA • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - March 25, 2012

inavded by a small town in romania?

Did not know I was booting today until I saw this.

Welcome to America?

Well, if not today then coming soon to a city near you.

I see these vermin in the very same light as the muzzie jihadi scum. The world’s cancer. And both should be annihilated.

Much of this problem of course is the result of the one world open borders that the UK is sadly tied to. And will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, what’s a bit jail time to these folks? A break from their normal working hours while their offspring learn the family trade. 

Rolling in it: The Romanian fraudsters who raked in £35m in cash machine scam

More than 90 per cent of cash machine fraud in UK attributed to Romanian criminal gangs

Most of those arrested have links to the same city: Bacau in eastern Romania

Proceeds of crime ‘now makes up 70 per cent of Bacau’s economy’

By Kerry Mcqueeney

As well as Britain, it is thought criminals from Bacau are operating in Latin America, Australia and the U.S.A.

Playing on a bed of banknotes, this innocent baby is - literally - rolling in it.

The infant clutches £20 notes in his tiny hands, oblivious to the origin of the dirty cash.

For these are the proceeds of a Romanian fraudster behind a cash machine scam - one of many targeting British bank customers.

The picture of the baby rolling in money plundered from British bank accounts was just one image found by police on a phone seized when officers raided a safe house used by a Romanian gang.

More than 90 per cent of all cash machine fraud in the UK is attributed to these and hundreds of other Romanian criminals, according to senior investigators.

The scams involve camouflaged electronic devices being fitted to the facade of cash machines in Britain which ‘skim’ victims’ data and PIN numbers to create replica cards.

The clones are reproduced to withdraw cash from any of the country’s 60,000 dispensers, with an average of £500 being withdrawn on each card.

The device takes under a minute to fit to the front of a cash machine and it can store the details of hundreds of customers’ cards.

The head of the police unit tasked with tackling the problem said the fraudsters stole £35million from British bank customers last year - and most of those arrested in connection with the scams had links to the same location: the city of Bacau in eastern Romania.
Bacau-based Adu Baunu, convicted in 2008 for credit card fraud, took a picture of his baby rolling in cash stolen from British cash machines

Bacau-based Adu Baunu, convicted in 2008 for credit card fraud, took a picture of his baby rolling in cash stolen from British cash machines

Detective chief inspector Paul Barnard, from the dedicated cheque and plastic crime unit run jointly by the Metropolitan and City of London police forces, said it was ‘striking’ that 92 per cent of those arrested, or brought to attention of police in relation to cash machine crime, were Romanian nationals.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘Most of the hundreds of Romanians arrested in the past 12 months are from Bacau or have connections to that region.’

Proceeds of crime is now thought to make up 70 per cent of Bacau’s economy, a senior Romanian lawyer claimed last week.

The flow of cash into the city is so great that an array of mansions have sprung up in the area and a number of expensive car dealerships have opened.

Many of the criminals seem content to flaunt their ill-gotten gains in their home country, splashing out on expensive cars and gaudy houses.

The baby in the picture is the child of thief Adu Bunu - from Bacau - who was jailed in 2008 for a hole-in-the wall scam estimated to have netted more than £1million.

He flashed his stolen cash by taking photographs of his infant son Eduardo playing among the banknotes.

And two recently jailed brothers, who ran a criminal gang in Romania, own a string of properties across Bacau.

read more, source, sunday mail

Posted by peiper     on 03/25/2012 at 09:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Travelers/Gypsies/Squatters • UK • USA •  
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   Tuesday - March 06, 2012

GUNS AND THE TSA?  NO. A PURSE AND ONE SILLY AGENT

Gotta wonder sometimes, well actually all of the time, if even one TSA officer is this stupid, how good is the agency that employees her.

I ask you.  Is this going a bit far?

The story is a year old but I never saw it on BMEWS or anywhere else before a few minutes ago, while searching for something.
I found a site called Opposing Views which is quite interesting.  There were a ton of short articles about teachers (women) committing the high crime of abuse of boys as old as 14 and 15.  When I was young and innocent and you were too, I think it was called pleasure. But we were never that lucky.  So I’m following all these stories wondering how come these ladies aren’t smarter in view of the pc world we live in and all the attention and jail time already dished out in previous years, when I found this article. Which is more interesting then teen sex with teachers.

Submitted by Mark Berman Opposing Views on Dec 5, 2011

First the TSA allegedly strip searches a feeble old lady, now a teenager misses her flight because of a gun-themed purse. What is going through the minds of these supposedly well-trained agents?

Vanessa Gibbs was trying to board a flight in Norfolk, Virginia to her home in Jacksonville, Florida recently when she was stopped at security. It seems her purse emblazoned with a tiny, hollow gun was literally a federal offense.

“She (the TSA agent) was like, ‘This is a federal offense because it’s in the shape of a gun,’” Gibbs News4Jax.com. “I’m like, ‘But it’s a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?’”

The genius agents finally figured out the gun was just a design, but they still told Gibbs it could not be carried onto the plane. It would have to be checked. But by this time she had missed her flight.

As it always does, the TSA stands by its actions, saying replica guns have been banned on planes since 2002.

“Security checkpoints may be impacted or closed because replica weapons like toy guns, novelty grenades, fake bombs and other items appear similar to the real thing when viewed through an X-ray machine,” TSA spokesman Greg Soule told CNN. “Checkpoint closures cause significant delays, which can be avoided if passengers don’t bring these items to the airport.”

Gibbs pointed out that she has taken the purse on several flights without incident, including the flight down to Virginia.

TSA LUNACY

Posted by peiper     on 03/06/2012 at 12:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control • USA •  
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   Monday - March 05, 2012

‘You get what you deserve, white boy.

I’ve got about 7 minutes left tonight and I thought I’d leave with this. Just came across it.
News from the USA.

OK, here the plan. White folks will organize and start looting stores and when they’re all empty, we burn down half the city.
Got it?

Oh wait. Something wrong here.

Oh yeah. A senior moment.

White folks don’t do that. Hmmm. Well I know someone does cos I heard about it.

‘You get what you deserve, white boy’: Boy, 13, doused in gasoline and set alight in racially-motivated attack

By PAUL THOMPSON

Police are investigating a possible race hate attack after a 13-year-old boy was doused in gasoline and set on fire.

The teenager, who suffered first degree burns to his face and hands, is white and his two attackers black.

His mother Melissa Coon said the attackers told her son ‘This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy’.

Police in Kansas City, Missouri said they are investigating the alleged assault as a possible hate crime.

Investigators said the assault took place as the teen walked home from East High School.

He noticed two older boys following him and as he arrived at his home the pair threw gas on him.

‘They rushed him on the porch as he tried to get the door open,’ Mrs Coon told KMBC-TV.

‘[One of them] poured the gasoline, then flicked the Bic, and said, ‘This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy’.

Mrs Coon said her son was able to beat the flames out with his hands and shirt and was able to call 911 and his father.

Police said the boy had been engulfed in a ‘large fireball’.

He has lost his eye lashes, eyebrows and some skin on his face.

MORE HERE

Posted by peiper     on 03/05/2012 at 01:07 PM   
Filed Under: • Racism and race relations • USA •  
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   Friday - February 24, 2012

when rape isn’t rape but only sexual assault

This is going to take a wee bit of doing.  I started out on Feb. 6.

I came across this story while searching for something totally unrelated. In fact, it’s been a few weeks since I discovered it, and I’ve been trying to get more info and figure out if a story that’s at least three yrs old is worth posting. I discovered while searching that while the story isn’t new, there’s still quite a bit of interest in it. 

Either rape was committed or it wasn’t.  Do we assume it didn’t happen because the guys were not found guilty of rape?  Wasn’t there any DNA testing, assuming the girl reported it quickly enough?  Why isn’t sexual assault, with the emphasis on the word ‘assault,’ seen as seriously as rape itself?  Surely the intent is there even if the act of rape did not happen.  But there’s some evidence it did, depending on who you read perhaps.  One thing seems clear though.
Sports are very important in the great state of Texas and especially in the town this sorry story takes place in. Because reading all I have read and there are million links it seems, rape takes a back seat to sports and a lesson for girls in Tx.  Don’t go accusing sports heroes of sexual assault.

The story in a nutshell is, a cheerleader refused to cheer on a player who she claimed raped her. She was 16 at the time.  So she was thrown off the cheer squad, of which she was captain.  Her alleged rapist admitted sexual assault but not rape, at least that was how it ended.  The girl’s parents now must pay out $45,000 as you will read.  The courts say her dad brought frivolous claims.
I suppose not many men get raped often enough to impress law courts.

Wouldn’t you think that the school authorities could have used some common sense and shown a bit of humanity (gasp) toward the young lady and allowed her to remain silent rather then cheer the sub human who assaulted her?  There were four, we are told but only one rape with the others holding and or groping.  Two are unnamed due to their tender age.

It was reported that she was seen kissing someone and that she’d been drinking.
If we choose to accept that she was a bit high, and I doubt it but then that’s just me, is it any less rape?  Is it okay to assault a woman if she’s drunk? 
Of course it isn’t.  Well, unless you’re a high profile athlete.  Then rape is downgraded to assault.  ????

This article is one of very many.  I first found the story while surfing and landed on a newspaper web site. The story wasn’t a long one but what I read lead to much more. In fact, I got in touch with the writer of the article which dated to last year, and have found more since he wrote of the episode.

The town the girl lives in has turned against her in the most frightful fashion. I could hardly believe what I was reading. She’s been verbally abused and those who have come forward to defend her, have themselves been abused. You can read all of it but I’m just venting here. And I repeat, there is evidence of rape.

In between reading the above and reading the local papers here in the UK, I came across a story of a 13 year old rape victim. Not a case of he said she said at all. In fact, her 14 year old rapist bastard was free after doing the same to another girl only recently.  But the girl was horribly bullied on line by people who for whatever reason, seemed to believe the damned rapist was the victim. Or they wanted to.  The girl’s mom had to drive her to school, and the car was pelted with,, I forget what it was. Threats were made to attack the home etc. Names called, you can imagine. Girl gets raped so she becomes the slut.
What a rotten totally empty headed and cruel place this advanced planet has become.

Oh, and in yet another rape case here in the UK, a rapist was finally deported back to the land of monkeys and apes, and it only took NINE YEARS! Ah. Progress.

Forced to Cheer for Her Attacker

A Texas girl accused her school’s star athlete of rape—and was kicked off her squad for refusing to cheer for him. Jessica Bennett reports from a town still divided three years later.

She was blonde and blue-eyed, captain of her high-school cheer squad, headstrong, but shy at times, too: she made a point not to call undue attention to herself. He was tall and strapping, an outgoing African-American kid, a church-going boy with the swagger of a star athlete. Their paths crossed mostly on the football field where she rooted for him every week, but that changed one night in October 2008 when, Hillaire says, Rakheem Bolton raped her.

The accusation dropped like a bomb in Silsbee, Texas. Rumors flew that Hillaire made up the story, ashamed of a consensual act because Rakheem was black. The footballer insisted the sex was consensual and was cleared of rape—only to plead guilty to simple assault. His lawyer suggested that Hillaire (whose name Newsweek and The Daily Beast has published with her parents’ permission) had been “asking for it.” Hillaire was kicked off the cheer squad for refusing to cheer for Rakheem on the field. A petition was started in her favor, and former NFL cheerleaders spoke out.

The small town became a cauldron of racial and sexual hysteria.

Three years on, the case remains unresolved, the wounds not yet cauterized, the bitterness still palpable. Yes, most of the protagonists have moved on: Rakheem to a local college, according to his lawyer; the school principal out of the district; Hillaire, now 19 and living at home, no longer speaking to the press. (She spoke only through her parents for this article.) Her mother, Christena Soignet, continues to work—albeit somewhat awkwardly, as a teacher in the school district that her family has now sued.

Craig Soignet has not moved on. Hillaire’s father has filed a seemingly endless raft of lawsuits, some of which have been dismissed as “frivilous” actions. He’s even appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. He seeks justice, vindication, peace of mind. But there will be no harmony in Silsbee—population 6,600—anytime soon.

It all began on a cool weekend night in October 2008, when, police documents state, 16-year-old Hillaire got drunk at a house party with some classmates—buzzed on Bud Light and vodka shots. According to police reports, Hillaire had kissed a different boy that night, and had been captured on a cellphone camera kissing another girl. Sometime in the early morning hours, records state, she ended up in a dark room with four boys: Bolton, a 17-year-old running back, his wide-receiver teammate, and two minors. The minors told police they fondled Hillaire while she kissed Bolton. They claim she helped them take off her clothes.

From outside the door, a friend heard Hillaire yell “stop!” and “no!” With the help of two others, he kicked in the locked door, finding Hillaire curled up under a pool table crying, naked from the waist down. Police documents state there was a condom wrapper on the floor, and a broken window: three of the four boys had fled, one leaving behind his pants and cellphone. “They raped me,” Hillaire cried, as the owner of the house—the mother of a student--called 911. Hillaire had never had sex before.

But the most humiliating moment for the teen came not on the night of the alleged assault, or even on her first day back to school, where shrieks of “slut!” ricocheted in the halls. It came four months later, as she stood on the sidelines of a tournament basketball game, clutching a pompon in each hand.

Rakheem Bolton, charged with sexual assault after the attack but no-billed by a grand jury, headed to the free-throw line—he was a two-sport athlete. The cheer squad began its usual chant: “Two, four, six-eight-ten!” they yelled, bouncing in maroon and white. “Come on, Rakheem, put it in!” Hillaire winced, and stepped quietly out of the cheer line. She couldn’t bring herself to cheer for the person she regarded as her attacker. “As a team, I cheered for them as a whole,” she said later. But “when he stepped up to the line, it didn’t feel right.”

At half time, her coach berated her, and a shouting match erupted. She was told she had to cheer “for everyone,” or go home. She chose the latter. The following Monday, she was kicked off the squad. An irate Craig Soignet appealed to the superintendent; 11 days later, she was reinstated. But a war had begun.

The boys, though, dispute that Hillaire went through anything. They say it was she who pursued Bolton; that he and his friends fled out the window because they were scared—“the only blacks,” as Bolton’s lawyer puts it, “in a house of all whites.” When Bolton returned that night to retrieve his clothes, police documents say, he shouted that, “I didn’t rape no white girl!”

Hillaire spent the early morning hours of that night at a clinic with her mother, having a rape kit administered. The nurse who treated Hillaire, Brenda Garrison, says she found trauma to the vaginal area and bruising to the girl’s hymen—all consistent, according to Silsbee Chief of Police David Allen, with sexual assault. Hillaire’s mother says a bruise in the shape of a handprint would later form on the girl’s upper thigh.

Even so, when Hillaire returned to school the following Tuesday—determined to keep her life as normal as possible—it was amid whispers that she “didn’t look like a girl who’d been raped.” “He could have any girl he wanted,” one commenter wrote of Bolton on a local blog. “He didn’t need to rape no white girl.” Craig Soignet says the school told Hillaire to “keep a low profile,” and she spent more time at home than usual. She went to see a rape counselor weekly.

Under Texas law, a minor can’t legally consent to sex—nor can a person who is intoxicated. But for a jury to believe that, says David Barlow, the special prosecutor on the case, a woman “practically has to be unconscious.” According to police reports, Hillaire was sober enough to recount to officers what she said had happened, and Rakheem was within two years of her age. He would later tell the local press the whole thing was a big “misunderstanding.” He has not spoken publicly since then, and did not respond to requests for comment.

YOU CAN READ MUCH MORE AT THIS LINK:
THE DAILY BEAST

The Cheerleader Rape Case Ends Horribly in Texas
A high school student who refused to cheer on her “rapist” has been ordered to pay $45,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit. Where’s the justice in this?
By Cord Jefferson
Posted: 05/05/2011 02:54 PM EDT

The story begins in 2008, when a 16-year-old high school cheerleader called only “HS” was gang-raped at a party. Three young men ended up arrested for the assault, one of whom was Rakheem Bolton. Bolton ended up pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault, for which he was given two years probation and a fine, avoiding jail time.

Because the felony charges were dropped, Bolton was able to return to school and participate in all the regular school activities, including varsity basketball. As if the awkwardness of seeing her attacker at school everyday wasn’t bad enough, HS was a cheerleader, meaning that when Bolton played basketball, she was expected to cheer for him. One day, HS had had enough.

“I didn’t want to have to say his name and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” she told reporters in 2009. “I just didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”

To that end, HS refused to cheer for Bolton when he stepped up to take some free throws during a game in January 2009, four months after he had pleaded guilty to the attack. When she folded her arms and stood silently, however, her school’s superintendent, Richard Bain, ordered her outside and told her she had to cheer for Bolton. When she refused again, HS was kicked off the cheerleading squad.

MORE

Here’s something to munch on.

From another link.

KFDM

The girl says she was pushed into a room and sexually assaulted while the door was locked.
“I believe they’re innocent,” Morrison told KFDM News, in reference to Bolton and Rountree. “I believe they’re not guilty of sexually assaulting the young lady. I don’t believe it occurred the way I heard it on the news.

Fine. Then why was she found cowering under a pool table half dressed while others heard her screams and had to break into the room.

Whereupon the three guys jumped out a window, and Bolton minus any cloths, swearing and threatening the home owner with violence if she didn’t toss his cloths out to him.

And will someone please tell me why sexual assault is treated so lightly? If it wasn’t rape but short of it, and rape wasn’t intended, and come on people.

Take a good look at this girl. Gonna tell me intent wasn’t there? Uh huh.  And another thing.

If Mr. Morrison believes those guys were innocent, well that is his right and opinion.  But I have thoughts and opinions and rights as well.  And here’s my raaaaacist thought on the subject.

I can not bring myself to believe that this beautiful young girl, tipsy or not tipsy, would have been tempted to kiss JUMBO LIPS. In his dreams maybe. But not hers. No way. 

Oh, and then of course the naacp had to get in on the act with a fat spokesman who could barely speak English.  Take a look at this.

Rakheem Bolton’s great uncle.  The video of the Reverend’s criticism of the indictment ends with appeals to God and Jesus.

I can’t embed the video but take a look at this and let me know if you can make out most if any of what he’s saying. I didn’t know they still spoke like this.
I mean, I thought since forced integration and all, they’d have learned a little more by now. Many have but apparently some were left in the trees.

NAACP VIDEO

And there is this edited bit which you can read in full

Did Hardin County District Attorney David Sheffield do a good job there?  The victim and her parents thought not.  Neither do I.  Neither should you.  The victim was told that preliminary results from the rape kit showed some DNA evidence that could inculpate the defendants.  Yet the victim kept hearing that due to case backlogs, the full rape kit analysis results wouldn’t be ready for four months, five months, one year – depends which report you read.  There is an appearance that the can kept getting kicked down the road for the date the victim was being given for when the rape kit results would be ready.  The victim now says she wants to study forensic science, motivated in part by the delay in the processing of her rape kit.
Does it sound right, that a community taking in $35K, $40K per home game football match can’t get a rape kit processed any faster than that?  I called the public information department of the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory DNA Section.  I asked “Is it possible for somebody to get expedited rape kit results from the DNA Section of your Crime Lab?” They told me “Yes.  If a prosecutor or investigator says they have a case coming up and need results promptly, we can have the complete rape kit results for them within three weeks.”

Ignoring Sheffield’s warning that retaliation against the victim could result in felony prosecutions, the Silsbee schools community started retaliating against the victim for daring to make an accusation against a football hero.  If there was any effort to educate the school community about Retaliation, how serious it is, and how it would not be tolerated, there is no documentation of such an effort available online.  Online, in fact, you can find the most outrageous, vicious and ugly gossip, spread by members of the Silsbee community against the victim, seeking in every possible way to undermine her account of the crime, to drag her name through the mud.  Much of that gossip centered on how drunk she allegedly had been.  The vicious gossips should remember to send D.A. David Sheffield a tip at Christmasfor tacitly authorizing them to demean the victim on that basis.  At the school, fellow students would yell “Slut!” and “Bitch!” at her, but nobody would report them to school administration.  She was repeatedly harassed in the school cafeteria — but instead of disciplining those who were retaliating against her, the school administration told her to stay away from the cafeteria.  For good measure, they told her not to attend homecoming.  (She had apparently received threats saying that if she attended the homecoming, she would be shot with a gun).  This is to say, the school administration itself retaliated against her but was never held legally accountable, despite that previous statement from David Sheffield, the prize-winning District Attorney who didn’t bother to get an expedited rape kit result.  Various students claim Bolton threatened to shoot them.  The implication is that if they as witnesses said anything to incriminate him, they would be killed.  Silsbee schools never investigated these allegations.

SOURCE AND MUCH MORE

Above and below I should warn bmews readers are from liberal blogs. But that doesn’t mean their arguments are not valid in this case.

Hillaire is no longer the carefree livewire she was once was. She is still harassed by some in town, including students who recently threw ice at her car as she dropped her younger sister off at school. She went from A/B grades to barely passing high school. She received counseling until her therapist passed away from breast cancer last year. In remembrance, she got a tattoo on her right hip of two ribbons–one for sexual-assault prevention and the other for breast-cancer awareness–along with a Bible quotation she heard from her therapist: “Perfect love casts out fear.”
“She’s broken,” says her father.  “I think she’s still fighting on some levels, but I don’t think she has the determination that she used to have. Just don’t see that fire, that ambition in her anymore.”
Craig lost his refinery job last year and spends his time building the family business and working on the case. Larry Watts is working pro bono on the case because Craig can no longer able to afford legal fees. Nonetheless, Craig insists that the case “hasn’t destroyed our business, It hasn’t destroyed the family. We’ve gotten closer as a family.”
The family is divided about whether to leave Silsbee, but, despite everything, Craig and Hillaire both want to stay.

read more

Posted by peiper     on 02/24/2012 at 07:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • Justice - LACK OF • Sex • USA •  
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   Wednesday - February 01, 2012

myths about republicans and can we actually win come november.

I happen to catch Janet Daley on the radio last night for the first time.  Hope it won’t the last cos she can wipe the floor with any lib. they put against her.
Oh how I wish she could take the time to answer each of her critics on this article.  Of course, there may an honest point or two made by those who oppose her comments here. I’m not posting the comments cos while interesting, they are also anger inducing. So you read them if you want to, at the link.

Three myths about the Republican primary contest

Explaining the more arcane procedures of the American presidential primary system to my British friends is difficult enough. The distinction between a caucus and a primary ballot, and the various forms of the latter – those that are open to everyone in the state, as opposed to those that are restricted to registered voters of a particular party; those that are winner-takes-all as opposed to those in which the delegates are distributed in proportion to the votes won, etc - can take up half a lunch time by itself. But once these technical matters have been mastered, there are more serious political misconceptions that must be dispelled. So in the interests of international understanding, let me take on three prevailing confusions about the current Republican primary season.

Myth 1:
There is so much acrimony and bile being expended between the candidates that irrevocable harm is likely to be done to all of them in the eyes of the electorate. The mudslinging – all the negative ads and personal malice – will leave a permanently unsavoury impression of the party, whoever wins in the end.
Refutation: no, it won’t. Primary contests are always bloody and bitter. In 2008, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton gouged lumps out of one another for months. She accused him of being hopelessly callow and inexperienced – and worse, her husband unforgivably dismissed Obama’s campaign as being similar to Jesse Jackson’s ie just another futile attempt from an over-ambitious black politician to leapfrog over the legitimate candidate. Obama in turn, implied that Mrs Clinton had no legitimate political credentials at all: that she seemed to think that having lived in the White House as a First Lady was sufficient qualification to be president. All of this nastiness was forgotten once Obama got the nomination whereupon the entire Democratic machine got behind him and propelled him to victory. What the melodramatic vitriol had served to do was make the Democrats seem like the centre of the political universe, providing a setting in which its rising star could establish a national reputation.

Myth 2:
The longer this ugly race goes on, the worse it will be for the Republicans who will end up looking like vindictive children, and damage each other so much that they will be crippled when it comes to the actual election. It would be better if everybody except the obvious front-runner pulled out now.
Refutation: The longer the race goes on, the more the mettle and personal courage of the candidates will be tested. There is always something of the OK Corral shoot-out in American elections: behaving like a gentleman is fine for a president once he is in office but a candidate needs to be able to remain standing in a long and bruising fight to prove his fitness. And, as I noted above, the longer the national drama is centred on the Republicans, the longer voters will pay attention to them. As soon as the nomination is seen to be a done deal, the public gaze will move away.

Myth 3:
Gingrich is now a dead duck. Defeat in Florida has finished him.
Refutation: This is likely to be true but not necessarily so. In 2008, Hillary’s campaign came back from the dead repeatedly. She was written off – only to recover again – so frequently that it became the received wisdom that Obama had failed “to seal the deal” until virtually the last moment. The outcome which seems in retrospect to have been inevitable was very much touch-and-go during the primaries – and the dramatic suspense of that uncertainty almost certainly helped the Democrats in the presidential election.
Moral of the story? American politics is very, very different from our own. US voters are not so repulsed by “unpleasantness” as the British, and they really, really do not like being second-guessed by the media.

COMMENTS AT SOURCE

Hope I don’t P.O. my friends here but .........

I am not feeling very confident about the election.  People who voted for Obama and are now unhappy, are not necessarily Republican friendly.  But they might vote for him again if only because of ill feelings about our side.  And to be frank, while I like Gingrich, and I think he’s far and away smarter then any of his opponents, I don’t think he can win.  And that leaves who as a choice? 

When I was in Ca. a few months ago, I watched one of the debates and was thoroughly put off by the bad behavior of Santorum.  If some didn’t spot it, and I was surprised hardly anything was made of it, then some just weren’t listening and watching as closely as they might have. 
I’m not crazy about Mitt either and I heard him singing on the radio last night.  Good grief how embarrassing.  I thought he appeared desperate.  Some may not see it that way.  I don’t feel too good about this. The prospect of another term for Obama is genuinely a very scary thought.  So I suppose I’ll either have to pass on voting, which is not an option, or vote for whoever wins the Republican nomination, which is the only option open to me that I can see.  And it’s far too late to run for office myself and anyway, even I wouldn’t vote for me. Depressing thought here.  We may not have anyone on our side who will be able to defeat Obama.
I am not feeling very well at that thought.  In fact, I am increasingly sick over it. 

Posted by peiper     on 02/01/2012 at 11:08 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • Republicans • USA •  
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   Monday - January 30, 2012

Barack Obama is trying to make the US a more socialist state.

A word first about the photo used here.

I have no idea if it was shown in the USA anywhere.  My guess is, if had been seen or much used, Drew and Vilmar might have been on it.
As it happens, it was in the papers here and naturally, I could not resist using it. 
At first, I was going to use it on its own.  But there were two very intense columns this week.  One by Janet Daley of the The Telegraph, which is posted here.
There’s another I’ll get to.

I hope any Americans seeing this column and one that will follow in another post shortly, will share same with others.
Read and find out why.  I have been ranting on for some time about America becoming Europa, I just wasn’t very eloquent in presenting the case.

For certain I haven’t any qualifications professionally or by way of education or career, to spout off on some of the political things I have. And not too many at that come to think about it.  But I do read what people say, and I do listen to the radio here which can be quite an eye opener for an American. Or should that be ear opener? No matter.  I do pay attention because what I hear and what I read in the papers is clear and is also somewhat frightening.  I have said in the past that one of the things that have saved the USA so far, is our geographical size and the numbers of our population.  But Britain is an island, so over-running this culture and twisting things to satisfy the left is quite a bit easier then it is in the states.  But still, having said that, you’d be blind indeed and perhaps deaf as well if you didn’t believe that America could in time, go the same way. Not because I say so but because I read and hear and know for FACT that there are actually foreign groups at work inside the United States, doing their legal best to transform America to fit their left wing view and fulfill their leftist dream of a united world. Run by them of course. 

If what I say bothers anyone, just ignore it all and go back to sleep.

Barack Obama is trying to make the US a more socialist state

The ideas the President outlined in the State of the Union are based on the very model that is causing the EU to implode.

What was it everybody used to say about the United States? Look at what’s happening over there and you will see our future. Whatever Americans are doing now, we will be catching up with them in another 10 years or so. In popular culture or political rhetoric, America led the fashion and we tagged along behind.

Well, so much for that. Barack Obama is now putting the United States squarely a decade behind Britain. Listening to the President’s State of the Union message last week was like a surreal visit to our own recent past: there were, almost word for word, all those interminable Gordon Brown Budgets that preached “fairness” while listing endless new ways in which central government would intervene in every form of economic activity.

Later, in a television interview, Mr Obama described his programme of using higher taxes on the wealthy to bankroll new government spending as “a recipe for a fair, sound approach to deficit reduction and rebuilding this country”. To which we who come from the future can only shout, “No‑o-o, go back! Don’t come down this road!”

As we try desperately to extricate ourselves from the consequences of that philosophy, which sounds so eminently reasonable (“giving everybody a fair share”, the President called it), we could tell America a thing or two – if it would only listen. Human beings are so much more complicated than this childlike conception of fairness assumes. When government takes away an ever larger proportion of the wealth which entrepreneurial activity creates and attempts to distribute it “fairly” (that is to say, evenly) throughout society in the form of welfare programmes and public spending projects, the effects are much, much more complex and perverse than a simple financial equation would suggest.

It is probably obvious that the people from whom the wealth is taken will become less willing to incur the risks that entrepreneurial investment involves – and so will produce less wealth, and thus less tax revenue. But more surprising, perhaps, are the damaging changes that take place in the beneficiaries of this “fairness” and the permanent effect this has on the balance of power between government and the people.

There is, it turns out, a huge difference between being provided with a livelihood and feeling that you have earned it. The assumption that all the wealth that individuals create belongs, by moral right, to the state, to spend on benefits or phoney job creation schemes (sorry, public infrastructure projects), is proving phenomenally difficult to expunge in Britain, so ineradicably has it embedded itself in the public consciousness.

In the US, it has had only odd historical moments of favour (Roosevelt’s New Deal, Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”), which have been beaten back consistently by the dynamism of a country that sees its existential purpose as being to foster and promote individual achievement and self-belief. It is bizarre that Obama should be regarded (or should regard himself) as a kind-of European who is trying to bring a sophisticated kind-of socialism to American economic life, complete with government-run health care and “fair” (high) taxes on the wealthy. If his European credentials were up to date, he would know that this was precisely the social model that is causing the EU to implode, and whose hopeless contradictions the best economic minds on the Continent are attempting, unsuccessfully, to resolve.

A vendetta against the “wealthy” is one of Obama’s favourite themes, and it strikes a peculiarly familiar note. Back here, Nick Clegg is arguing (rightly) that a tax cut for the lower paid should be accelerated on both moral and economic grounds – because people are struggling, and because allowing them to keep and spend more of their earnings would stimulate growth. But he wants to balance this with a wealth tax or some such penalty on “the rich”. Both Obama and Clegg, by an extraordinary coincidence, used the same semantic trick to try to prove the injustice of their present tax systems. In his State of the Union address, the President slipped subliminally from the fact that his likely presidential opponent Mitt Romney paid tax at a lower rate (because his income came from profits and dividends which were taxed as capital gains) than his secretary (who would have paid income tax), to the claim that Mr Romney paid less tax than his secretary.

Mr Clegg made exactly the same charge against a putative hedge fund manager who “paid less tax” than his cleaner, neatly obscuring the fact that it was the rate of tax that was lower, not the amount which was paid. Needless to say, both Mr Romney and the imagined hedge-fund manager pay vastly more tax than their respective secretaries and cleaners. (The top 1 per cent of earners pay nearly a third of all federal taxes in the US.)

So what does this kind of verbal trick tell us about the honesty – or the desperation – of this argument? At the very least, it is crass populism designed to provoke a particularly counterproductive form of class resentment. What is needed here and in the US are tax cuts for the many, not the few, to adapt Mr Brown, and less demonising of the sorts of people who are able to invest and create the real wealth that will be our only chance for economic salvation.

Obama is clearly living the Left-liberal dream, which still survives in small pockets of American life. He wants to import the democratic socialism that Europe embraced after the war, which was, for European cultural reasons, imbued with aristocratic paternalism and Marxist notions of bourgeois guilt. But neither of these things are part of the American historical experience. The Left-wing intellectuals, including Obama himself, who adopt this language are talking dangerously uninformed rubbish: if democratic socialism was ever a solution to Europe’s problems (and the present crisis is making that seem less and less likely), it is certainly not an answer to any question that Americans are likely to ask.

The United States is a country that was invented to allow people to be free of domination or persecution by the state. Its constitution and political institutions are specifically designed to prevent the federal government from oppressing the rights, or undermining the sense of responsibility, of the individual citizen. If it ceases to stand by that principle, then it will suffer a catastrophic loss of purpose and identity – as well as making a quite remarkably stupid and unnecessary mistake.

JANET DALEY

Janet Daley is American-born, but has lived in Britain since 1965. She was educated at the University of California at Berkeley (BA in Philosophy), and Birkbeck College, London (post-graduate).
She spent twenty years in academic life, teaching philosophy at the Open University, the external department of London University and the Royal College of Art. She wrote art and literary criticism from the late 1960s to early 80s, and left teaching to become a freelance journalist in 1987, writing for The Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator.

Posted by peiper     on 01/30/2012 at 01:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • USA •  
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   Monday - January 23, 2012

few sequins short of a tutu ….. read it all

I thought I’d heard the last (for awhile) on this topic.  But this morning’s column by one of my favorite people really woke me up.  I had not heard much about what she’s writing here.  Which btw I’ve edited. See full column at the link.
Anyway, I had not realized the extent of the thinking here and didn’t even know we had it in the USA as Miss Phillips describes.
I don’t understand how people come to believe these things. How do they come to these things?  Do they go out looking for it? Make things up as they go along? What?  How come they can not see how stupid it all is.
But ... I heard something on the radio late last night, after my computer crashed and I spent an hour with tech in India. Happily I got someone I understood, but it still took an hour.  By the time we were through I wanted nothing more to do with puters.  Too tired even to read, I turned on the radio.  The topic was not this story about the loon and her little boy/girl.  But while reading Phillips here, I immediately recalled the radio program. Let me share a bit of that and you’ll see a weird connection.

The program was about a newly emerging industry that deals with stag nights. Yeah, stag nights. Ah but with a difference.  Apparently, Krakow (Poland) is host to groups of Brit guys enjoying their last freedoms. Kind of.  There are actually companies that arrange tours, depending on what is paid determines how long your stag vacation is. Usually it’s a whole weekend. Yes, the guys do get pie eyed however, there isn’t the usual (we are told) stag films of old or sex for sale kind of thing. It’s supposed to simply be a group of friends enjoying the company of a guy about to become married. The groups are controlled quite expertly by a lady guide.  They are taken from one bar to another and visit various city attractions etc.  All very civilized we were informed. And here’s the part that you might say really woke me up.  It was to be quite honest, a bit embarrassing to listen to.

One of the guys on the program is a reporter who spent many months following this newest thing. The guided stag tour of Krakow. He interviewed the guys and drank with them, nothing sneaky because he wasn’t trying to uncover anything illegal. And then he came to this.

It was noticed how these guys have not acted in the expected macho traditional male on a bender (tho they were on quite a bender) way.  Here were guys he said, who were straight but not afraid to touch each other.  Not in a sexual way, but more or less we are informed, in the manner that women bond with their friends. They aren’t embarrassed or afraid to touch and show a softer side.  They were more touchy feely I suppose.  They were less the masculine stereotype.

I guess times have changed and apparently some men have too.  But I think it’s manufactured.  I just can not imagine guys having a girls night out.
Well, not if they’re straight anyway.  It just doesn’t seem natural. 

You’ve got to be a few sequins short of a tutu to raise your son as ‘gender neutral’

By MELANIE PHILLIPS

For more than three decades, Left-wing ideologues have been determinedly unravelling sexual and gender differences — on the grounds that the very idea that people are different amounts to a kind of prejudice.

Bizarre as it may seem, what started as a campaign for equal rights progressed into a movement to abolish altogether the differences between men and women.

This movement consisted of an alliance between, on the one hand, radical feminists who were consumed by hatred of men and, on the other, gay activists intent upon blurring the distinction between hetero-sexual and same-sex unions.

What arose from both was a push towards androgyny, based on the false belief that biology had little to do with gender differences — which were instead said to be artificially constructed by society.

LUNACY

Denying the biological facts of life in this way might be considered a form of lunacy. Indeed, scientists have shown there are many differences between male and female brains. And in general, men and women clearly have different approaches to their environment, relationships, children and so on.
Nevertheless, promotion of androgyny has become a kind of default position among progressive thinkers, writers and politicians.

It all started with the idea that men and women should have interchangeable roles both at home and in the work-place, and that fathers were no longer essential to the family unit at all.
Right from the beginning, however, there was a deeper agenda to redefine relations between men and women by nothing less than redefining men and women themselves.

Accordingly, radical feminists such as academics Judith Lorber and Susan Farrell wrote with a straight face that ‘being a woman and being a man change from one generation to the next’.

And the immensely influential psychologist Sandra Bem wrote that to free people from ‘culturally imposed’ definitions of masculinity and femininity people should become androgynous, adapting male or female behaviour according to their situation.

This would mean, she gleefully predicted, that distinctions between male and female would ‘blur into invisibility’.
Goodbye testosterone!

Astonishing as this may seem, this madness has now become mainstream. For example, the Council of Europe, no less, has drafted a definition of gender as an artificial social construct which has little to do with biology.

In the U.S., some therapists have demanded ‘genderless models of marriage and parenting’.

Recently, the California Teachers’ Association held a conference advocating ‘gender liberation’. It issued instructions on ‘gender etiquette’, which said it was polite to ask people with which sex they identified — and, accordingly, by which pronouns they preferred to be described. The instructions added helpfully: ‘Each of us can decide for ourselves in which bathroom we belong.’
And a few months ago on U.S. TV, a ‘gender coach’ was filmed indoctrinating children that they could choose whether to be a boy or a girl.

SINISTER

It all sounds too ludicrous to be true. In fact, it is deeply sinister. Our society is being brainwashed into pretending that the differences between male and female don’t exist — in order to reconstruct society into some unattainable utopia of sexual and gender identicality.

The dual goal is to marginalise men and to upend society’s fundamental moral codes. Having first been told they can behave sexually in whatever way they want, people are now being told they can be sexually whatever they want. And anyone who objects to this will be told they are a bigot.

The result will be an increasing tide of misery. Human identity is formed by the union of male and female. Sexual and gender differences lie at the very heart of what it is to be a human being.

Denying those differences to a child not only threatens that child’s own sense of identity and well-being, but also starts to unravel what it is to be a person.
Dressing a boy as a girl and pretending he can choose his gender is not merely bizarre and cruel. It is part of a wider agenda to re-order our society.
Far from ushering in a better world, this threatens to stamp out the individual right to know what we are, and to rob us of humanity itself.

MELANIE PHILLIPS

Posted by peiper     on 01/23/2012 at 02:13 PM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • EUro-peons • Insanity • UK • USA • wierd stuff •  
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