Monday - October 25, 2010

Obama’s Democrats are about to take a hiding in the mid-term elections…..

The exact dimensions of the Democrats’ rout are not yet clear. Nor is it clear whether Republicans will advance serious policies to roll back their expansion of government, and whether voters will support them if they do. Britain may give us some clues on that. But we do know that Americans who embraced “hope and change” two years ago are now rejecting the change they were given.

For the entire commentary of course, see the link.
America does get covered over here as you see.  I found this to be very interesting but also rather long.  So of course it’s cropped for space and breathing room.

Why the US has turned against Obama

Obama’s Democrats are about to take a hiding in the mid-term elections. Michael Barone explains why the US has turned its back on big government.

By Michael Barone

Why have American voters gone so sour on Barack Obama’s Democratic party? It’s a question that must puzzle many in Britain who – Conservative as well as Labour and Lib Dem – welcomed Obama’s election two years ago and saw him leading America and the world into broad, sunlit uplands. But now it appears that Obama’s party is about to take what George W Bush called a “thumping” in the mid-term elections on November 2.

It looks to be quite a fall. Obama won the popular vote in 2008 by a 53 to 46 per cent margin. That’s not quite a landslide, but he won a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic candidate in history except for Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. More than John Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Grover Cleveland; more even than Bill Clinton.

And Democrats won the popular vote for the House of Representatives – a key index of public support – by a 54 to 43 per cent margin. That was their best showing since 1986.

Polls now suggest that those percentages could turn upside down. Republicans lead on the generic ballot question – which party’s candidates will you support for the House of Representatives – by an average of 49 to 42 per cent. In no previous election cycle since the Gallup organisation started asking the question in 1942 have Republicans led by more than 4 per cent. Now in Gallup’s “low turnout” likely voter model they lead by 17. Republicans seem very likely to win more – perhaps many more – than the 39 seats they need for a majority in the House and might, if they get lucky, win the 10 seats they need for a majority in the Senate.

After the 2008 elections, Democratic strategist James Carville predicted that Democrats would dominate US elections for 40 years; Republican strategist Karl Rove had predicted something similar for his party after George W Bush’s narrower win in 2004. And Tony Blair’s New Labour dominated British politics for nine or 10 years after its first landslide victory in 1997. But the Obama Democrats’ dominance turned out to last not 40 years but 40 weeks – until Republicans overtook Democrats in the polls in August 2009.

What gives?

read it all here

Posted by peiper     on 10/25/2010 at 05:48 AM   
Filed Under: • Editorials • Politics • USA •  
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   Monday - October 11, 2010

comrade mayor of NY knows what’s best … just do as told for ur own good.

It’s only taken me four days to get this posted. Jeesh.  Talk about timely.

New York’s comrade mayor wants to ban low income people from using food stamps to buy sugary drinks. He says the drinks lead to obesity. Fine. Lets attack that problem by attacking low income and welfare recipients. Oh sure. That’ll work. 

Don’t know what your take on this will be.  Here’s mine.

It’s a dumb idea. I am not for welfare cheats any more then many here. But this is truly ludicrous.  If being fat is a danger, is the state now going to restrict everyone else from buying bacon and sugared drinks?  If not, why not? If it’s bad for one group it has to be equally bad for all.  AND ... if someone is using food stamps to buy a six pack of coke because they like coke with a meal, that doesn’t mean they are living on coke and getting fat on coke. Or any other drink.

The aim here as stated is to fight obesity.  If they mean that, then it has to be across the board.
I can see it now. Prohibition returns. Oh happy day. Speakeasys with secret passwords where they only serve regular Coca-Cola (NOT Diet Coke). Gangsters hijacking supermarket deliveries of Coke.  Just like the olde days. Maybe we can even go back to having REAL JAZZ again. Oh boy. Can’t wait. 

New York to ban low-income families from using food stamps to buy sugary drinks

By Daily Mail Reporter

New York has announced plans to ban the use of food stamps to buy sugary drinks as it steps up its anti-obesity campaign.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor David Paterson have asked the U.S. government to ban the purchase of fizzy drinks and sweetened fruit drinks with the federal vouchers used by 42million low-income families.
They called sugar-sweetened beverages the largest single contributor to the obesity epidemic.

Mr Bloomberg said: ‘This is so simple. It’s not like a disease like cancer we don’t know how to cure.  This we know how to cure. Stop eating extra calories.
‘There’s nothing wrong with an occasional one. But the kids are drinking an enormous amount of full-sugar beverages and they would switch to diet beverages.
‘So next time one of the companies calls, I’m sorry. Our children’s lives are more important than anything else.’

The New York mayor has used the power of the city government to promote a range of health measures, including cuts on the amount of salt, a ban on trans fats in restaurant food and a requirement for chain restaurants to display calorie counts.
In 2003, the city banned smoking in bars and restaurants which sparked furious protest at the time but has since become widely accepted.

Campaign: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor David Paterson have put forward the plan and said sugary drinks the largest contributor to obesity
Mr Paterson has also sought to combat obesity and raise money with a proposed tax on sugary drinks, but it was blocked by pressure from the beverage industry.
The American Beverage Association criticised the proposal as ‘just another attempt by government to tell New Yorkers what they should eat and drink, and will only have an unfair impact on those who can least afford it’.

getinna car. take a ride to the rest of the article.

Posted by peiper     on 10/11/2010 at 11:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Brother • USA •  
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a pretty girl and her planes in palm springs,ca.

This all started because RichK gave us a link to Abbot and Costello.  IMHO, two of the VERY GREATEST comedy duos of my lifetime and generation.
I was lucky enough to see them live and in person, as theaters used to promote live shows. Ah, my flaming youth. I saw them do Who’s On First at the Star Theater.  Or Theatre for you Brits.  So anyway ....  One thing led to another and the link Rich gave us also gave us .....

Of course I didn’t post this just cos she’s pretty and speaks nice. Of course not.  The video was shot in Palm Springs, Ca. which is only a short distance from our Ca. home when in the USA.
The reason I’m posting it now is that I want you good folks to see our air museum and also I thought some might need help in geography.
Oh wait ... there isn’t too much to see re. the museum.  Oh well ... we can’t have everything. I guess you’ll just have to be satisfied with the photos and other stuff at the link.  I know ur disappointed but hey. I try.

H/T RICHK, SPORTS ILLSTR. LINK

Posted by peiper     on 10/11/2010 at 07:11 AM   
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy • USA •  
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   Thursday - October 07, 2010

the flag of islam will one day fly over the white house. just try it. go ahead. make our day.

I don’t get to see any American TV over here.  I probably could I suppose. But I don’t catch a lot of Brit TV either. Cept news stuff on the puter. Just not enough hours in the day.
Anyway, I caught this at one of my mainstay news sites, Europe News.
To be honest, I dislike that lefty know it all bitch Christiane Amanpour so much that I’d have passed on the program mentioned anyway.  And I am familiar as most who live here are, of Choudray. 

Media Ignore Threat of ‘Flag of Islam’ Flying over White House

Business Media Institute 06 October 2010
By Dan Gainor

Imagine the furor if a televangelist went on a major TV network and told viewers Christianity would conquer the world and that the flag of Christianity would fly over the White House.

Network reporters, Hollywood celebrities and the pundit class would have seized the moment as an example of the evils of America’s supposed Christian theocracy. The story would have been tied to the dangers of evangelical religion and likely even to the Tea Parties. Across the oceans, radical Islamists would do as they did during the Koran burning episode or after the Danish cartoons were published. They would riot. Cars, businesses and maybe even embassies would burn. People would die.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. What did happen is far scarier.

ABC News held a townhall meeting, bringing on experts from left and right to ask the question: “Should Americans fear Islam?”

Thanks to ABC, we know the answer. Americans absolutely should. One of the network’s “experts” was Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary, who Britain’s Sunday Times called “the leader of the now-outlawed extremist group Islam4UK.” His comments on “This Week” bore out everything conservatives criticize about radical Islam. “We do believe as Muslims the East and the West will be governed by the Sharia,” Choudray said. “Indeed we believe that one day the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”

According to Choudary, “Islam has a solution for all of the problems that mankind faces.”

You don’t need to read between the lines to know what he was talking about. That is, if you could find those lines anywhere. Our allegedly unbiased media have done almost nothing with the story. No network used the clip except ABC and that was just in its original program. Only two major newspapers mentioned it, and none of the top papers – New York Times, Washington Post, etc.

Even ABC, which aired the program, tried to spin things against conservatives. Host and pro-Islamist Christiane Amanpour told one guest that “a series of politicians have used the Islamic center, have used sort of Islamophobia and scare tactics in their campaigns.” The dictionary calls a phobia “a persistent, irrational fear.” There’s nothing irrational about fearing radical Islam. It’s stupid not to do so.

Instead, the only things the media fear these days are the continued decline of their profession, and the rise of the Tea Parties. You can find a story bashing Tea Party folks for not recycling. That kind of petty criticism is to be expected. The media hate them (...)

europe news

Posted by peiper     on 10/07/2010 at 08:31 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims • USA •  
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   Friday - October 01, 2010

bbc radio on ground zero and … are spooks keeping an eye on bmews?

Is BMEWS being monitored by folks in Waterlooville?  I’d say good afternoon but as you know, it isn’t. Rain and more rain and wind and more predicted.
But is suits me. For now. 

OK ... the post.  No embed because there isn’t one for BBC Radio. In any event, it runs about 28 minutes and concerns itself with:

The Report - Ground Zero Islamic Centre

The plan to build an Islamic Centre near Ground Zero has polarised the US and become a key political issue. Linda Pressly explores the fallout. Could it change America?

This was broadcast last night.  It’s very interesting, and Pamela Geller of ATLAS SHRUGS was interviewed on this program. 

BBC RADIO 4

Posted by peiper     on 10/01/2010 at 06:29 AM   
Filed Under: • muslims • USA •  
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   Tuesday - September 28, 2010

another drunk driver, another set of victims.  la angles pitcher NICK_ADENHART, dies result of crash

Caught this article in Brit paper .... 

Stories about drunk drivers are a dime a dozen and the only thing that sets this one apart is the fact that one of the victims was a baseball player for the LA Angles.  Since it’s American based I would imagine that folks at home in the USA already know about it.
My reason for posting it is to ask a question.  Since the only photos I can find are the ones in the Daily Mail article (see link below), I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how people would have died in this wreck.  We see the front of the van but not much else. The article doesn’t say how fast the drunk bastard was going, the windshield doesn’t look broken or shattered.  It also doesn’t say if they were wearing seat belts or not.  Apparently the drunk was able to drive away so how much damage did his car have?  It just seems like such a freak like accident.  And as almost always the way, the drunks usually walk away unscathed leaving victims behind.  And this SOB had a record of DUI.  Life in jail is too good for this creep.

Drunk driver found guilty of murder of new star pitcher for LA Angels after horror crash

By David Gardner

A drunk driver faces life behind bars after being convicted today of murdering promising Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends.

Andrew Gallo, 23, showed little emotion as a jury read out the guilty verdicts at Santa Ana courthouse in Orange County.

Adenhart, 22, was killed just hours after pitching six scoreless innings in his season debut in April, 2009.

Gallo had spent hours drinking beers and shots at three different bars with his stepbrother before running a red light and slamming into a car driven by Adenhart’s friend, 20-year-old Courtney Stewart.

The young driver, a student and former cheerleader at Cal State Fullerton, and passenger Henry Pearson, a 25-year-old law school student who was building a sports management business, were both killed instantly.

Adenhart died later in surgery.

A third passenger, Jon Wilhite, survived, but was severely injured when the impact of the collision separated his skull from his spine.

Gallo’s blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit at the time of the crash. He fled after the crash, but was later caught and charged.

SEE WHAT I’M REFERRING TO HERE, SOURCE AND PHOTOS

Posted by peiper     on 09/28/2010 at 09:38 AM   
Filed Under: • Celebrities • Crime • USA •  
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   Thursday - September 23, 2010

GOP: A Pledge To America

BMEWS readers:

This is a little update on the post I put up last night.

The GOP has released the official version of it’s Pledge. It’s a 48 page Acrobat file with lots of pictures and fancy fonts and stuff; the document is 135MB large.

You can download it, or read it online, at the GOP webpage here, but with millions of other folks trying to do the same thing, it’s going to take a long time.

So I made up a quickie page and put a copy there. Go there and download it, then read it and think things through. There’s a lot more in there than the tidbits I posted on last night. This is life or death for the Republican Party, so I think it’s worth a bit of study from everyone who is going to vote.

Here is the link.

I’ve got more sanding and painting to do today, so I won’t have a chance to study it until later this afternoon. So let’s get the conversation going this evening and for however long after that it takes to decide if this is genuine and if it’s what we need or if it’s what we want.

UPDATE: I reloaded the file and made sure that it can be read if it downloads completely. It takes a while, so be patient.

Drew458

Posted by Drew458     on 09/23/2010 at 10:21 AM   
Filed Under: • Republicans • USA •  
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   Tuesday - September 21, 2010

darn those cheap skate americans … they aren’t giving enough says an american. euros love it

European I think just love it when an American confesses and admits what failures we are and how but for us poverty would be ended, gorebal warming would cool, there’s be no wars and the common cold might be a thing of the past.

Yeah,yeah I’m exasperated/exaggerated.  Hey say ....is there a combination of those two words? Anyway, saw the headline in morning paper and so booted to post earlier then usual.  We had some washing to do and the weather forecast said the next couple of days would be sunny and even into the 70s.  Mind you, 70 does not always translate into mild or warm.  So we went to the creek and brought back everything to hang on our line and the sun immediately went in.

Right. A maddening headline in the paper as follows.

APATHY IN US HINDERS CAMPAIGN ON POVERTY

Right.  It’s our fault again.  Jeesh. Tell ya what.  I just discovered that the reason the problem is always in front of us is, new generations get fed the pap and sob story and it just goes on.  Nothin’ new here.  Where’s the money been going all these years?  Maybe between em Vilmar and Drew took it and lost it all in Vegas.
Do any of you folks recall the collections made in schools when we were all young? 
I’m afraid Americans are just gonna have to do more .....  !%$£%^&*(*(&^%%$£$&^*(!!^

American lack of interest in achieving the Millennium Development Goals amounts to a failure of leadership that dooms efforts to revitalise the campaign to failure, one of its leading architects has said.

By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi

Prof Jeffrey Sachs, a New York-based economist, told The Daily Telegraph, that the world would fail to meet the eight targets to reduce deprivation adopted in 2000 because the US had effectively turned away from the process.

World leaders gathered on Monday in New York to discuss progress towards the goals, which aimed at halving poverty, ensuring every child completes primary school, tackling killer diseases including Aids and addressing the impacts of environment change.

“In the US, it’s not as if people are debating whether we are going to meet the promises or not, there is simply no debate happening at all,” said Prof Sachs in an interview. “If the Obama administration began committing what it promised it would, right now, all the MDGs could be met in Africa by 2015.”

Developed nations have already delivered less than half the £32 billion of increased aid promised at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit. By contrast Britain was one of the few nations showing sustained commitment to meet its promises on the MDGs.

While Britain is on target to meet a pledge to give 0.7 per cent of national income in aid by 2013, the US has fallen behind, giving just 0.2 per cent in 2009.

source for NAUGHTY AMERICANS

Just so nobody mistakes me for a compassionate and caring conservative.  Screw Africa! Screw the entire 3rd world.  I for one do not care.  Let em eat cake.
Zillions and zillions over the last 60 or so years and nothing changes except the bloated egos of rock stars who do aid concerts, and the pockets of the fixers.
The west throws money at peoples who feed rats milk.  Can not make that one up. It’s true in one place. Heaven knows what other examples are out there.
Britain pledges what?  While at the very same time making cuts here at home.  Oh that makes sense. Freekin ijits.

I want an air conditioned cave somewhere that also has broadband, maybe Utah. Or Montana. Someplace nice and remote and TV with only one channel that broadcasts Dodger games.  Bad enough when foreigners bitch about us and who likes that.  But when an American jumps on the bandwagon ... Nuts!

Posted by peiper     on 09/21/2010 at 04:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Colleges-Professors • USA •  
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   Thursday - September 16, 2010

Tea Party’ rebels score a stunning poll breakthrough ….

As the grassroots ‘Tea Party’ rebels score a stunning poll breakthrough, is this the start of the 2nd American Revolution?

By Tom Leonard
Last updated at 12:05 PM on 16th September 2010

They want to purify their party and their country, returning America to the honest, founding traditions of thrift, small government and self-reliance from which, they say, it has strayed.

And, like the protesters from whom they take their name (the Bostonians who demonstrated against British taxation by dumping tea into the city’s harbour in 1773), the Tea Party rebels are - by their own account - as ‘mad as hell’.

But whether they are a bunch of dotty extremists or not, the Tea Party phenomenon suddenly poses a serious threat.

On Tuesday night, the upsurge in anger among grassroots American conservatives, with both Barack Obama and the Republican Party, made itself spectacularly felt in the tiny, affluent state of Delaware.
Enlarge Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

In a move that has proved electorally successful across the U.S., Sarah Palin described Christine O’Donnell as one of her ‘mama grizzlies’ - a term she has coined to describe her uncompromising conservative allies

In one of the least expected results of the primary season - in which candidates are chosen for November’s mid-term elections - Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party-backed dissident Republican, beat a moderate and establishment favourite to win the party’s nomination for vice-president Joe Biden’s old seat in the U.S. Senate.

O’Donnell is a perennial candidate and former abstinence counsellor, who promotes complete celibacy before marriage and has a fierce stance on guns (pro), government spending (anti), abortion (anti) and masturbation (anti - it’s a sin, she says).

Her strong beliefs had prompted many - especially local Republican leaders - to write her off as unelectable.

THE MAIL ON THE TEA PARTY

Been reading just a little about this O’Donnell lady.  New to me of course and probably to many of you too.  Based on the little I read, I am wondering if she’s electable. 

Here’s an excellent report from Toby Harnden in the Telegraph.  These people do keep up with happenings in the USA. How they report what they see, well now ....  that might make for an interesting study.  I haven’t seen the Times of London today, and there’s no on line version for them anymore.  Times tends toward the liberal pov, although they have been featuring a number of conservative opinions over the last year.  I’m afraid to look at the Guardian. So far left I wonder why they don’t simply change their name to the Daily Worker or Pravda. Once in a while I do check and usually come away so damn angry I wanna shout at them. But hell. Who’d listen?

Tea Party trouble is brewing in Washington
It isn’t only Republicans who are threatened by Sarah Palin’s angry brigade, says Toby Harnden.

By Toby Harnden

Just what does the stunning victory of Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party darling and Sarah Palin protégée, mean for the Republican Party? That was the question being asked across official Washington yesterday, where many livelihoods depend on the answer. It was also entirely the wrong thing to focus on.

O’Donnell’s selection in a primary as the party’s candidate for Delaware – and the victories of six other Tea Partiers against the leadership’s candidates – is about much more than the battle for the Senate, or even who will be in the White House after 2012.

O’Donnell is a party apparatchik’s nightmare. Although attractive and personable – there is a physical as well as a political resemblance to Palin – she is a flawed candidate who will struggle against her Democratic opponent in November’s midterm elections.

A strong social conservative, she has campaigned not only for sexual abstinence but against masturbation. Although she promotes fiscal conservatism, she appears to have chaotic personal finances and once filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit claiming gender discrimination against a conservative group she had worked for. It was later dropped.

O’Donnell could grow as a candidate but thus far she has shown she is not ready for prime time. Her television appearances have been as painful as Palin’s interviews with Katie Couric in 2008, showing her to be ill-prepared and only vaguely familiar with key policy areas.

Yet the point to take from Delaware is that none of this really matters. To say that voters are angry is an understatement. They are furious, disgusted and resentful. They are fed up of being told by besuited party honchos and professional politicians whom they should vote for, and what they should think.

READ MORE HERE

And finally .... see what ya make of this.  Clever.  And no friend to us on the right. But still clever. And almost always amusing.

Posted by peiper     on 09/16/2010 at 09:31 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • USA •  
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   Monday - September 13, 2010

trailor trash killer, hi-jinks by quango punks and treason rewarded with success .. todays news

I tell ya guys, the damn world is barking MAD and getting worse.
And don’t tell me it’s only here in the UK, which is screwy enough.

Some nut case in Ky. didn’t like the way his wife made the eggs and so killed her and four others.

NUTCASE TRAILOR TRASH KILLS FIVE

Speaking of barking mad.  Some criminals here (UK) have been given shopping money. Oh yeah. It’s most likely a right I guess.  The 21 worst offenders in a London borough are being given free membership to a gym, travel cards and money to go clothes shopping at the expense naturally, of the taxpayers.  It’s reported that 16 of the 21 are drug addicts, shoplifters, muggers, burglars and car thieves.

From the UK there is:

Mother obsessed with computer game let her children live in squalor and left her dogs to starve to death

The 33-year-old woman played the Small World game almost non-stop on the internet for months while her children were reduced to eating cold baked beans straight from the tin with their fingers.

Her home became filthy, with rubbish strewn over the floor and the bodies of her two dogs, a German shepherd and a lurcher, left for two months in the dining room it was revealed.

MOMMY DEAREST

Health and safety police taken an axe to apple trees… in case fruit proves to be dangerous

By Daily Mail Reporter
retired shop worker, 80, said that several of her neighbours in the street in
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were also shocked by the decision, adding: ‘Those trees made the street look beautiful. They were there for 35 years – if they were dangerous then why did they leave them there all that time?

NO ROOM FOR JOHNNY APPLESEED

Liberty - Equality - DIVERSITY and Multiculture.  The white man’s additional burden

Taxpayers fund council ‘adventures in Sindia and Lesbianandgayland’ as part of sessions on equality and diversity

By Chris Hastings
Council bosses are being asked to imagine they are English economic migrants in the fictitious region of Sindia, or go on an ‘adventure in Lesbian-andgayland’ as part of publicly-funded training sessions on equality and diversity.
More than 30 managers from Brighton and Hove City Council have been on the two-day ‘Leading on Diversity’ course in the past year – at a cost of several thousand pounds.
In the session entitled Adventures in Sindia, the English Exodus, staff are ......

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR TAXPAYER CASH

Meanwhile, since the taxpayer still has some money left to burn …..
You could not make it up. Or perhaps you could given the times we live in.

Five star hotels, $1,000 meals and a $500 taxi ride from Brussels to Paris provided for executives at ..

THE ANTI- POVERTY QUANGO.

High life of third world poverty quango bosses: Officials ‘lived it up in luxury hotels at taxpayers’ expense’
By Jason Groves
13th September 2010

Officials at an anti-poverty quango are ‘ living it up’ in luxury hotels at taxpayers’ expense, devastating documents reveal.
Executives at the Commonwealth Development Corporation also dined in London’s finest restaurants, according to Freedom of Information replies seen by the Daily Mail.

HOW MUCH IS FIRST CLASS IN THAT PLANE PLEASE?

And this is only a taste from ONE newspaper.  It’s discouraging.
We read about kids killing their parents, parents killing their kids, kids knifing other kids and then getting out of jail after spending less time then originally called for.  That must send a powerful message. Yeah.  Hey bro, easy. You too can get away wid killin’ you be da right minority de jour. What the hell am I saying?  It isn’t just any particular minority anymore.  Hang on, there is one and we all know which one. But I wasn’t referring to religious groups.
Anyone can just about beat any rap when there is hardly any serious retribution.  Oh yeah, I forgot.  There’s this myth that authorities seem to be enamoured of.  Namely that you can “shame” miscreants or hardened criminals into changing their ways.  Bull!  Was a time in western culture when folks tried to hide some of their more base activities because once upon a time people did feel shamed.  No more though. 
When something as stupidly gross as the Osmond family and Lady Ga Ga become icons of a generation, when pop stars lecture heads of state, hells bells.  You gotta know the world has tilted on its axis.  But what really, really convinces me that not only is the world a mad and crazy place, not only misguided with the west a failing culture ….  but one can commit treason and be rewarded with financial success and a reasonably happy life thereafter.  No Penalty … pass jail go directly to the money pot …..  NEVER FORGET and NEVER FORGIVE this TRAITOR!

Or is this only being seen here and not the USA?  No, probably alive and doing well in the states I imagine.
There just doesn’t seem to be a price for treason anymore.  RCOB!

Posted by peiper     on 09/13/2010 at 10:54 AM   
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • UK • USA •  
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   Saturday - September 11, 2010

did America miss the lesson learned by Britain in ‘05?

I’m very much at loose ends today.  Couldn’t be here yesterday, and thought I had some things for today. I suddenly realized what day this is. I woke up not knowing.  Till I picked the papers from the front porch chair and saw the date.  9/11 wasn’t featured on the covers of any and little inside. Just as well in a way because I find it impossible to view the photos of that day.  It’s burned into my memory forever, I can see it all with eyes open. No need to look at the photos.
I don’t guess there’s any reason for them here to give over the front page every year on this date. Which leads me to ...

Should I post anything at all?  Of course I should although it won’t be much as I have to shut down in a while. Anyway, since the damn terrorists have managed to screw up our air travel which wasn’t a holiday to begin with, no reason not to continue here almost as usual.  By almost I mean I don’t feel very funny today and haven’t anything funny I want to share. There just isn’t anything to laugh at today.

Since I came to BMEWS quite late, not even sure of the year, ( 07? - 8?) I had never read Skipper’s Dead Zone before. It was new to me. I think I found the site the same year he passed away.  So my thanks to Drew and OCM who I understand found it.

So then, staying with this subject, that is, terrorism ... this came up today.

Have Americans ignored or never learned the lesson of Britain and home grown terrorists since the bombings by muslims in July of 05?  If memory of past and recent comments and rants made here at BMEWS serve me well, which I think echos the thinking of many conservative and right wing blogs, not too damn many of us took that melting pot thing quite as far as the left does.  Or says it does anyway.  I certainly can’t speak for all of you, so speaking just for myself, I view that potty thing with a most jaundiced eye.  And most especially where muzzies are concerned. And btw, they aren’t the only ones who’ve not integrated themselves with their host country country.

So here. See what you think.  Does this guy have something here?

9/11 anniversary: US authorities slow to act over homegrown terrorists

American authorities were slow to take seriously the threat posed by homegrown terrorists and are “stumbling blindly” in trying to address the problem, according to a new report.

Alex Spillius in Washington

It said that for too long the United States trusted that despite the war on terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its melting pot of nationalities and religions would protect it from the sort of with domestic terror seen in Britain.

Compiled by the former heads of the September 11 Commission, which published the official findings into the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the US, the report said America should have learned from Britain’s experience.

It said that prior to the 2005 London Underground attacks by Britons of Pakistani descent, it had been believed that Muslims in Britain were better integrated, educated and wealthier than their counterparts elsewhere.

A similar complacency in the US meant that the authorities believed that Somali-American youths travelling from Minnesota to Mogadishu in 2008 to fight for al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked group were an isolated case.

At the time, investigators however found that their inquiries into domestic radicalisation quickly spread to the other cities.

The report warned such those recruits could return home to plot terror and said an American citizen could carry out a suicide bombing on US soil.

In 2009, the US suffered its first serious domestic terror incident when 13 army personnel were shot dead on a base in Fort Hood, Texas. The Muslim army psychiatrist charged in the case wrote about suicide operations in emails.

A naturalized American from Pakistan with suspected links to al-Qaeda has been charged with trying to blow up his truck in New York’s Times Square in May.

“Our long-held belief that homegrown terrorism couldn’t happen here has thus created a situation where we are today stumbling blindly through the legal, operational and organisational minefield of countering terrorist radicalisation and recruitment occurring in the United States,” said the report by the Bipartisan Policy Centre’s National Security Preparedness Group.

For the first time the White House this year added combating homegrown terrorism to its national security strategy, while the FBI liaised with Somali communities in an effort to counter radicalisation.

The report pointed to the lack of a government agency specifically charged with identifying radicalisation or working to prevent terrorist recruitment of US citizens and residents.

HOME GROWN TERROR

Posted by peiper     on 09/11/2010 at 11:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • UK • USA •  
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   Thursday - September 09, 2010

LA LEADS NATION IN VACANT LOTS AND BRITS GET READY TO BOOT SOME QUANGOS. THEY SAY.

It’s getting late and I forgot to check my mail till late. Busy with other things. Good grief ... 8:32pm. I have to get outta here. Up too many hours again.

So … I checked the mail before shutdown and got something from Rich K. Oh great Rich. Thanks.
Now I have to stay at this darn machine cos what you sent seems to tie in with something different but similar over here.
So, I had to run out to the trash bin outside and retrieve one of our papers I threw away, forgetting I needed something from that paper.  Rich’s mail reminded me.

H/T Rich K

Faster than you can say “We’re from the government; we’re here to help,” along comes the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles with another expensive boondoggle that a) has already turned productive land fallow, b) has dragged on for decades without progress, c) destroyed a rare successful business in South L.A., and d) will almost certainly end up producing the one thing the CRA is good at producing: empty urban prairieland.

Fall in love all over again with the Slauson Central Retail Center, a project that has been kicking around since the 1992 riots, and which is up for a new round of approvals and taxpayer soaking. The L.A. Times’ Patrick McDonnell tries to tell a tale that—another hallmark of any deal involving the CRA—is about as straightforward as your intestines:
About $7 million in public subsidies are committed to the $15-million project, according to official figures. Advocates say it’s worth it. They envision 300 “living-wage” jobs at a 6.5-acre site that is now a fenced-in eyesore at a busy intersection in South Central Los Angeles.
“What the community is going to get here is a wonderful reuse of an industrial site,” said Jenny Scanlin, project manager for the Community Redevelopment Agency.

The agency seized the affected parcels through eminent domain from the former owners, including Kramer Metals, a family-run scrap-metal recycling business that has long been a fixture in the industrial zone.

This is not a long article, and I urge you to read it at …

http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/07/los-angeles-leading-the-nation

I’m always tempted to say, unbelievable. Tempted till I give it a seconds thought.  Very believable.
Well, here’s something in the same vain but different.

Are there “QUANGOS” in the USA?  Or maybe the same thing but a different name.
How’s this for a job.  Two days a week BMEWS. As in, 2. A week.  Some put in as many as three days a week. Poor dears.

And get paid £130,000. As in, one hundred thirty thousand pounds which in USA dollars comes out to one hell of a lot of money. You think that’s a lot?  Yeah.  Well one lefty lady gets £140,000. Pocket money guys.  Another quangocrat gets £200,000. Yikes.  Two hundred thousand ….  In a country where the present govt. says some services must be cut, money must be saved somehow as this country has financial problem that need fixing.

The govt promises at least four are getting the chop. My question is, are they gonna be replaced?  There are ten listed in the article, four are to go we’re told.  We’ll see. But the whole damn quango thing is quicksand that devours only money. Taxpayer money.  And these quangos were put in place by the former left leaning Labour govt. But it would not surprise me to hear from our LyndonB, that the cons have had their hands greased in the past in the same way.
Here. Take a gander at this.  Unbelievable?  Nope.

Go to the link and enlarge the photos you see and read about these people and what they are soaking the public for. And oh yes I forgot to mention it.  Some of them have no real workplace experience.
One of these bloodsuckers was appointed head of the regulatory body for aviation and declared she knew nothing about aeroplanes. Hey, I’m reminded of the song, “Nice Job If You Can Get It”

Bonfire of the quangocrats: Four more public sector chieftains facing the chop

By Steve Doughty

Four more public sector chieftains face the axe following the decision to sack ‘incompetent’ quango queen Jenny Watson, Whitehall sources said yesterday.

They include a former Labour cabinet minister as well as the head of an agency devoted to squeezing more money out of council tax payers.

Miss Watson was first on the hit list. The ‘modern militant’ angered ministers when, as chief of the Electoral Commission, she blamed others for the election night polling fiasco that saw hundreds deprived of the chance to vote.

‘She is not fit for the role. The Audit Commission has lost its way and the last thing we need is someone like her on board. She has no previous experience outside the public sector.

‘We have had a bonfire of the quangos; now we are having a bonfire of the quangocrats.’

Officials have also been criticised for taking expensive trips abroad to discuss tax with foreign counterparts.

Now let’s take the axe to this smug lot...

He may not have film star looks, but Eric Pickles, the rotund Communities Secretary, is painting himself as a hero of the Coalition.

The straight-talking Yorkshireman’s decision to dismiss Left-wing quango queen Jenny Watson from the Audit Commission is a welcome salvo against these unelected and scandalously wasteful bodies.

Here’s a tiny example, at the link you will read way more. And you should if for no other reason then your entertainment if you live outside the UK.
For the folks here, ain’t nothin’ funny about any of this.
See this goofy looking guy?

This is Sir Clive Booth.

He only gets £38,000 a year. Small pots compared to many.  One of his claims to fame, well, He took over the lottery fund in 2004 after his predecessor was removed following disclosure that money from the fund was going to failed asylum seekers and for breeding guinea pigs.
Under his reign, among other things, millions go to encouraging policemen to play football with asylum seekers and to train judges in Siberia to compensate battered women.  Honest, I am in favor of helping those unfortunate women. But look, this is Brit money and aren’t there any battered women here as well as kids, that could use that money? 

So take a peek at the link. I HAVE got to get outta here, it’s 9:25pm and I’m not too sure I even know what I’m about anymore. Tired for sure.
All the photos of 10 of these folks can be enlarged and you will be able to read the unbelievable yourselves.

QUANGO PHOTOS AND TEXT

Posted by peiper     on 09/09/2010 at 02:28 PM   
Filed Under: • UK • USA •  
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   Wednesday - September 08, 2010

burning the koran might not actually be the best idea, but not for pc reasons …

The American church, if you want to call it that, has I am to understand, only 50 members. Is that a church or a cult?
Whatever, I see no point to burning the koran.  Whats it do for our side?  Naturally, half the world will see it as an American thing and blow it out of all proportion.
Then the president will have to go on TV and apologize.

The only reason I’d be for it to be truthful, would be to get up the noses and annoy the folks who don’t like us anyway and won’t no matter what we do.
Downside of course is that it just gives our enemies grist for their mill.  Not so sure I like that idea.
How do you feel about it?

Vatican condemns Koran burning

Irish Times

The Vatican added to world condemnation of plans by a Florida church to commemorate the September 11th attacks on the United States by burning a Koran, calling it an “outrageous” act.

The Vatican added to world condemnation of plans by a Florida church to commemorate the September 11th attacks on the United States by burning a Koran, calling it an “outrageous” act.

Leaders ranging from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to the head of the Islamic Society of North America and the top US commander in Afghanistan have denounced plans by the pastor of a tiny Florida church to burn a copy of the Koran.

In a statement today the Vatican said it had heard with great concern of the planned commemoration of the attacks in 2001 which killed 2,752 people.

“These deplorable acts of violence, in fact, cannot be counteracted by an outrageous and grave gesture against a book considered sacred by a religious community,” it said.

“Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection.”

Pastor Terry Jones, who heads a congregation of 50 at the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, says he scheduled the Koran-burning on the anniversary of the 2001 atrocities to stop what he sees as the encroachment of Sharia in the US and because “we must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats.”

The Obama’s administration made clear that it deplored the planned event, which State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley described as “un-American.”

“I am heartened by the clear and unequivocal condemnation of this disrespectful, disgraceful act that has come from American religious leaders of all faiths,” US secretary of state Hillary Clinton told American Muslims at the State Department last night as she hosted an Iftar, the meal at which Muslims break their daily fast during the month of Ramadan.

US attorney general Eric Holder reportedly called the planned Florida event “idiotic” during a closed-door meeting with a small group of religious leaders.

General David Petraeus, the head of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said the burning could “endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort” to stabilise the Afghan situation.

“It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems, not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community,” Gen Petraeus said.

I kinda think I’d want to pay more attention to the general. He’s in a position to know what he’s talking about.

MORE AT THE IRISH TIMES

Posted by peiper     on 09/08/2010 at 02:07 PM   
Filed Under: • International • Religion • USA •  
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folks who just do not understand the tea party …

If you follow the link to her editorial and scroll down, there are tons of comments from both Brits and Americans.  And there is let us be honest please, quite a bit of race involved among many people who just can not abide a president of color. A Negro. 
As Drew once pointed out some time ago.  And I agree btw, it shouldn’t matter and it doesn’t to many, if a person is a Martian and green. What he says and what he does count. And for me personally, no matter what color, if he or she is one the left I am automatically against them.  I don’t like the left, I can hardly tolerate liberals and in fact, I can’t tolerate them.  But I do honestly think that our critics have some basis in truth for once.  There are an awful lot of plain old fashioned racists who have found a legitimate cover to hide behind in the TP.  I think it’s wrong to try and hide that.  On the other hand, there’s lots of folks who don’t hate anyone but just naturally prefer to hang out with other folks just like themselves.  And they are tagged as racists, unfairly I think. 

With regard to the BBC and radio which is often what I listen to, it isn’t so much that their on air ppl say or pontificate about the TP.  No. But what I often hear are interviews with Americans who are mostly on the left side of things.  Not so much screaming Marxist activists.  But rather soft spoken and well speaking Americans who, when they are not hinting at race and the TP, still manage to paint a pretty racist picture of the USA.  Some smart asses on the left who are on panel shows almost always find a way to say something not altogether kind about my country and of course, they are still blaming Bush for the state of the world. And still mentioning how inarticulate he appeared. One even suggested he’d never read a book.

And that’s how things are.

Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

The BBC completely fails to understand the Tea Party movement

By Janet Daley

With the smug incomprehension in which it takes so much pride (can’t understand – won’t understand!), the BBC sets about the American Tea Party Movement as if it were a cross between the Klu Klux Klan and the German neo-fascist brigade. Not once in all the demonic depictions I have seen and heard (last week’s Newsnight package was particularly outrageous) have I heard a mention of what the TPM is actually about: taxation. (Note to BBC editors: the movement is named after the Boston Tea Party because it is protesting about the imposition of higher federal taxes and over-weening controls on citizens who believe their voices have been ignored.)

The British generally and the BBC in particular have a real problem understanding the obsessive suspicion in which the power of central government is held in the US. This is not some funny redneck eccentricity: it is fundamental to the Constitution which gives individual states much greater sovereignty than the countries of the European Union enjoy.

The states have independent judicial systems (some states have capital punishment, others do not) and separate taxation systems (some have sales taxes, others do not). Only a Supreme Court ruling can over-turn state law by, for example, declaring something (such as abortion) to be a legal right which a state legislature may not deny.

Traditionally there is only one nationally imposed tax - federal income tax – which is designed to pay for those functions that must be carried out by national government. Resistance to the Obama healthcare reforms is as passionate as it is precisely because it imposes a federal requirement to purchase health insurance which seems to contravene the basic economic freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.

The BBC obviously finds it impossible to believe that ordinary people could actually take issues like this seriously. (They can only be racists or hillibilly know-nothings.) The Corporation really ought to encourage its correspondents to get out more and talk to some of the articulate Americans who don’t spend their lives in liberal salons.

SOURCE AND COMMENTS

Posted by peiper     on 09/08/2010 at 11:48 AM   
Filed Under: • UK • USA •  
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