Happy New Year

I hope your 2011 is a lot better than 2010.

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Cartoon Round Up

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New Year predictions

I'm utterly crap at making predictions I just hope that 2011 is a better year for me and mine, you and yours too of course, though considering the accuracy of my predictive talents, you might regret me wishing you that.
Still it's fun having a go, so here's my wish list/prophecy of doom.

Politics will be riven by scandal (as ever) and at least one big name in the Tories will be forced to resign and the Lib Dem popularity in the polls will continue to nose dive though the coagulation will survive the year.
The EU referendum petition will get the required number of signatures and the government will be forced to debate the issue. The difference in opinion between what the government think and what the people want will become clearly apparent and Cameron will use the Tory whips to crush any motion for a referendum causing a massive party row and weakening his leadership though not fatally (unfortunately)
The EDL numbers will continue to grow as will the number of cases of Muslim Grievance Syndrome. Society tensions will also continue to grow as multiculturalism, diversity and equality prove to be hollow shells for keeping society happy.
Sport, haven't got a clue who will win the premiership, but West Ham will be relegated.
Global Warming and the mean Green environmental machine will finally be exposed for the charade it is, expect politicians to move onto the next biggest cash cow/tax raiser aka biodiversity, still green and still a charade.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most accurate, I'd give all the above a 3, I know how accurate I can be, I avoid bookies like the plague as I'd be their best customer.

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Happy New Year - 2011

More about → Happy New Year - 2011

Some of My Favorite Billboards

The following billboards began to pop up shortly after it became obvious to most people that Obama was some kind of terrible mistake that a majority of the voters made in 2008. This being America, they began to express themselves in many ways from town hall meetings to mass marches on Washington, D.C., to some wonderful billboards.

More about → Some of My Favorite Billboards

Descriptive or insulting?

I don't really know any homosexuals, well I do know one, but I've never discussed the issue with him, I don't even think he knows I know, certainly his parents don't. I have discussed various issues they have online in a few debate forums I haunt and mostly found them to be nice guys, level headed and not at all bothered that some feel uncomfortable around them so long as they aren't actually being abusive about it. The EDL have a Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender division which has always struck some as odd, well at least until you discover what Islam has in store for gays, they are treated well on demo's most people being of the opinion that what you do in your bedroom is your business, they don't mind being called gay either, it's all in context really...

Daily Mail.

Jobcentre bosses are investigating claims that staff taunted a couple with homophobic abuse during weeks of discrimination - calling them 'gay boys'.
Steve Mellor, 23, and Roy Pearson, 28, say they were victimised for being homosexual whenever they went to claim their benefits.
The Department for Work and Pensions is now looking into claims that staff abused them and labelled them with the derogatory term.

Is "gay boys" a derogatory term though? It does depend on context, certainly it is descriptive, but was it meant to be insulting, or just that a description of the two guys and not meant to be insulting. I can certainly think of worse insults, though they claim they had no problems in in previous Jobcentres, just in this one when they declared themselves to be a couple. So, were the Jobcentre staff being rude and insensitive? I doubt it, no more than they treat pretty much everyone the same, the places tarnish the soul of pretty much everyone who works or attends them. Nothing quickly gives you a lower opinion of the general public than actually having to deal with them after all. I suspect this is just another compo claim, the guys being "professionally offended" I may be wrong of course, they may just be sensitive souls. Either way they should no more be upset about the designation "gay" if they are gay than I would by the designation "breeder" (I have the kids to prove it)
Personally I'm of the opinion that they should be told to "grow a pair" and be less sensitive, but I think that about most offended by insult cases anyway.

More about → Descriptive or insulting?

Pfc Bradley Manning, A Warning Writ Large

By Alan Caruba

“All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.” --Sun-Tzu (--400 B.C.)

His cherubic face can be found on the many articles about an audacious assault on the military and diplomatic security of the nation. Liberals have adopted Private First Class Bradley Manning as their hero because he is gay and he despises America, two things about which they care deeply.

In a chat log published in June by Wired News, Manning “bragged to Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned him in, that he was going to unleash ‘worldwide anarchy in CVS (comma separated value) format.’”

For Manning the thrill came from contemplating that “Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” adding “Everywhere there’s a US post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed.”

Manning’s infamy goes back to a story in the July 27, 2010 Wall Street Journal that reported “Military investigators are checking computers used by Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst charged this month with leaking classified information, to see if he is the source of thousands of military documents published Sunday by WikiLeaks.”

According to Lamo, there is not any doubt as to the source of the data provided to WikiLeaks. Manning bragged about it to him. “No one suspected a thing,” said Manning, adding, “Kind of sad.”

What’s sad is that it will take months, perhaps years, before Manning is brought before a military tribunal and likely sentenced to life imprisonment instead of being put before a firing squad.

We are, after all, talking about one of the most massive acts of espionage against the United States in the modern era. Those defending Manning appear to be completely blind to that and, indeed, are accusing the U.S. of “torturing” Manning by keeping him in solitary confinement while he awaits courts martial.

Manning had been arrested in May on suspicion of leaking a video of a U.S. helicopter attack. Based in Iraq, he rapidly became the main suspect for the WikiLeak data dump.

Openly gay, despite the then-existing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that allowed him to remain in the Army, Manning had experienced rejection by a homosexual lover, declaring on his Facebook page that he was “livid” after being “lectured by ex-boyfriend.”

When you’re twenty-two years old, astonishingly immature, and “frustrated with people and society at large”, does that give you permission to betray your nation?

At about the same age, I was working in G-2 Army intelligence in a minor capacity. It never occurred to me to hand over secret documents to enemies of the nation. How many other young men over the years have been given this level of trust by their nation? A lot!

It took, however, just one Bradley Manning to think the rules of conduct, let alone his oath of service, could and should be set aside as a balm for his hurt feelings because his boyfriend dumped him.

This is why the armed forces resisted Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell when it was first foisted on them. From long experience, both military and civilian intelligence personnel knew and understood that homosexuals were particularly vulnerable to blackmail and, even as attitudes changed toward the gay and lesbian population, their emotional stability remained open to question.

It is why today’s frontline Marines in combat do not want to rely on homosexuals in their units, but the military has become so politically correct over the years that even an unstable Muslim Army major was allowed to serve until he killed thirteen servicemen and women at Fort Hood.

Military service is very different from civilian life. It has a different code of honor that dates back to the days of Sun-Tzu.

In a time when the U.S. military is engaged in a war with Islam-fascism and the world is seeking to counter it on every continent, the ancient admonitions about espionage and warfare are still true. There is no one more dangerous to our nation’s survival than a traitor.

Bradley Manning is every warning against permitting gays and lesbians to serve in the military writ large.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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I owe my soul to the company store

It's an old Tennessee Ernie Ford song about the days when mine owners would only pay their workers in chits which could only be redeemed at the company store, the prices were of course inflated and by the time pay day came along they owed money to the mine owner, a vicious and self perpetuation situation where they could not escape their debts.

Express.

NEXT week’s VAT rise means Britons will have to work three extra days before they earn enough money to cover their annual tax bill.
The Adam Smith Institute predicts that “tax freedom day” would fall on May 30.
It means the equivalent of every penny earned by the average worker for the first 149 days of the year will go to the Treasury.
The think-tank said it is six days more than in 2009 and three more than this year.
It is almost entirely down to the extra revenues the Government will rake in by increasing the sales tax from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent on January 4.
It will be the longest period for the milestone since 2007 when it stretched into June and has led to calls for targeted tax cuts next year.
Tom Clougherty, the Institute’s executive director, said: “The fact that we spend almost five months working for the state and only seven months working for ourselves is a shocking indictment of big, wasteful government. Britons are still desperately overtaxed.” 

5 whole months before anything you earn actually becomes yours! 3 days longer because of the VAT hike imposed to try and reduce the debt Labour saddled us with! A government which is still spending more of our money because it refuses to grasp the nettle and reduce its size and scope. A government which pours billions of our cash daily into the EU who still after 15 years can't get the auditors to sign off its books. A government which ring fenced £9 billion of foreign aid whilst pensioners were hit with higher fuel bills and died in the recent cold snap. A government which ring fenced Health Care whilst wages went up and productivity went down. A government so incompetent that they only managed to slow down borrowing rather than get it paid back.
And the Tories used to boast about being the party of small government!
Liars, cheats and economic incompetents!


Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store



Bastards!

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Nullification in 2011!

By Alan Caruba

The great issue of our times is the same great issue of the 1830s. The question is whether Congress can pass legislation or the President issue executive orders that are not authorized by or consistent with the Constitution?

The federal government is a republic composed of separate and sovereign republics.

What recourse do the States have individually and in combination when the central government acts in a fashion that is contrary to the limits and enumerated powers of the Constitution?

The answer, other than an appeal to the courts, is nullification. This term is defined as the assertion that States can and should refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal laws.

This is no trifling matter.

In the past two years since the advent of the Obama administration, the federal government has seized control of one sixth of the nation’s economy, asserting control over the provision of healthcare.

It seized control of General Motors and Chrysler auto manufacturers, arbitrarily casting aside the rightful expectations of their bondholders and other creditors.

It has imposed absurd and invasive demands on air travelers.

It is considering a United Nations treaty that would render the Second Amendment null and void.

It has sued Arizona for enacting an immigration law that mirrors its own.

It is attempting through the FCC to assert control over the Internet.

In the 1860s the issue of state’s rights led to the Civil War.

One hundred and fifty years ago, on December 22, 1860, the State of South Carolina declared its independence and seceded from the Union. It did not arrive at this decision overnight. In fact, on December 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation to South Carolina disputing its right to nullify a federal law.

A South Carolina convention had declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 “are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”

Subsequent to Jackson’s proclamation, Congress passed the Force Act that authorized the use of military force against any State that resisted the tariff acts. A compromise engineered by Henry Clay resulted in the tariff of 1833, designed to reduce southern objections. South Carolina ended its nullification effort, but by 1861 it would no longer bend to the mandates of the federal government.

Contrary to some historical reinterpretation, the Civil War was all about State’s rights. Though President Lincoln opposed slavery, he did not introduce the issue into the conflict until after the awful slaughter on the battlefields that led to the Emancipation Proclamation. It came three years after the war had begun and was intended to introduce a moral dimension to the conflict. Slaves, however, were only freed in the Confederate southern States.

There are many issues worthy of nullification these days.

At the top of the current list is Obamacare and the fact that some twenty States have filed suit against its enforcement clearly demonstrates (1) an intense rejection of it and (2) the willingness of States to use the judicial system to seek relief.

Beyond that, we have entire federal agencies that have no legitimate basis in the Constitution.

The Department of Education should be abolished. The Constitution makes no mention of education as a federal concern. It was and should be up to the States and local communities to oversee general education. Part of the controversy raging these days concerns teacher’s union contracts that are contributing to the bankruptcy of many States.

The Department of Energy, created by executive order, should be abolished. States should have the right to determine how their natural resources should be either protected or utilized. Requiring states to use so-called alternative (wind and solar) energy is seriously wrong.

Likewise, the Environmental Protection Agency, also created by executive order, has so exceeded its original mandate that it has become a lethal threat to the economy and the welfare of all Americans.

Nullification should be utilized to rid us of these and other federal entities that overstep their mission, threatening the Bill of Rights and other constitutional limitations and freedoms.

To learn more about the nullification movement, visit the Nullify Now website and the website of the Tenth Amendment Foundation.

This nation has been heading toward nullification since the 1930s when many of the Constitution’s restrictions of federal power were cast aside. This has brought the nation to the brink of financial collapse. To save it, nullification may be required.

Editor’s note: To learn more about this topic, Tom Woods has written “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 2lst Century.”

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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An uphill task

The Telegraph cautiously dipped its MSM toes into the murky waters of the Islamification of the UK fear today in one of its editorial views. Though the focus of its warning was a strange one in the shape and form of David Cameron.

Telegraph.

The leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage MEP, must have groaned when he learned that the French National Front is now modelling itself on his party. Marine Le Pen, who is poised to take over leadership of the Front National (FN) from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, describes it as a "patriotic" party that has more in common with Ukip than the BNP. Given the sinister resonances that the words "National Front" have in Britain, Miss Le Pen has presented Ukip's opponents with a seasonal gift. "Ukip – backed by the French National Front" is a rhetorical swipe worthy of David Cameron's description of the party's supporters as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists".

We should not, however, be too quick to dismiss reports that a sanitised Front National has succeeded in reaching out to a new constituency. The FN's selling point is its opposition to the "Islamisation" of French public life – but not, it is careful to add, to Islam itself. Miss Le Pen claims that pork is being taken off the menu in French schools and that state funds are being used to build "ostentatious mosque cathedrals". She may never be elected president, but over a quarter of French voters approve of her; at no point in the history of the Fifth Republic has an aggressive Right-wing party enjoyed such support among the middle classes.

It may seem inconceivable that British politics could move in the same direction. But we should not be too relaxed about the fact that populist Right-wing parties have never broken into the mainstream of our politics. Two points need to be made.

First, that Muslims have migrated to Britain in enormous numbers over the past 40 years; one of the heaviest waves of immigration was encouraged by the last government. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimates that there are 2,869,000 Muslims in Britain, an increase of 74 per cent on its previous figure of 1,647,000, which was based on the 2001 census. No demographic statistics are reliable in an era of open borders, but such an expansion is unprecedented.

The second point is that – different political traditions notwithstanding – Britain is beginning to experience French-style anxiety about Islamisation. The fact that many terrorists are Muslims may lead to unfair assumptions about the loyalty of British Muslims. But, at a time when – according to some surveys – around 40 per cent of the Muslim community support the establishment of Sharia, fears of social fracture are understandable. Meanwhile, government attempts to ease tension by empowering to unelected "community leaders" have caused huge resentment. It is worth noting that the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election next month was caused by the disqualification of a Labour MP caught stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment.

Well their facts and figures are mostly correct as far as it goes, though they can't take into account illegal immigration not all of which is Islamic of course. Though they certainly got to the nature of the fear in the setting up of an alien culture with its own Sharia courts (100+ at the last count) and its inbuilt violent association with terrorist outrages. Yes I know not all Muslims are terrorists, but certainly most terrorists are, something which the UK public is at last waking up too.
The thing that got me, is that they seem to want Cameron to do something about it and I rather doubt that he can, certainly not without getting rid of the Human Rights act (a promise he made though isn't keeping) and getting us out of the EU so we can control our borders properly, something he obviously has no intentions of doing.
However the biggest giveaway of Cameron's intentions comes from his support for Turkish entry to the EU, oddly enough pointed out by Dennis Skinner.



Notice that Cameron cannot give a straight answer on this, though this odd statement is telling...

“Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream
Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of
life, not the other way around.” - David Cameron, “What I learnt from
my stay with a Muslim family,” The Observer, Sunday 13 May 2007.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, they integrate with us, we're tolerant of them until they integrate, then their cultural oddities are just that, odd. Instead though they believe we have to change to accommodate them and their views and some are prepared to be violent in order to force us to do so.
So I don't know why the Telegraph thinks Cast Iron Dave will do anything, certainly his political leaning seem to be directly opposed to what the UK public actually want (like most politicians) and mirror nicely what the political classes actually believe is best for us.
Frankly I'll give it another 10 years before it explodes in the politicians faces at the latest. I strongly suspect that Fascist UK plc is on its way and it wont be a pretty sight. Either that or an army driven coup/civil war.
Either way I foresee dark times ahead for Old England as our politicians lead us ever further into cultural division all in the name of diversity and equality.

More about → An uphill task

The "One" Returns

By Alan Caruba

OZYMANDIAS
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Occasionally, when I am watching or listening to Barack Hussein Obama, I am reminded of the poem, “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Shelley was an English romantic poet who hung out with Lord Byron and John Keats, all authentic literary giants. Shelley died at age 30 from drowning. Bryon contracted a fever, dying in Greece at the age of 36. Poor Keats died at age 26. All were dead by 1824. Rediscovered by later generations, they gained immortality.

“Ozymandias” is a poem about a life of over-weaning pride that ends poorly and forgotten. Obama has the first part down. After all, he wrote two memoirs about his life and deep thoughts before he was elected to be the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois in 2004.

By 2007 Obama hit the presidential campaign trail and ended Hillary (and Bill) Clinton’s dreams of returning to the White House. He gave her a consolation prize. He then defeated yet another lame Republican candidate simply by showing up, being younger, and being able to read a TelePrompter better.

What Obama’s campaign is now remembered for is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to redistribute everyone’s wealth, and for throwing his grandma under the bus.

From a very young age, Obama believed he would become President. It might better be called a fixation or obsession.

Obama only met his birth father once in 1971 at age ten, but here again this idea of fixation plays a role. In reality his father was a bigamist (he had a wife or two back in Kenya when he married Obama’s momma), a drunk (he died behind the wheel while soused), and fancied a political career in Kenya that never materialized. One of Obama’s two memoirs was titled “Dreams From My Father.” Yeah, sure.

After Obama Senior, his mother married an Indonesian who adopted their son. His formative years were spent there until his mother divorced again and shipped Barack to Hawaii to be raised by his white grandparents. Progressives, they were friends with Frank Marshall Davis, a communist, one of Obama’s many very left wing influences and associates over the years.

I think that, early on, Obama decided to become the communist messiah to America, but like all communists, he kept that part of his political philosophy a secret from the voters, while dropping hints of it in his memoirs.

When Obama returns from his vacation in Hawaii, he is going to face the toughest two years of his life. Not since 1946 have the voters turned so deliberately on a Democrat president. In 2010 they voted in a Republican majority to the House and narrowed the Democrat margin in the Senate.

Obama called it “a shellacking” but it is better described as a rejection.

Other presidents in the modern era lost their party’s majorities in Congress. Clinton comes to mind and, of course, George W. Bush. Obama’s loss was more than just political, it was personal.

Beyond Congress Obama will have to deal with a vibrant, energized movement, the Tea Party that intends to ensure the Republicans trim government spending and turn back the policy gains Obama put in place with Obamacare at the top of the list.

As far as the rest of the world’s movers and shakers are concerned, Obama is little more than a charming cocktail party guest with little to offer than small talk and leftist bromides.

Only one thing is certain. Obama will be running for re-election the minute he returns to Washington, but he is going to need more than his former vacuous “hope and change” motto and there is small chance of that. In a very real way, the nation has already moved beyond him.

When I see Obama these days, I think of Jimmy Carter, a pathetic former president soundly rejected by the voters, the “author” of endless, largely unread books, and grateful that anyone takes notice of him.

When you see Jimmy Carter today, you’re looking at Barack Obama in fifteen or twenty years.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

More about → The "One" Returns

Where's Al Gore and his Nobel Prize?

More about → Where's Al Gore and his Nobel Prize?

Wonder what the excuse will be at the next election?

PFI, private finance initiatives, supposedly the New Labour way of getting stuff done on the cheap with low payments over a length of time until they were payed off. My parents used to call it "doing it on the never, never."
Naturally it has come back to bite us, like most Labour schemes, at around about £15,000 per taxpayer, approximately 5 times what was said at the time.

Express.

EVERY working family in Britain faces an average total tax bill of nearly £15,000 for Labour’s botched public-sector investment schemes, an MP claimed last night.

New analysis of hundreds of Private Finance Initiative deals set up under the last Government showed repayments are likely to total five times more than previously thought.

The miscalculation arose because Labour ministers failed to assess the long-term costs of the privately-funded schemes.

Senior Tories now fear the ballooning expense of PFI deals may be the most damaging legacy of Gordon Brown’s years at the Treasury and in Downing Street.

Tory backbencher Jesse Norman, who wants PFI providers to give back some of their profits from public sector deals, analysed the expected total costs of the 544 PFI deals agreed under Labour.

He estimates the average repayment cost for every working family will reach £14,800. Labour estimated it would be just £3,100.

Mr Norman, MP for Hereford, said: “Under Gordon Brown, Labour went on a spending splurge with borrowed money which taxpayers’ will eventually have to pay back many times over.

“As a senior Treasury adviser working for Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband bears responsibility for a borrowing trick that will mean future generations saddled with billions in debt.” Private Finance Initiative deals were used by the last Government to secure money for dozens of schools, hospitals and other public sector buildings.

Oh utter joy, not only are we saddled with higher costs and rising prices, it seems there will be no future respite either. Anyone hoping that the Tories might get around to some sort of tax break will be whistling into the wind, any savings they make will have to be ploughed back into paying off Labours largesse for the next 25 to 30 years. Not that the Tories seem to be that interested in cutting back the state, slowing it down a little yes, but actually cutting it back? Well, not that I or any others can see.
To add insult to injury for the taxpayers...

Many PFI deals also oblige the public-sector managers of the buildings to use cleaning or maintenance services from PFI providers, often at a much higher cost.

Labour, wrecking the UK economy from its very beginnings proving once again socialists have no grasp of economics and seem to believe money grows on trees and will never run out.

More about → Wonder what the excuse will be at the next election?

A Blizzard of Lies in The New York Times

By Alan Caruba

“Bundle Up. It’s Global Warming” – December 26, 2010, New York Times opinion article by Judah Cohen.

It’s Orwellian when cold is declared warmth. It’s deceitful and insulting when it occurs in the midst of a huge blizzard shutting down much of the northeast.

I would not even trust the date on the front page of The New York Times because the newspaper long ago lost touch with reality, with sanity, and, one can only assume, readers fleeing to other sources for the news.

When the oft-called “newspaper of record” chooses a day on which Mother Nature is demonstrating what tons of snow and chill air can do to a huge swath of the nation’s northeast with effects reaching Tallahassee, they are either trying to see just how stupid their readers are or doubling down on the global warming hoax they have disseminated since Jim Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute declared we’re all doomed back in 1988.

If you want a lesson in Orwell’s “doublethink”, the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts or ideas at the same time, you need only read the first line of Cohen’s article: “The earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside.” In other words, who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?

Judah Cohen is identified as “the director of seasonal forecasting at an atmospheric and environmental research firm.” No further details are offered such as the name of the firm or Cohen’s academic credentials. Is he a meteorologist? If so, he is one of the worst I have ever encountered.

It happens that I know quite a few meteorologists and climate scientists. One of them is Joseph D’Aleo, an American Meteorological Society Fellow, and editor of a science-based Internet site, Ice Cap. Suffice to say, D’Aleo has been one of a hardy band of skeptics that have countered the global warming hoax with hard science, frequently dissecting the bogus “science” put forth by government agencies including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and other such sources.

In an article titled “Why We Need a New Global Data Set”, D’Aleo wrote the following:

“As I showed in the first analysis, the long term global temperature trends in their data bases have been shown by numerous peer review papers to be exaggerated by 30% to 50% and in some cases much more by issues such as uncorrected urbanization (urban heat island), land use changes, bad siting, bad instrumentation, and ocean measurement techniques that changed over time.”

“NOAA made matters worse by removing the satellite ocean temperature measurement which provide more complete coverage and was not subject to the local issues except near the coastlines and islands.”

‘The result has been the absurd and bogus claims by NOAA and the alarmists that we are in the warmest decade in 100 or even a 1000 years or more and our oceans are warmest ever.”

While Cohen is parroting the World Meteorological Organization’s latest claim that “2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record” in England, the Daily Mail was reporting on December 5 that “Britain, just as it was last winter and the winter before, was deep in the grip of a cold snap, which has seen some temperatures plummet to minus 20C, and that here 2010 has been the coolest year since 1996.”

This parallels the weather occurring now in the U.S. where new low temperature records are being set while cities like Columbia, S.C., had its first significant Christmas snow since weather records were first kept in 1887!

Suffice to say that Cohen’s article repeats the usual blather about melting Artic sea ice while waiting until the very end to admit that “the Eastern United States, North Europe and East Asia have experienced extraordinary snowy and cold winters since the turn of the century.”

A word to all who did not study meteorology; the World Meteorological Organization, a creature of the United Nations is also the mother ship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC, responsible for the Kyoto Protocols that called for limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, was totally discredited in 2009 when the exchange of thousands of emails revealed its chief perpetrators of the global warming hoax were manipulating the climate data it reported.

To trust the WMO or IPCC at this point in time is futile and dangerous. To trust the garbage coming out of NOAA, GISS and other government entities purporting to predict the climate is also to trust the Environmental Protection Agency that will announce in January 2011 its plans to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, claiming they are “causing” a global warming that is not happening.

Americans are being deliberately misled by rogue government agencies with no scientific justification for their continued existence.

As for The New York Times, it is unfit to line the bottom of a canary’s birdcage.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Editor's Note: Over at IceCap.us. editor Joseph D'Aleo added the following to the post of the above commentary. I appreciate his clarification:

"Judah is a meteorologist and a very bright one. He unfortunately works for a company that depends on government funding for modelling and research. They mistakenly trust the temperature data. Judah also has for years confused cause and effect, claiming the snow in Siberia was the cause of the cold weather when it really is the result of the pattern that causes the cold weather. Since snow starts there early, it is a an early indicator of what might be ahead. He should look at sun and ocean cycles for an even early indicator. He also mistakenly claims that ocean warmth drives the climate models when really models don’t handle ocean cycles well at all, can’t reproduce El Nino and La Nina nor the multidecadal cycles. Modelers have tuned the models to have greenhouse forcing drive the climate - both oceans and land."

More about → A Blizzard of Lies in The New York Times

Not Everyone Loves Snow!

More about → Not Everyone Loves Snow!

Making Predictions for 2011

By Alan Caruba

In ancient times a soothsayer could make a good living divining the meaning of chicken bones and shiny pebbles. The modern version is usually some journalist who, looking back over his shoulder, decides he can predict the future. These are often the same people who fail to predict the outcome of elections, sports team rankings, and, of course, the weather.

Who, for example, could have predicted that, in November 2009, the world would be treated to thousands of emails between a handful of utterly deceitful “climate scientists” who were rigging the data in computer models to ensure that everyone remained scared to death of “global warming”?

The result was the breakdown of the 2009 United Nations Conference of Parties 15 climate conference in Copenhagen. This year a COP 16 in Cancun tossed out any pretence about “global warming” and went straight for a scheme to get wealthy nations to transfer trillions to mostly corrupt ones.

History frequently turns on unanticipated events. The attack on Pearl Harbor is a classic example. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is another. For the present generation of Americans, the decade began with 9/11 and is ending with the collapse of the housing mortgage market that began in late 2008, They have marked this first decade of the new millennium as having altered everything that came before it.

One result was the election of a totally unknown and undistinguished junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Hussein Obama. What also followed was the one-party control by the Democratic Party of both houses of Congress with its failed “stimulus” bills, Obamacare, and efforts to extend amnesty to illegal immigrants. The result was the most massive transfer of political power since the late 1940s to the Republican Party.

The President “owns” the unemployment problem in America. He “owns” the outcome of a war in Afghanistan that has been going on since 2001. He “owns” a Democrat Congress that was held in utter contempt by the majority of Americans. He promised change and got it. His political party and its policies are once again in decline.

So, what I am saying is that anyone who says they can predict what will happen in 2011 is just blowing smoke. Get out the chicken bones and shiny pebbles.

What do we know as we anticipate the beginning of 2011? We know that this winter, which began well before the solstice on December 21st, has been brutal thus far just about everywhere in the northern hemisphere. This winter and future ones are going to be longer and far more harsh than anyone living today has ever witnessed. Europe is experiencing the coldest winter in a hundred years. We will likely see records broken throughout the U.S.

The Earth is well into a Maunder Minimum, a dramatic diminution of solar output. When the Sun grows quiet, the Earth gets cold. It did this between 1300 and 1850. We could be looking at hundreds of years in which crops will be affected, reducing food for more than six billion people with whom we share the planet. That’s a recipe for riots and wars.

There is no way of knowing how long the Islamic Revolution will last. With a history based entirely on conquest and domination, the present fever and fervor may take quite a while to sink back into a dank resentment of everything modern, everything that has to do with individual freedom. When your whole understanding of the world is contained in a single “holy” book deemed the word of Allah, there are few options for reform.

We cannot know how long it will take America to work its way out of its economic problems, mostly based on literally insane spending, borrowing, and the over-regulation of everything.

The world is beginning to make plans for a failed America. Our credit rating may drop. How long we can just print money to buy our own debt is anyone’s guess. It’s like moving one’s debt between credit cards. The debt, however, does not go away and the spending (and the waste) never stops.

The Russians and Chinese are already using their own currencies to finance their trade deals, not the U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, in Europe, nations including Great Britain, Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, are on the razor’s edge of financial collapse. Too much socialism. Too little realism.

A former British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was asked what he feared most. “Events”, he said, “events.”

© Alan Caruba, 2010

More about → Making Predictions for 2011

Only 364 Shopping Days Left Until Christmas 2011

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My flag is a flag not a religious symbol!

The Cross of St George is the flag of my country, it has a long history dating all the way back to 275/303 AD. It's known as the symbol that the crusaders wore over their armour, though that isn't as important to the English, well the Christian English at least. It's important to us because it's our flag and St George is our Saint, even though he has little to do (if anything) in our country. The earliest mention of him being by the Venerable Bede way back in 701 AD mentioned as a martyr only. The real significance of the flag comes when it was adopted by England and the City of London in 1190 for their ships entering the Mediterranean to benefit from the protection of the Genoese fleet during the Crusades and the English Monarch paid an annual tribute to the Doge of Genoa for this privilege. In England the Synod of Oxford, 1222 declared St. George's Day a feast day in the kingdom of England. Edward III put his Order of the Garter under the banner of St. George, probably in 1348. The chronicler Froissart observed the English invoking St. George as a battle cry on several occasions during the Hundred Years' War and so the Cross of St George was recognised as the flag of this land, not because of the crusades, but because it prevented our ships being plundered by the Genoese and so became recognised as the symbol of England.
However there are certain British who have a problem with this, despite it being part of the union flag.

Reading Chronicle.

THE English Defence League staged a protest in Reading today (Thursday) in support of a man arrested after hanging a St George’s flag outside a mosque.

Around 20 members of the controversial campaign group came from across the South East to demonstrate outside Reading Magistrates’ Court monitored by a heavy police presence.

Among them was co-founder Tommy Robinson, who told The Chronicle: “Our argument is with militant Islam. What’s far right about protecting women’s rights and gay people’s rights? The problem is the teachers of Islam, it’s got nothing to do with your colour. It all comes back to the Koran.”

Inside the court 37-year-old Tilehurst man Ronald Peterson was on trial for religiously aggravated harassment. The court heard he went to the partially built mosque in Oxford Road, west Reading, on May 30 to protest over the way its planning application was handled by the borough council.

Peterson, with two other men, draped the St George’s flag on a fence, posed for pictures and chanted “E, E, E.D.L” and “England”.

Witness Urfan Azad, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting.

He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the flag needed to be taken off the fence because it might be seen by Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded.”

Police arrived on the scene within minutes and, without warning him or giving him a chance to move on, arrested Peterson on the spot. Sgt Lee Barnham said he spoke to Mr Azad, and added: “He was offended by the use of what he considered to be a religious cross against the site of worship.

“It was clear he was upset and felt intimidated. I was satisfied an offence under the public order act had been committed.”

Peterson, who described the mosque as an “eyesore” and “monstrosity”, told the court he was unhappy because it had not been built in the required time but instead had planning permission re-granted and was given council funding.

Peterson denied being a racist but said he had a problem with the ideology of Islam. He added: “Go and see countries that are run by that ideology, it’s oppressive.”

District Judge Andrew Vickers reserved his verdict and the case was adjourned until January 13.

Yes, that's right, a certain type of British hates our flag and feels socially excluded from the rest of us. he also thinks that Muslim's (for he is a Muslim himself) might see it as a religious symbol, which as you can tell from the short history I've mentioned, it isn't. Nor do the police come out of this with any great merit, they could have asked the guy to take the flag down (though why should he, it isn't a crime) instead they locked him up without warning. But this shows that the cops are willing to charge someone for others being upset about their own mistaken perspectives. Azad's insinuating that anyone who flies the flag of England is perpetuating a particular religious angle, this really should have been laughed out of court as otherwise this leaves the judge on a very prickly fence any other outcome would put the cross of St George at risk and alienating a very large percentage of the country who support their football team for one.

Of course you can go vice versa too with this whole religious offence malarkey.

So this:
"Witness Urfan Azad, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting. He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the flag needed to be taken off the fence because it might be seen by Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded." 

Can be changed to this:
"Witness John Smith, 32, told the court he was in the nearby Reading Tea House and went outside after hearing the chanting. He said he dialled 999 because he was concerned the situation could escalate, and added: “My concern was the Mosque needed to be taken down because it might be seen by non-Muslims as a religious symbol. I felt upset about the whole incident. I’m British myself, I was born in Reading. It’s made me feel a bit socially excluded."


It strikes me that the police are over compensating for previous neglect and it is time all hate crime procedure was put in perspective in relation to crime as a whole and that flying the flag of your country in your country can never ever be seen as a hate crime. Mr Azad should himself have been arrested for wasting police time.

More about → My flag is a flag not a religious symbol!

Parsing the (Very) Bad News

By Alan Caruba

The dictionary says “parse” means to break down into component parts of speech with an analysis of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part. The Caruba definition means to take all manner of bits of information and try to make sense of any of it, in part or in whole.

Part of the problem is that there are so many “experts” in the world, PhDs which often translates to “piled higher and deeper.” The lesser degrees are often lacking as well. A college education today is obscenely expensive and, as many employers will tell you, of dubious value when it comes to the mastery of skills that were formerly acquired by the sixth grade.

A recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek was devoted to the year in review and perhaps the most astonishing statistical data it offered was the way Americans are “stuck in the middle” when it comes to opinions on all the major issue which the nation must address, half are for and half are against. Whether it’s gun ownership, doctor-assisted suicide, how to deal with illegal immigrants, government control of healthcare, or whether President Obama is doing a good job, one is led to believe that we are totally divided pro and con.

The key phrase here is “led to believe” because the data was largely drawn from Gallup surveys, the Pew Research Center, the National Journal, and other sources. As much as I regard Gallup, Rasmussen, Zogby and other gatherers of today’s instant “truth”, I remain skeptical of all these polls. Opinion is fickle, subject to the economy, one’s religion, race, age, gender, political values, and yesterday’s events.

Most certainly, taking at face value anything “the government” has to say on any topic is the height of folly. It exists as the instrument of anyone and any political party that holds the reins of power. As such it disgorges masses of “information” that is intended to herd the public in directions that will ensure they remain in power while, at the same time, often engaging in the most appalling abuses of power, including neglect of duty.

History is testimony to the most egregious errors of judgment by presidents and congresses that arrived with their biases and ideologies intact. We want to know what principles a president adheres to. Some like Reagan believed in America’s greatness, its exceptional place and role. Others like Obama arrived with their views carefully hidden behind meaningless phrases such as “hope and change.” Obama’s first executive order was to deny access to his entire life’s paper trail of documents.

My first profession was that of journalist and from that I developed a lifelong search for factual information, historic and current, with which to make sense of events. Even when I segued into public relations, I insisted that it be fact-based, i.e. the truth!

I collect the “news” all the time and maintain vast files of data that go back years. On my desk today are stacks of items culled from all manner of sources, most of which I regard as reliable, but The New York Times is high on my list of the greatest collection of liars and fools since the glory days of Pravda, the state-controlled Soviet newspaper.

A recent Times editorial was titled “Comeback Against Malaria” citing “insecticide-treated bed nets” to protect people from mosquitoes that transmit the disease. No where does it mention the way the Environmental Protection Agency, ignoring the science, banned DDT, effective December 31, 1972, and thus condemned millions to an early, unnecessary death. If African and other nations plagued by this mosquito-borne disease could begin to spray DDT, it would drastically reduce malaria worldwide. The Times will not tell you that.

Another news item reports that Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary, has announced that her department is creating “a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operation.” This is just one example of the Obama administration’s insane devotion to the totally debunked hoax of “global warming”, now renamed “climate change.” Suffice it to say it has nothing to do with homeland security and is beyond the reach of any government on planet Earth.

Piers Corbyn of Weather Action, a London-based, independent forecasting firm, has proven infinitely more accurate than the British government’s debased weather agency. He is predicting extreme weather for December 25-31 in Britain. Much of the weather forecasts of the U.S. government are corrupted by computer models that use manipulated “global warming” data from government agencies such as NOAA and NASA. Thank God for weather satellites.

Much of the data collected worldwide is from weather stations either positioned on “heat islands” known as cities or simply non-existent. The best computers in the world cannot include data on clouds, a major indicator, because even meteorologists have no idea why they do what they do, changing from moment to moment. Similarly, it is still virtually impossible to predict earthquakes or when volcanoes will erupt.

The government consistently refuses to tell the public that the Earth has been in a natural cooling cycle since the late 1990s. Winters for decade to come will be harsher and longer. Crops will fail. Food prices will rise. The latest “compromise” that extended income tax rates also wasted billions on corn-based ethanol production mandates that even environmental organizations now oppose.

The latest Census reports that the U.S. population is up an astonishing 27 million in just ten years! Immigration, legal and illegal, accounted for three-quarters of that growth. This growth is exceeded by only two other decades in the entire history of the nation! Either we change our immigration policies, reducing this flood of humanity, and lock down our southern border or you won’t be able to recognize America in the space of a few decades.

So, parsing the news remains critical if we are to understand or make sense of anything happening in the U.S. and around the globe. One thing seems clear, like all empires based on economic and military strength, power is moving elsewhere after a half century since the end of World War II that positioned the U.S. as a “superpower.”

The nation has wasted its potential on “entitlement” programs that are trillions of dollars in debt into the foreseeable future. The national debt is owned by our grandchildren!

The government is in the process of locking up its vast natural resources from use by its own citizens. It is seizing vast tracks of the nation’s landmass. It is restricting all new offshore oil exploration and extraction, and will force coal-fired power plants to close despite the fact that coal provides half of all the electricity generated nationwide.

U.S. currency is being systematically devalued because the government failed its oversight of the financial marketplace and its central bank, the Federal Reserve.

Because the government was permitted to intrude in the housing market in the name of “social justice”, it is in a state of complete collapse.

The same will occur to our healthcare system if Obamacare is permitted to move ahead.

The news is bad. We have precious little time to reverse the process.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

More about → Parsing the (Very) Bad News

Saturday Night is Bath Night

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Cartoon Round Up

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Merry Christmas

To those who chose to read the ramblings of a mad Englishman, many thanks and may your Christmas's be as wonderful as mine.

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Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my "followers" and visitors to this blog. 

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Christmas thoughts 3

I'll be away seeing my wonderful granddaughter up until Christmas Day, when I have a long journey home as I'm at work on Boxing Day.

So here are a few thoughts each day to tide you over.

For those of you who believe as I once did.

Ten Commandments for Christmas
1. Thou shalt prepare early. Don't wait until the last minute to get into the Christmas spirit.
2. Thou shalt keep Christ at the centre of Christmas. Don't allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the commercialism of the season. Resolve to read one of the Gospels during December. Mediate upon what it means that Christ came into the world.
3. Thou shalt make Christmas a family time. Do things together: Decorate the tree, play games, bake cookies, shop, write cards, have devotionals, go carolling, attend church together.
4. Thou shalt remember those who are less fortunate. Contribute significantly to an organization serving the needs of others throughout the year. Give a Christmas gift to your church.
5. Thou shalt give thyself with every gift. Put some thought into the gifts you purchase. Give a gift that represents you. If possible, make something instead of buying something.
6. Thou shalt learn to be a good receiver. Many of us have trouble receiving graciously and gracefully.
7. Thou shalt put music into Christmas. Buy several Christmas CD's and play them again and again. Attend church choir cantatas and special Christmas programs. Sing carols with loved ones.
8. Thou shalt slow down. Remember: Christmas is supposed to be a season of peace, not hypertension.
9. Thou shalt remember to worship. The church is the place you are most likely to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas.
10. Thou shalt receive Christ into thy life. Don't just talk about the Christ of Christmas, receive him into your life as Lord and Saviour.

More about → Christmas thoughts 3

Vimeo: Take a Wild Flight Over a Winter Wonderland

Winterwonderland from RiSCyD : TeamBlackSheep on Vimeo.

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Obama's Good News is Bad News

By Alan Caruba

Watching President Obama turn his bad news into good news at his press conference and then reading the mainstream media turn facts upside down and inside out was, at best, bizarre.

The bad news, of course, is that since 2009 when he took office everything he has done to reverse the unemployment numbers has been a failure. The so-called Stimulus Act was nothing more than a Democrat pork-filled waste that only served to increase our insane national debt.

The Cash-For-Clunkers program had only short-term results and removed cars that lower-income citizens might have been able to purchase as previous-owned cars from the auto marketplace. The government seizure of General Motors and Chrysler has kept auto union workers on the job with the same contracts that led to the company's initial failure.

Both the President’s and Congress’s approval rating are, respectively, either in decline or setting new low records. In November, the voters took away the Democrat’s control of the House and narrowed it significantly in the Senate.

As Donald Lambro noted in the December 22nd edition of The Washington Times, “The dominant liberal media culture has spun the last days of the Democrat’s lame-duck Congress into an unbroken string of legislative victories for President Obama.”

What victories?

After ignoring the extension of President Bush’s tax cuts for two years and trying to exclude “the wealthy” from them while also trying to pass another 2,000-plus page “porkulus” bill that was withdrawn, the President brayed about “bipartisan cooperation” that was nothing more than a stinging defeat for his quest to bankrupt the nation still further.

President Obama has not shown the slightest indication of partisanship since he took office, replying to any Republican recommendations by saying “We won.” After a massive march on Washington to protest Obamacare, he staged a lengthy conference with Republicans that put his disdain and contempt for them on full display, including a slap-down of former GOP presidental candidate, John McCain.

The passage of Obamacare was a legislative abomination involving bribes and arm-twisting that succeeded only because of a Democrat majority in Congress. The immediate administration response to it was to issue “waivers” to avoid a healthcare insurance catastrophe.

The lame duck session was nothing more than a desperate effort to achieve for Democrats what they had either ignored or failed to get during the execrable full session of the 111th Congress.

Crowing about the passage of the “Start” treaty with Russia ignored the fact that both signatories to the treaty can withdraw at any time that circumstances require it. Looks good on paper, but it is essentially meaningless in an era where North Korea has nukes, Pakistan has nukes, and Iran is desperately attempting to make its own nukes. It does little to ward off the potential use of nuclear weapons at some point and limits U.S. defensive measures.

“The one thing I hope people have seen during this lame duck,” said Obama is “I am persistent” and that, my friends, is the really bad news.

Obama still intends, if possible, to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, nor shows any indication of doing much to protect our wide-open southern border with Mexico. Who gets the blame for that in Obama-Speak? Correctly, Americans who purchase drugs and, incorrectly, the entirely legal sale of guns for self-defense. Indeed, those sales have soared since he was elected President due to well-funded fears that he regards the Constitution as consisting of “negative” limitations on the government.

Coming in 2011 will be an Obama sanctioned effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to do an end-run around the Constitution to impose an utterly false regulation of carbon dioxide emissions in the name of a global warming that has been exposed as a hoax and fraud. It would kill what is left of the economy.

Meanwhile, Obama has stopped any exploration or extraction of oil offshore of U.S. coasts and, of course, in the Gulf of Mexico. He has maintained a war on coal mining since day one in office despite the fact that it provides 50% of U.S. electricity needs.

So what part of the President’s “season of progress” is real?

Moody’s the bond rating service is hinting it may downgrade U.S. securities. The Federal Reserve is printing money with which to buy the debt. The jobless rate continues at the same rate it has been for the past two years. Home foreclosures continue apace. Some twenty U.S. States have filed court cases to stop Obamacare from being enforced.

Up is down. Black is white. This is how the bad news of the first half of Obama’s first and only term in office is spun by a compliant liberal news media while the majority of Americans have largely rejected the stuttering, hesitant babbling of the worst President in the history of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

More about → Obama's Good News is Bad News

The FCC Versus the Internet

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Christmas thoughts 2

I'll be away seeing my wonderful granddaughter up until Christmas Day, when I have a long journey home as I'm at work on Boxing Day.

So here are a few thoughts each day to tide you over.

"What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic."
-- Unknown

More about → Christmas thoughts 2

The First Amendment Blues

By Alan Caruba

“Congress shall make no law, respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” - First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

What part of the First Amendment does the Federal Communication Commission, led by Chairman Julius Genachowski, and three of its five appointed commissioners, not understand?

If the Internet is not about free speech, then nothing is.

For the record, the two Republican commissioners voted against “Net Neutrality”, an expansion of the FCC’s original 1934 mission to regulate radio. In May, more than 300 members of Congress, including 56 Democrats, contacted the FCC to urge that it stop pursuing Internet regulation.

Need it be said that President Obama made it known that he supports “net neutrality” as “an important step in preventing abuses and continuing to advance the Internet as an engine of productivity growth and innovation.” Blah, blah, blah.

Dictators hate any form of mass communication they cannot control. Consider the news in early December that Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez, was defending plans for a law that would, according to the Washington Post, “impose broadcast-type regulations on the Internet, saying Sunday that his government should protect citizens against online crimes.”

In Venezuela, criticizing Hugo Chavez, who has just been granted power to rule by decree, will no doubt be considered an Internet crime. Chavez thinks Obama is the best thing that ever happened to America and so does Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Even a small step toward the regulation of the Internet is a very big step toward curbing free speech and free access to information of all kinds, good, bad or just plain evil. In America citizens are expected to sort out lies and make their own judgments. That’s why a million of them showed up in Washington, D.C. in March to demand Obamacare be rejected.

Nor is this to suggest that there aren’t plenty of laws that exist to protect consumers. The FCC decision, as one of its members, Robert M. McDowell, noted recently, ignores the fact that “the Obama Justice Department and the European Commission both decided this year that net-neutrality might deter investment in next-generation Internet technology and infrastructure.”

In the same fashion that the lame duck session of Congress has been used by largely defeated Democrats to push through legislation that had been either long delayed for political purposes, such as a budget for the government or Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, the Democrat-controlled FCC has used the week leading up to Christmas to push through a measure that is universally condemned.

“The rules the FCC will impose are unenforceable without Congressional approval—as a federal court made clear in April,” notes Bruce Walker, managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News. ”The FCC has now only prolonged the regulatory uncertainty its net neutrality threats originally created. This will negatively impact jobs and investment in the Internet industry.”

This is not the end of this abomination, but it is a loud signal and indication of the way the leftist administration of President Obama has striven to harm the economy, imposing huge debt, grasping control of the healthcare sector, the financial sector, major auto manufacturers, the insurance industry, and now the power of the Internet to inform Americans against its tyranny.

The November midterm election results rejected those efforts and, no doubt, a House controlled by Republicans and a weakened control by Democrats of the Senate, will seek to obviate these treacherous attempts to destroy the economy.

It is, however, the FCC’s attack on free speech and freedom of the press via the Internet that tells Americans everything they need to know about President Obama and his lackeys.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

More about → The First Amendment Blues

Christmas thoughts

I'll be away seeing my wonderful granddaughter up until Christmas Day, when I have a long journey home as I'm at work on Boxing Day.

So here are a few thoughts each day to tide you over.

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."
-- Oren Arnold

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World's Largest Army?

Here's a news item from the editor of The Tribune, a weekly newspaper published in North Carolina.

The World's Largest Army. America's Hunters?

The state of Wisconsin has gone an entire deer hunting season without someone getting killed. That's great. There were over 600,000 hunters. Allow me to restate that number. Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world -- more men under arms than Iran ; more than France and Germany combined -- deployed to the woods of a single American state to help keep the deer menace at bay. But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan 's 700,000 hunters have now returned home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia  and it is literally the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world. America will forever be safe from foreign invasion of troops with that kind of home-grown firepower.

Hunting - it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national security!

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No Peace for the Prince of Peace...Or Anyone Else

By Alan Caruba

As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, an apostle of love, the other two monotheistic religions view from the sidelines.

While Christians have nothing to fear from the tiny minority of Diaspora Jews and those in Israel, a very real threat exists from Islam.

Islam holds Christianity and Judaism in contempt, but because these two faiths have, as any Muslim will tell you, “a book”, they are spared an even worse judgment of Hinduism or Buddhism which do not have a central text around which their faiths revolve.

In this decade, in March 2001, the world witnessed the destruction of two ancient Buddhist statues, 114 feet high, carved out of a mountain at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. It signaled a new stage in an ancient war. It took place six months before the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11.

The statue's destruction was ordered by the fanatical fundamentalist Taliban. How fanatic? They told the Shiite Muslim residents of Bamiyan that they could either convert to Sunni Islam or they would have to leave their homes. To those who fled, the destruction was an evil and repugnant act. The outcry worldwide was unanimous.

After 9/11, the American response was a military operation to drive the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is ancient, invaded many times over the centuries, and its people still cling to their tribal ways. As in all guerrilla wars, the land belongs to the people who live there and foreign occupations won’t change much.

For Christians and Jews, the struggle against Islam has defined the last nearly 1,400 of the two thousand years that are measured from the birth of Jesus and establishment of Christianity.

Had Islam not been driven from Spain and stopped outside Vienna, there would have been no Europe, no Renaissance, no Enlightenment, and most surely no Western civilization. Christians and Jews would have been dhimmi, second class citizens in their own lands, forced to pay taxes and show their obedience to Muslim overlords.

Following 9/11, the invasion by America and forces from allied nations in Afghanistan and later Iraq are reflections of the Crusades sent to reclaim Jerusalem and Muslims know it. That it was occasioned by their own actions is immaterial to them. If Iran is ultimately attacked to destroy its nuclear facilities, it will claim it is the victim, not the aggressor.

The same need to destroy the Buddha statues in Bamiyan was the same need to build Al Aqsa, a huge mosque over the holiest place in Jerusalem for Jews, the Dome of the Rock sits atop the spot attributed to where God intervened to stay Abraham’s sacrifice of his son, Isaac. It was to signal an end to human sacrifice, to idolatry.

The same drive to conquest led to the proposal to build a mosque within sight of Ground Zero in New York, a triumphalism that ignores the feeling of Americans that the martyrdom of those who died there at the hands of Muslim terrorists imbues the site with a sacred memory. The contempt the mosque represents is palpable.

I think Americans sense that an ancient war, a religious war, continues in their time, but are loath to believe it even as we fight a hot war in Afghanistan or reduce our troop strength in Iraq. As a fighting force, we may not fully leave the Middle East for a very long time because, put simply, we dare not.

After clinging to a belief in tolerance, Europeans are stirring from their reluctance to confront Islam and beginning to draw lines between themselves and the many Muslims who moved there to find work, but who never assimilated as French, as German, as Dutch, as Swedish or as British. Europeans have slowly come to realize they have an enemy in their midst.

It is why travelers fear to board airlines at this time of year.

It is why British authorities just arrested jihadists planning attacks during the Christmas holiday.

It is why Christmas mass has been abandoned in Iraq this year because of countless assassinations of Christians. Many are now fleeing that nation.

It is why the U.S. Attorney General has warned that Americans “have to be prepared for bad news” if Muslim terrorists, domestic or foreign, are successful.

It is why Americans still wait to bring a U.S. major to trial for killing thirteen soldiers at Fort Hood.

It is why we detain jihadists in Guantanamo.

It is why Palestinians have spurned any overture of peace with the Israelis.

As Christians celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, they and others, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, know there will be no peace so long as Islam makes war on all other faiths, not in the name of God, the universal Creator, but of a former Meccan moon deity named Allah.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Editor's Note: To see and hear the message of Islam, view this short video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSftYIGH6-w&feature=player_embedded

More about → No Peace for the Prince of Peace...Or Anyone Else