Thursday - December 02, 2010

Is the U.S. set to be dragged into Europe’s financial troubles? Euro soars on rumor.

We no longer live in a world where we can isolate ourselves and pretend we aren’t affected by outside influences.  I wish that were not so.  I wish we could actually build a wall around ourselves and tell the rest of the world to buzz off. Being me of course I’d use cruder terminology. And I very definitely do not want to be the world’s policeman.  I do not care how China treats its people in its own back yard. I don’t care what Putin and Russia do so long as it doesn’t cause problems for the USA.  If I get PO’d when outsiders stick their nose in our internal affairs, I can hardly be surprised when others get a nose out of joint when we do the same.  But okay .. the world is connected as it has never been before.  We have enemies the likes of which we have not known in the past. At least not to the degree we now face.  So we are indeed connected, like it or not.

Which leads me to .....

Don’t be coy and don’t misrepresent this story. The US has already contributed to the fund and even more than that, it stopped the slide of the Euro during the Greek crisis through Currency Swaps. The ECB needed US Dollars to buy up the bonds the PIIGS were issuing, that the capital markets were rejecting. Without the Swaps the Euro would have fallen to who knows where, leading to much higher costs for Europeans to bail out the PIIGS. The reason the US Fed did this was to protect the Trillion dollar investments US banks have in the PIIGS alone. When Trichet spoke of the possibility of buying bonds from the PIIGS today he was signaling a further round of Currency Swaps between the ECB, the BoE and other foreign Central Banks. If all you great Brits are ignorant of what Currency Swaps are, look it up on Wikipedia, they explain it simply enough for you to understand.

- Jeff, Boulder, CO USA, 02/12/2010 00:53

We can’t save ourselves. We are headed the same way. If we aren’t working we aren’t paying taxes, and if we aren’t paying taxes our government has to print money that isn’t worth what people expect of it--so if we write Europe a hot check for aid, what will come of it for all of us?

- Sheri, OKC, Oklahoma, USA, 02/12/2010 02:52

The title of this story is very misleading - it should be the opposite way around. Europe was dragged into the US’s financial troubles when our greedy bankers invested in the US sub-prime mortgage market. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco was essentially that US financial institutions were pressured into lending mortgages to people with low credit ratings. Many then went on to default and the rest is history. Those who set this in motion were of course on the Democrat-Left and included the ‘Clintonistas’ and the soon to be President Mr Obama himself.
All part of the ongoing destruction of the West by the Liberal-Left. By the way the US National Debt is nearly $14 Trillion - and they’re going to bail us out via the IMF? Don’t make me laugh.

- A Richards, London, England, 02/12/2010 01:37

So just what are these people commenting on?  Well, the morning news here at 7am UK time.  See what you think of all this. And is the USA going in deeper? 

Is the U.S. set to be dragged into Europe’s financial troubles? Euro soars amid claims America will support IMF bailout

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 4:05 AM on 2nd December 2010

The euro soared today after a report that the U.S. would support a larger aid package for Europe through the International Monetary Fund.
In midday trading in New York, the euro traded at $1.3140 from $1.3011 late Tuesday. It popped by more than one cent immediately after the report came out.
Reuters reported at midday that an unnamed U.S. official said the U.S. would be willing to have the International Monetary Fund give more money to the European Financial Stability Facility.

The U.S. is the IMF’s biggest stakeholder.
The EFSF is a 440billion euro fund the Europeans put together as part of a broader 750billion euro rescue package in May during the Greek debt crisis.
The IMF has already pledged up to 250billion euro.  The Obama administration would not comment on the report.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did dispatch Treasury Undersecretary Lael Brainerd, Treasury’s top official on international matters, for talks with European officials. Mr Brainerd had meetings in Madrid with economic officials on Wednesday and was scheduled to be in Berlin on Thursday and Paris on Friday.

The U.S. ‘can’t afford to let Europe implode,’ said David Gilmore of Foreign Exchange Analytics.
But the statement might not mean that the U.S. has already agreed to a deal allowing the IMF to contribute more money or ponying up more money for Europe itself.

One possibility is that the Americans are ‘flying a kite to the Europeans to push them in the direction of increasing the stability fund,’ Mr Gilmore said.
The euro has fallen 10 per cent since early November as Ireland, after Greece, accepted billions in emergency financing. Investors now worry Portugal may be next, or even Spain.

Spain, due to the size of its economy, would be a much greater financial burden that the other countries should it require a bailout.
A spokesman for the EU’s monetary affairs chief Olli Rehn said he had not heard of talks about extending the EFSF fund.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 12/02/2010 at 02:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Economics • International • USA •  
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stealing resources …. copper has value …

Well as usual this wasn’t planned as my first post of the day and btw ... had no plan to boot this early. Came downstairs around 5:20am or thereabouts, see piles of fresh snow everywhere and doubt we’ll get out this morning unless things melt. So then, sitting at puter cos of course I just HAD to boot the damn thing and check mail. Well, as long as I was checking mail I just HAD to see what was happing at BMEWS. Didn’t I?

The picture of me this early morning is a an insomniac with a now cool cup of what once was hot tea, a many years thin hooded sweat shirt of a blue hue. Been washed so many times it’s hard to tell. But PJ bottoms and slippers and no socks sitting at a pc in front of a bay window facing our front yard. Still too dark outside to take a picture but hell, you know what snow looks like so why bother? And it’s pretty damn cold where my feet are.

So I checked the site and found a comment and a link to what isn’t a new story. It’s been happening here and in fact, some thieves have been targeting ancient village churches for the lead in roof.  Not only is the story worth posting (I believe), but see the following comments as well.  I always find what folks have to say about subjects as interesting as the story itself. Often times more so.

So ...

H/T Rick K for the heads up on this one.

DIY metallurgists liberate and scrap America’s vital telephony substrate

Cory Doctorow

Spiraling commodity prices and a plummeting US job market have apparently made digging up copper phone lines and selling them for scrappage an attractive proposition. AT&T is offering $3K for information leading to the arrest of the copper scrappers who freelanced enough copper out of the fertile Atlanta soil to knock 7,000 people offline. It’s part of a wider nationwide pattern of DIY five-finger discount recycling—100 miles of copper vanished from Appalachia, three hits to the same NJ station, and a $75K score also in the Garden State.

The FBI report shows that industry and local officials are taking countermeasures to help address the scrapper problem, but apparently much more needs to be done. For example, while a variety of physical and technological security measures have been taken there are limited resources available to enforce these laws, and a very small percentage of perpetrators are arrested and convicted. Additionally, as copper thefts are typically addressed as misdemeanors, those individuals convicted pay relatively low fines and serve short prison terms.

Atlanta isn’t the only place seeing copper theft problems. In this report, Appalachian Power said more than 100 miles of copper wire has been stolen from the company’s southern West Virginia facilities alone. Replacing stolen wire can cost up to $1 million a year, the utility stated. Other thefts have been reported all across the country in recent days. One location in New Jersey has been hit three times in the last two months seeing some $13,000 worth of copper stolen. A utility in the same state this week reported a $75,000 theft of the metal.

www.boingboing.net

Posted by peiper     on 12/02/2010 at 12:51 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • USA •  
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   Wednesday - December 01, 2010

when arabs suggest something that makes sense and is correct, why don’t we listen?

It was yesterday or the day before but who’s counting, when I went off the rails and ranted about the WikiLeaks. Don’t get me wrong now. I’d still love to see that Assange creep as well as the fag private in a hole somewhere in the Ca. desert. Preferably buried and alive.  You could say with some justification that I am not a fan of either. Here come the “but.”
I am beginning to wonder if even with all the embarrassment and the problems the leaks will cause, and they already have, I am beginning to wonder if we were done a favor. Unintended to be certain, but perhaps a favor nonetheless.  And that will only depend on the American people of course.

Opening today’s papers and reading more on the subject, I was surprised to find that our country (USA) was actually getting damn good advice from the Arabs. From muslims.  Now it’s true the advice would also serve their own particular interests but so what?  Don’t all countries try their best (ok, not all the time) to look after their own interests?  Sure they do.  Not as much in the west of course what with political correctness and the left running the show. And anyway, if our interests and their interests happen to run together, why not co-operate?

The Arabs who tried to have us see reason were right.  We were wrong. It’s a black and white issue with me.
If you weren’t aware of this before now, some of you might agree.  I know you would because over the past year or more, our regulars have been commenting and suggesting much of what the Arabs have. 

See for yourself.

WikiLeaks: Kuwait wanted Gitmo detainees to be ‘killed in combat’

The Kuwaiti government privately urged the Americans to return Guantánamo detainees to Afghanistan so they could be “killed in combat”.

A leaked diplomatic cable discloses that the Kuwaiti interior minister resisted US pressure for the country to establish a “rehabilitation centre” for terror suspects, saying that they were “rotten” and “the best thing to do is get rid of them”.

The hardline view emerged in a private meeting between US and Kuwaiti officials in February 2009.

During the meeting, the US ambassador suggested that Kuwait follow Saudi Arabia’s example and attempt to rehabilitate terrorist suspects.

Shaykh Jaber al-Khalid Al Sabah, the Kuwaiti interior minister, is said to have replied: “I can talk to you into next week about building a rehabilitation centre, but it won’t happen. We are not Saudi Arabia; we cannot isolate these people in desert camps or anywhere on an island. We cannot compel them to stay. If they are rotten, they are rotten and the best thing to do is get rid of them.

“You picked them up in Afghanistan; you should drop them off in Afghanistan, in the middle of the war zone.”

The officials also discussed the plight of a Kuwaiti suspect who had been returned to Kuwait by the Americans. The cable states: “Kuwait’s record had been tarnished by the example of former GTMO [Guantánamo] detainee al-Ajmi, who’d allegedly blown himself up in Mosul [in Iraq] following his release to the Kuwaiti authorities.”

The UK Government has agreed to pay millions of pounds in compensation to British citizens who were released from Guantánamo.

Kuwaiti officials also advocated allowing drug smugglers caught off the coast to drown. “God wished to punish them for smuggling drugs by drowning them,” the minister said, allegedly “smiling broadly”.

The above remark by the official was in response to the rescue by an American naval vessel of a couple of Iranian drug smugglers.  And he was right. Again.

SOURCE FOR ARABS ARE RIGHT

Posted by peiper     on 12/01/2010 at 09:31 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims • USA • War On Terror •  
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   Tuesday - November 30, 2010

new american super gun will be in use this month …

OK Drew .... this is your subject matter. 
Pretty darn cool huh?

New U.S. Army rifles that use radio-controlled smart bullets

By Daily Mail Reporter

* Weapon hailed as a game-changer that can fire up and over barriers and down into trenches
* Soldiers will start using them in Afghanistan later this month

The U.S. army is to begin using a futuristic rifle that fires radio-controlled ‘smart’ bullets in Afghanistan for the first time, it has emerged.

The XM25 rifle uses bullets that be programmed to explode when they have travelled a set distance, allowing enemies to be targeted no matter where they are hiding.

The rifle also has a range of 2,300 feet making it possible to hit target which are well out of the reach of conventional rifles.

The XM25 is being developed specially for the U.S. army and will be deployed with troops from later this month, it was revealed today.

The rifle’s gunsight uses a laser rangefinder to determine the exact distance to the obstruction, after which the soldier can add or subtract up to 3 metres from that distance to enable the bullets to clear the barrier and explode above or beside the target.

Soldiers will be able to use them to target snipers hidden in trenches rather than calling in air strikes.

The 25-millimetre round contains a chip that receives a radio signal from the gunsight as to the precise distance to the target.

Lt. Col. Christopher Lehner, project manager for the system, described the weapon as a ‘game-changer’ that other nations will try and copy.

He expects the Army to buy 12,500 of the XM25 rifles this year, enough for every member of the infantry and special forces.

Lehner told FoxNews: ‘With this weapon system, we take away cover from [enemy targets] forever.

‘Tactics are going to have to be rewritten. The only thing we can see [enemies] being able to do is run away.’

The XM25 appears perfect weapon for street-to-street fighting that troops in Afghanistan have to engage in, with enemy fighters hiding behind walls and only breaking cover to fire ocasionally.

The weapon’s laser finder would work out how far away the enemy was and then the U.S. soldier would add one metre using a button near the trigger. When fired, the explosive round would carry exactly one metre past the wall and explode with the force of a hand grenade above the Taliban fighter.

The army’s project manager for new weapons, Douglas Tamilio, said: ‘’This is the first leap-ahead technology for troops that we’ve been able to develop and deploy.’

A patent granted to the bullet’s maker, Alliant Techsystems, reveals that the chip can calculate how far it has travelled.

Mr Tamilio said: ‘You could shoot a Javelin missile, and it would cost £43,000. These rounds will end up costing £15.50 apiece. They’re relatively cheap.

Lehner added: ‘This is a game-changer. The enemy has learned to get cover, for hundreds if not thousands of years.

‘Well, they can’t do that anymore. We’re taking that cover from them and there’s only two outcomes: We’re going to get you behind that cover or force you to flee.’

The rifle will initially use high-explosive rounds, but its makers say that it might later use versions with smaller explosive charges that aim to stun rather than kill.

SOURCE

Hang on there ... a bullet that only stuns?  What kind of stupidity is that?  You KILL the enemy, you don’t stun them. Dead enemies are the goal. Aren’t they?

Posted by peiper     on 11/30/2010 at 10:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Military • USA •  
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   Monday - November 29, 2010

queer american traitor and classified material ….

Well I guess by now you are all inundated with the news regarding the WikiLeaks thing.  It’s everywhere here as you would expect.
Some folks now have reasons to dislike us but it shouldn’t matter too much cos they didn’t like us before either. But it has caused one hell of a problem and of that there isn’t any doubt.

Some of what’s being leaked is interesting okay, but I still think the ppl responsible need to be dead and I might even include their families. I say that only because that might be the only way to discourage others.  Frankly, I feel as though America has been attacked again, but in a different way.
I suppose also you’ve already read about the fag responsible for the initial leaks. 

Something awfully wrong with our security for so much to be taken. But then, that’s how spies and saboteurs get away (for awhile) with so much. Like good con men, I guess they’re believable and trustworthy. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be allowed so close to classified material. 

Bradley Manning: The prime suspect of giving files to WikiLeaks

The prime suspect in the leaking of top secret documents to the WikiLeaks website is currently confined to a cell at a military base in Quantico, Virginia.

By Nick Allen in Los Angeles

Bradley Manning, 23, enlisted in the US Army in 2007 and became an intelligence analyst in Iraq, sifting through classified information at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad.

Born in a small town in Oklahoma he went on to spend part of his childhood in Wales, attending a secondary school in his mother’s home town of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.

He was there from the age of 13, returning to the US during his sixth form years, and fellow pupils described him as a “computer geek”. After arriving in Iraq the young soldier, who is gayqueer, complained of feeling socially “isolated” in the military.

As he spent his time looking through classified information for up to 14 hours a day, he is believed to have become increasingly disillusioned by US foreign policy, once describing “military intelligence” as an “oxymoron”. Manning is said to have tracked down and communicated with Adrian Lamo, a well known former computer hacker in the US, who he thought would help him get information out.

But Lamo later alerted the US authorities and provided them with a series of online exchanges between the two men.

Manning was alleged to have told Lamo that he had found “incredible, awful things that belonged in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, DC”. He was also said to have boasted that he had used blank CDs to download classified information while pretending to be listening to Lady Gaga.

Manning’s clearance would have given him access to the Secret internet Protocol Router Network used by US military personnel, civilian employees and private contractors. However, investigators are trying to establish whether he had help, both from inside the military, and from civilians.

FAG SOURCE

I don’t know about you, but there really is something about that face that screams smash, break, rip off. 

Posted by peiper     on 11/29/2010 at 06:26 PM   
Filed Under: • Military • USA •  
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   Sunday - November 21, 2010

TSA Confiscates Nail Clippers From Soldiers Returning From Afghanistan. u couldn’t make it up.

Well, I hardly know what to make of this story.  If it isn’t a joke I know what Drew will say (almost) cos he’s already lost it on this subject.
So Drew, if you’re feeling ok and are on site, please.  Maybe a glass of wine before you read this.  Or something stronger. Right. Forget the wine.
A double shot of something strong and be sitting down.  Somehow, I’m doubtful this is a gag.  If it’s true it deserves an entire page of moonbats and nothing but the link to the story. 

Unbelievable.

So found myself at theodore’s world reading this.

H/T THEODORESWORLD

TSA Confiscates Nail Clippers From Soldiers Returning From Afghanistan

A friend of mine sent me this about his TSA experience. He, unlike most of us, was coming back into the country from Afghanistan on a military charter

As the Chalk Leader for my flight home from Afghanistan, I witnessed the following:

When we were on our way back from Afghanistan, we flew out of Baghram Air Field. We went through customs at BAF, full body scanners (no groping), had all of our bags searched, the whole nine yards.

Our first stop was Shannon, Ireland to refuel. After that, we had to stop at Indianapolis, Indiana to drop off about 100 folks from the Indiana National Guard. That’s where the stupid started.

First, everyone was forced to get off the plane–even though the plane wasn’t refueling again. All 330 people got off that plane, rather than let the 100 people from the ING get off. We were filed from the plane to a holding area. No vending machines, no means of escape. Only a male/female latrine.

It’s probably important to mention that we were ALL carrying weapons. Everyone was carrying an M4 Carbine (rifle) and some, like me, were also carrying an M9 pistol. Oh, and our gunners had M-240B machine guns. Of course, the weapons weren’t loaded. And we had been cleared of all ammo well before we even got to customs at Baghram, then AGAIN at customs.

The TSA personnel at the airport seriously considered making us unload all of the baggage from the SECURE cargo hold to have it reinspected. Keep in mind, this cargo had been unpacked, inspected piece by piece by U.S. Customs officials, resealed and had bomb-sniffing dogs give it a one-hour run through. After two hours of sitting in this holding area, the TSA decided not to reinspect our Cargo–just to inspect us again: Soldiers on the way home from war, who had already been inspected, reinspected and kept in a SECURE holding area for 2 hours. Ok, whatever. So we lined up to go through security AGAIN.

This is probably another good time to remind you all that all of us were carrying actual assault rifles, and some of us were also carrying pistols.

So we’re in line, going through one at a time. One of our Soldiers had his Gerber multi-tool. TSA confiscated it. Kind of ridiculous, but it gets better. A few minutes later, a guy empties his pockets and has a pair of nail clippers. Nail clippers. TSA informs the Soldier that they’re going to confiscate his nail clippers. The conversation went something like this:

TSA Guy: You can’t take those on the plane.

Soldier: What? I’ve had them since we left country.

TSA Guy: You’re not suppose to have them.

Soldier: Why?

TSA Guy: They can be used as a weapon.

Soldier: [touches butt stock of the rifle] But this actually is a weapon. And I’m allowed to take it on.

TSA Guy: Yeah but you can’t use it to take over the plane. You don’t have bullets.

Soldier: And I can take over the plane with nail clippers?

TSA Guy: [awkward silence]

Me: Dude, just give him your damn nail clippers so we can get the f**k out of here. I’ll buy you a new set.

Soldier: [hands nail clippers to TSA guy, makes it through security]

This might be a good time to remind everyone that approximately 233 people re-boarded that plane with assault rifles, pistols, and machine guns–but nothing that could have been used as a weapon.

Posted by peiper     on 11/21/2010 at 04:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous • Stoopid-People • USA • War On Terror •  
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   Wednesday - November 17, 2010

HISTORIAN AND MR. EGO BLAMES BUSH AGAIN,AGAIN,AGAIN,AGAIN.BAD BUSH, NAUGHTY USA …

And this bit of Bush bad mouthing is from a conservative.  I’ve read one or two of his history books but think I need to question a bit more his conclusions. He makes statements here I know aren’t spot on.  For example, he says “It is probably no coincidence that Nazi Germany employed the most brutal security methods of any nation in the Second World War, yet had the worst intelligence about its enemies.”
Yeah but not because they used torture.  The Russians sure as heck were their equal if not their betters when it came to torture.  As it happens, I’ve just finished a book called “Stalin’s Follies” and what an eye opener that was.  Anyway, German intel mostly failed for other reasons and the Soviets had em beat at that too.
Bottom line ... according to this loony tune, as usual, it’s all due to Bush. It’s ALL his fault.

Sometimes I just have to post things like this.  Not saying our people haven’t made mistakes or wrong footed something. But I question things like this.

In this war, the West is supposed to stand for democracy, freedom and truth. But Guantanamo has become a global byword for repression and cruelty, conducted in the name of the U.S. and its allies. 

Bullshit Mr. Hastings.  It’s being fought to keep the scummy bastards at arms distance. I don’t buy the democracy and freedom thing as regards the ragheads who pray with their ass in the air and brainwash their women to accept subservience as normal.  Talk till you’re blue in the face, those folks have no use for and wouldn’t know what to do with truth and freedom and democracy. And you only have to read the signs they happily hold before the cameras in your own streets when they protest democracy and freedom.  The only freedom they approve of is theirs. And the freedom they want is the freedom to bury the west.
And they eventually will do just that as long as there are folks like you who should know better, who give them the moral support they need by bad mouthing our own side so publicly. Putz!  With regard to all the money that will be given away to the terrorist scum. That’s what happens in both our countries when you allow civil rights lawyers to run things.

COMMENTARY: MAX HASTINGS

This is the price of Blair’s slavish backing for Bush

Many people in this country will be very angry – and rightly so – that ‘British’ former inmates of Guantanamo Bay detention centre are to receive compensation from the taxpayer of up to £1million each.

The beneficiaries are people who may have legal title to British citizenship, but have shown themselves at least sympathetic to Al Qaeda, and bitterly hostile to the West.

Binyam Mohamed, for example, was arrested in Pakistan eight years ago on suspicion of planning a ‘dirty bomb’. Omar Deghayes, 38, was born in Libya, moved to Britain as a child but preferred to live in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

Even if there was insufficient proof of their participation in terrorism to secure court convictions, most of those who were released to Britain from American custody regard themselves as foes of this country. Now they are about to get rich out of us.

This is an ugly story, which once again seems to highlight the weakness of the West, reveals the exploitation of human rights law which makes us a soft touch and involves huge waste of public money.

However our government had little choice save to approve this out-of-court settlement. It was advised that, if these men’s cases went to full hearings, the legal costs would be enormous, sensitive intelligence would be made public and, in any case, the Government was bound to lose.

All litigation involving Guantanamo detainees is fatally compromised by the fact that some, if not all, are now acknowledged to have been subjected to torture. Britain’s intelligence services at the very least knew how they were being treated.

Some victims allege that Secret Intelligence Service or MI5 officers were present at their interrogations. Crucially, the Bush administration has been exposed as having lied systematically about its maltreatment of prisoners while being aware it was taking place.

Indeed, an American security expert says: ‘What happened at Guantanamo is a case study in everything that was wrong with the Bush administration.’

After 9/11, when Washington’s neo-conservatives declared their misnamed ‘war on terror’, Bush and his cohorts decided that extraordinary times demanded extraordinary measures. There followed a bonfire of legal safeguards against the mistreatment of suspected terrorists.

Washington sought somewhere to hold out of reach of federal jurisdiction. The American-owned Pacific islands of Wake and Guam – and even the possibility of an aircraftcarrier at sea – were all considered.
Claims: Inmates of Guantanamo allege that extreme torture technique, including waterboarding, are used

Claims: Inmates of Guantanamo allege that extreme torture technique, including waterboarding, are used

But in Guantanamo Bay, with its unique legal status as a U.S. base leased from Cuba, the CIA could use extreme interrogation techniques (including waterboarding) to force the prisoners to confess their ‘crimes’.

In his memoirs published last week, former president Bush claims that as a result of these controversial interrogation techniques, vital information was obtained from the prisoners which meant that lives were saved in Britain and America.

However, I know no one in security circles on either side of the Atlantic who believes this. For although torture sometimes persuades hard men to talk, it seldom induces them to tell the truth. It is probably no coincidence that Nazi Germany employed the most brutal security methods of any nation in the Second World War, yet had the worst intelligence about its enemies.

Here’s what some readers have to say.

We dare not speak otherwise the Thought Police will be kick our doors in. They don’t seem to very successful with real TERRORISTS, DO THEY?

- Notyetavet, Blackpool, 17/11/2010 09:55

Pandering and appeasement; is what I call it.
- Mark Rosmar, Romford, Essex, 17/11/2010 07:30

Couldnt have put it better...I would have added gutless as well

- Eddie, Southampton, 17/11/2010 09:55

What a shabby useless heap of garbage we have governing this country, show me proof before you give my money away. I do not believe the recipients of these payments are totally without complicity in trying to destroy the fabric of our society.

- Ron Styles, Yorkshire, 17/11/2010 09:47

HERE’S A LINK TO ALL THE REST

Posted by peiper     on 11/17/2010 at 04:25 PM   
Filed Under: • muslims • Terrorists • UK • USA • War On Terror •  
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an American silent film star, long forgotten, passes away at 99. RIP, ‘Baby’ Marie Osborne

I’ve long had an interest in old movies, the people who made them and the stars of a bygone era.
I find it quite hard to watch too many of the old silents however.  They’re almost embarrassing to view. Not all of course. Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton were my favorites, Charlie Chase wasn’t bad either.  But I could never watch Chaplin.  I can’t understand why folks thought he was funny, but hey. That’s why we have choices and there’s choc. and vanilla.

Well, in today’s paper I caught the obit for this former child star and a major one she was. And forgotten by all, sadly.  People of course remember Shirley Temple, and then there was the fabulous Baby Rose Marie who in later years stared in the Dick Van Dyke show. By that time of course she was Rose Marie. Anyway ... this is ‘Baby’ Marie Osborne and she predates the other two I mentioned here. An interesting life and story. And sad as well.

For all I’ve read on the subject, I never once came across this name. I’d be willing to bet not many Americans have either. But leave it to the Brits to run her obit and remind us.

‘Baby’ Marie Osborne (RIP)

‘Baby’ Marie Osborne, who died on November 11 aged 99, was an early child star of silent films and a favourite with First World War audiences; she made her film debut aged three, and soon appeared as the lead in almost 30 pictures, including her most memorable title, Little Mary Sunshine.

Her fame was, however, short-lived. By the time of her 10th birthday her career was almost over and her fortune dissipated. “I set the trend for virtually every other child star that followed,” she said almost 90 years later.

Helen Alice Myres was born in Denver, Colorado, on November 5 1911, and at the age of three months became the foster daughter of Leon and Edith Osborn (the “e” was a later addition). At the suggestion of her foster mother, her name was changed to Marie.

The Osborns left Denver for Long Beach, California, in 1914, and soon found jobs acting with the Balboa Amusement Company. Unable to afford a babysitter, Leon and Edith took Marie with them to the studio, where she came to the attention of the director Henry King.

King had wanted to cast a male toddler in Maid of the Wild (1915), but liked Marie’s bob hairstyle, and guessed that, with the right wardrobe, she could easily pass for a boy. Soon recognising that he had a potential star on his hands, King urged Balboa to put her under contract.

Later, under his supervision, King had Little Mary Sunshine (1916) especially written for her. The film, which King directed, tells the story of an infant who is suddenly orphaned and taken in by the parents of a man who has been ditched by his fiancée. The scenes starring Baby Marie, as she was billed, remain the film’s most engaging, and made her a star.

Together King and Marie produced a series of successful films, including Joy and the Dragon and Shadows and Sunshine (both 1916), Told at Twilight (1917) and The Locked Heart (1918). The child was well paid for her efforts. “I couldn’t quite understand all the attention being paid me,” she recalled. “I was earning $300 a week when the average American was making less than $1,000 per year.”

Such was her success that, in 1917, Leon and Edith Osborn formed their own production company, Lasalida, and released a string of Baby Marie pictures. In 1918-19, at the height of her popularity, a merchandising deal with a New York toy manufacturer saw Baby Marie Osborne dolls on Christmas wish lists for little girls across the globe.

By 1920 she owned three vast properties in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, and was driven about town by a dapper chauffeur in a 1907 Hudson.

But her star then began to wane in the face of competition from younger, cuter girls. Baby Marie travelled America to re-engage with her once loyal audience, but the tour did little to reactivate her flagging career. By the time she entered her teens, she had retired.

What happened to the money remained a mystery to Marie Osborne. “I was the first of Hollywood’s washed-up child stars. There was a trust fund, but I never seemed to have received anything from it,” she recalled. “My foster parents lived a gilded life.”

THE REST IS HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/17/2010 at 01:22 PM   
Filed Under: • OBITITUARIES • USA •  
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   Saturday - November 13, 2010

Student, 13, told to remove Stars and Stripes from his bike ..  when will we start killing lefties?

This can only happen in a PC state in a situation with libtards in charge of things.  I really wish there were some way of removing the pc crowd, by any means, who are responsible for teaching and brainwashing a generation into buying into this sort of crap. Jeez I really hate the bastards.

Student, 13, told to remove Stars and Stripes from his bike… to avoid ‘racial tensions’ with other pupils

By Daily Mail Reporter
13th November 2010

A California middle school student was told to remove a U.S. flag from his bike to avoid ‘racial tensions’ with other pupils.

Cody Alicea, 13, was told not to fly the flag from his bike while at Denair Middle School, in Sacramento, after other students made complaints, according to KCRA-TV.

District superintendent Edward Parraz said that racial tensions at the school boiled over during the Cinco de Mayo holiday - a national holiday in Mexico.

Mr Parraz said: ‘The First Amendment is important. We want the kids to respect it, understand it, and with that comes a responsibility.

‘Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know, bring their Mexican flags and they’ll display it, and then of course the kids would do the American flag situation, and it does cause kind of a racial tension which we don’t really want.

‘We want them to appreciate the cultures.’

The teenagers parents said he flies the flag from his bike as a tribute to service veterans in his family.

His father Robert Kisner said: ‘He’s got that flag on his bike because he’s proud of where he comes from.’

The student folds the flag up and keeps it in his backpack during classes, the TV station added.

FLAG SOURCE

superintendent Edward Parraz said the following.

‘Our Hispanic, you know, kids will, you know’

Huh? you know, you know?  What’s with this guy? I think we can overlook a wetback accent. But should not a school superintendent be able to string a few words together better then that?
Word is that the flag was reinstated but I’m not pacified.  How could that happen to begin with? Teach the fuckin wetback kiddies that our flag takes precedence.  One right no immigrant motherhumper has, is the right to be ‘offended’ by OUR FLAG. Damn it! What the hell is wrong with ppl today?
If our flag offends you, get the fuck out of my country you stupid assed pile of shit.  And who the hell is teaching school kids that they should be offended in the first damn place? 

Posted by peiper     on 11/13/2010 at 04:04 PM   
Filed Under: • Commies • Insanity • Politically Correct B.S. • Stoopid-People • USA •  
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   Sunday - November 07, 2010

sorry I checked my inbox tonight. rcob!  can’t we please drop the damned UN?

Damn it I really thought I was outta here earlier.  Checked inbox before shutdown and found this bloody £”!!&^*%* thing.  Who are these foreign god damn effin jerks to tell my country how to do things in our own back yard.

United States Placed In Human Rights Hot Seat

The United States has been defending its human rights record before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council.

A 30-strong US delegation was grilled by more than 80 states on issues ranging from the Guantanamo detention centre to racial discrimination. Switzerland called for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

The US was the 136th UN member state to be scrutinised by allies and adversaries in the UN rights body, as the Obama administration opens itself up to a council that was shunned by his predecessor.

US Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, head of the high-level delegation, said she was honoured to present the first US Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

“We take our place in the UPR process with pride in our accomplishments, honesty in facing continued challenges, and a commitment to using the international system to elevate and advance the protection of human rights at home and abroad,” she told the packed meeting room in Geneva.

Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and Iran, some of the US’s fiercest critics, were among the first to speak during the three-hour meeting.

The Cuban ambassador, Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, called on the Americans to end their embargo against his country.

Iran’s delegation urged the US to “halt serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law including covert external operations by the CIA carried out on pretext of combating terrorism”.

Many countries raised similar issues such as the death penalty, failure to ratify key human rights conventions, the treatment of migrants, racial discrimination, US prison conditions, the closure of the Guantanamo detention centre and related abuses allegedly committed during the war on terror.

Death penalty

Switzerland, like Ireland, France, Britain and a host of others, called on the United States to bring in a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

Ireland? where they’re throwing bombs again. France? Britain?  Oh that last one is a gas. Britain?  Where most burglars even with a record do not see the inside of a jail?  Britain, where the average man on the street and women too, favor the death penalty. But hey, that’s just the law abiding ppl and who listens to them anymore. Britain? Where more then a thousand VIOLENT criminals are walking the streets free as birds cos the jails are crowded?  Switzerland?
I have a message for all you stupid hand wringing, bunny hugging, bed wetting, butt fuck ass wipes.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES!!!!!!  DROP FUCKIN DEAD SHIT HEADS!  DO IT NOW so we don’t have to listen to your pious bullshit.
Switzerland ... Tell ya what dip shits.  We’ll end the death penalty if all of you holier then tho overpaid fat cat stuffed shirts take ALL the violent prisoners we have waiting on death row, into your country.  With no possibility of return to the USA.  You house the miserable bastards. At your expense.  Or don’t you love mankind quite that much?  You only love em removed by some miles where you won’t have to put up with the problem.  Oh woo-hoo. The Swiss took a few Gitmo prisoners. How thweet you are. Kiss,kiss.  Wait till they turn on ya, and they will.  You gonna send em back?

You guys can flame me if ya want to but I’d be very happy if somehow some way some terrorist found a way to bring down the UN building. I hate the idea of that false money grubbing place on our shores. I’m tired of listening to Russia give us advice on rights.  I’m tired of all the human and civil rights groups messing about and really, really would just love to gun ALL the bastards down.  It’s become an industry we don’t need meddling in state affairs. And, most are foreign based as well, with offshoots operating in the USA.

Oh yeah ... please notice our not so glorious president has allowed this latest UN forum where President Bush (for all his faults) ignored it.

There’s lots more to read and get steamed about. 
I really don’t think I need this damn newsletter. Do I?  Jeesh.

READ ALL THE REST HERE

Posted by peiper     on 11/07/2010 at 01:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal • United-Nations • USA •  
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   Saturday - November 06, 2010

hurray for our side and SCREW our critics on Any Questions in Scotland. Brits will understand.

Posted by peiper     on 11/06/2010 at 08:59 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal • Politics • USA •  
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   Thursday - November 04, 2010

What a shame we can’t have a Tea Party in Britain, says Richard Littlejohn in daily mail

This is just a portion of the Littlejohn column today. I thought you’d enjoy it and there’s more HERE

What a shame we can’t have a Tea Party in Britain
By Richard Littlejohn
Last updated at 3:41 PM on 4th November 2010

Victorious Tea Party candidate Rand Paul put it succinctly. ‘People don’t understand why they should have to balance their family budget, but Congress doesn’t.

What has been refreshing in America this past week was to see ordinary citizens on the streets and on the airwaves demanding massive reductions in government spending and more control over their own lives. Americans don’t believe government has all the answers. It’s not what are they going to do about such-and-such. It’s what can we do about it.

All we seem to get in Britain, and on the BBC in particular, is a procession of entitlement junkies lining up to denounce the ‘cuts’ and demand ever more unaffordable State largesse.
America’s Tea Party movement is lazily, deliberately, misrepresented as a bunch of bigots, zealots and racists – the standard Washington insider, mainstream media slur.

Those Tea Party supporters I’ve met tend to be decent, concerned citizens, worried about their families’ futures, who believe their voice is ignored in Washington. They are small business owners, lawyers, housewives, none of whom fit the received-wisdom stereotype.
Of course, all manner of nutters attach themselves to any cause. We’ve got more than our own fair share of bigots and zealots. What could be more bigoted, for instance, than comparing modest reductions in housing benefits to the Holocaust?

As for the condescending allegations that Tea Party supporters are all ‘angry’ and motivated by hatred, how would you characterise the deranged reaction of the British Left to the Coalition’s plans to cut our own crippling budget deficit, bequeathed by Labour?

Angry doesn’t begin to describe it. Foaming-at-the-mouth would be more accurate.

Nor are we in any position to sneer at some Tea Party candidates as crazies, given that until recently Parliament contained the likes of barking mad Lembit Opik, famous Cheeky Girl enthusiast and flying saucer obsessive; and George Galloway, last seen wearing a leotard and pretending to be a cat in the Big Brother house.

Posted by peiper     on 11/04/2010 at 11:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • UK • USA •  
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   Wednesday - November 03, 2010

Out of touch and out of favour: the future looks bleak for Barack Obama…

Simon Heffer reports on American elections ... No further comment from me, but when you read all he has to say, you might have a thing or two to add.
Heffer is btw, a conservative. But keep in mind that often times Brit cons and American cons aren’t always the same animal.  But rest assured, this fellow is no weepy eyed liberal. 
This has been edited so see the link for all of it in full.

America has taken stock of Mr Obama’s presidency – and it doesn’t like what it sees.

By Simon Heffer .

In recent days both the President and his rather clumsy Vice-President, Joe Biden, have been touring America trying to get the Democratic vote out. They do not appear to have been very successful.

The combination of corporatism and overconfidence, and the economic failure it brings, are familiar to Britons from Leftist governments of both main parties since the war. Harder for us to understand is how the head of government has, in the past two years, become a prisoner of Congress, particularly since it is a Congress that, until today, his own party dominated. Self-interest on the part of many in the American political class ensured that the $787 billion stimulus package was spent unwisely and unproductively. 

Mr Obama should have dealt more firmly with his congressmen, but he didn’t. His failure to communicate with his electors has been matched by a failure to engage with his colleagues, many of whom spent the election campaign trying to distance themselves from him in the hope of being returned.

He has a historically low 37 per cent approval rating. Towns all over America are blighted by poverty and dereliction. The black community, which so closely identified with Mr Obama, is especially hard hit. But the suffering is widespread. In the past three years, 2.5 million homes have been repossessed and average incomes have come down by five per cent. Fifty million people have no health insurance, a 25 per cent increase in 10 years.

Mr Obama’s apologists maintain that he has prevented a second Great Depression. However, the problem is that his supporters in 2008 expected more than that. There has been a haemorrhage of confidence in America’s future. The surge of the Tea Party reflects the common observation by formerly apolitical middle Americans that “we’ve forgotten who we are”. Such people imagine they have lost their national identity. They see a culture of freedom being wiped out by what they call “socialism”: an ideology of which the health care act is the prime symbol.

SIMON HEFFER

Posted by peiper     on 11/03/2010 at 11:32 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • USA •  
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   Monday - November 01, 2010

you guys ready?

H/T VILMAR where I stole it from, with thanks.

Posted by peiper     on 11/01/2010 at 01:14 PM   
Filed Under: • Politics • USA •  
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