“Our job is basically to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum,” [Interior Secretary Ken ] Salazar said…
Awesome.
And here I though governments using boots to crush their enemies was an allusion typically reserved for second and third-world dictatorships.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.
George Orwell
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/05/video-of-swat-raid-on-missouri
Thrill to a home invasion by SWAT troops, where they find enough pot for a *misdemeanor** charge. Enjoy the sound of a single gunshot followed by the screams of pain of a *dog,* which lasts for 15 seconds until three more shots ring out to silence it.
And glory in the knowledge that this was done in full view of the seven year old.
Sigh.
A guy can comfortably hold two seemingly contradictory views that:
1) Smoking pot is a silly, unwise thing to do
2) Making pot illegal goes far beyond silly and unwise.
What people do with and to themselves is their own damned business. If you storm someone’s home and shoot their pets, you’d better have one *hell* of a story to back it up. And finding a baggie of a *weed* somewhere on the property just ain’t sufficient, Officer.
The inevitable result of making illegal things that hurt nobody and people have enjoyed for millenia… is this sort of thing. A bunch of whiny leftists are rioting and screaming about Arizona’s law that has cops ask criminal suspects if they are here legally, when they should be after *this.* But since the best way to curb the abuse of police power is to curb the size and scope of government… I guess they’re just not interested.
This is just… sad.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2951040
The claim stems from a 2006 incident in which Luc, now 11, said he was reprimanded by a school hall monitor for eating his lunch by breaking up the food with a fork and pushing it onto a spoon, a traditional Philippine way of eating.
The hall monitor is alleged to have told Ms. Gallardo that her son “ate like a pig,” while the principal is alleged to have told her Luc should eat “like a Canadian.”
If Canadians want their country to survive, they need to take these bullcrap “human rights tribunals” and shove them off on an arctic ice floe.
A few years ago, Penn & Teller’s “Showtime” series “Bullshit!” ran an episode devoted to recycling and all the BS that goes along with it. They sent their camera crew and a few actors out to pester some unsuspecting homeowners, to see how many separate recycling bins people could be suckered into accepting and having to deal with. Luckily, this segment is available on YouTube. In the end, the test subject were willing to accept up to nine separate recycling bins. This was played for laughs, since it’s clearly a ridiculous idea, and shows how far people will go to be seen as “green.”
Sigh.
In a regime set to spread across the country, residents are being forced to juggle an astonishing nine separate bins.
There has already been a storm of protest with warnings that the scheme is too complex and homes simply don’t have the space to deal with the myriad bins, bags and boxes.
The containers include a silver slopbucket for food waste, which is then tipped in to a larger, green outdoor food bin, a pink bag for plastic bottles, a green bag for cardboard, and a white bag for clothing and textiles.
Paper and magazines go in blue bags, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid, while glass, foil, tins and empty aerosols should go in a blue box, with a grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste.
…
Compulsory recycling is commonly enforced by bin police who can impose £100 on-the-spot fines for breaches like overfilled wheelie bins, extra rubbish left out, or bins put out at the wrong time.
If people do not pay the fines, they can be taken to court, where they face increased penalties of £1,000 and criminal records.
Oy. JUST BURN IT.
Some aerial footage of Detroit. Looks a *lot* like a European city that had been bombed flat in one of their regular wars. There are apparently forty square MILES of abandoned property that the current Mayor is looking to bulldoze. And that’s really the only solution here… clear everyone out of large areas and destroy them utterly. Ruined but still standing buildings are just sources of serious problems, while an empty field is just an empty field.
And from the relevant Fark thread, the best comment by far:
I, for one, am shocked that Detroit is not Utopia. I mean, Detroit has elected Democratic mayors for 50 years straight – how could it possibly fall apart under consecutive decades of unchecked liberal leadership? Shouldn’t everyone in Detroit have their own unicorn by now?
Everything will be all better when the government controls health care…
http://cbs4.com/local/Diana.Smith.Woman.2.1623788.html
But her hopes of receiving the transplant were dashed in March, when she says, the Social Security Administration contacted her –without her soliciting it — and told her that her three year-old son was entitled to receive Social Security disability payments. Even though she didn’t ask for it, she signed the form and received her son’s first check check.
In April, Medicaid canceled her universal health care policy because her income level had risen with her son’s payments – making her ineligible for the insurance program.
So *that’s* how they’re going to make it “defecit neutral…” the government will trick people into signing their own death warrants.
Brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.
A comment by Brianna reminded me of something I’ve meant to scribble down for a while.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/naziprog.html
The Program of the National-Socialist (Nazi) German Workers’ Party (1933)
Much of it is racist rubbish, a product of its specific time and place (yammerings about the “Volk” and colonies and Versailles and such), but there are a number of aspects of it that should set off alarm bells for those paying attention to the political news in the last few years:
10. It must be the first duty of every Citizen to carry out intellectual or physical work. Individual activity must not be harmful to the public interest and must be pursued within the framework of the community and for the general good.
Translation: the “idle rich” are banned.
We therefore demand:
11. The abolition of all income obtained without labor or effort.
Translation: no more earning interest on investments.
Breaking the Servitude of Interest.
12. In view of the tremendous sacrifices in property and blood demanded of the nation by every war, personal gain from the war must be termed a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all enterprises (already) converted into corporations (trusts).
14. We demand profit-sharing in large enterprises.
15. We demand the large-scale development of old-age pension schemes.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle class; the immediate communalization of the large department stores, which are to be leased at low rates to small tradesmen. We demand the most careful consideration for the owners of small businesses in orders placed by national, state, or community authorities.
17. We demand land reform in accordance with our national needs and a law for expropriation without compensation of land for public purposes. Abolition of ground rent and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand ruthless battle against those who harm the common good by their activities. Persons committing base crimes against the People, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished by death without regard to religion or race.
19. We demand the replacement of Roman Law, which serves a materialistic World Order, by German Law.
20. In order to make higher education – and thereby entry into leading positions – available to every able and industrious German, the State must provide a thorough restructuring of our entire public educational system. The courses of study at all educational institutions are to be adjusted to meet the requirements of practical life. Understanding of the concept of the State must be achieved through the schools (teaching of civics) at the earliest age at which it can be grasped. We demand the education at the public expense of specially gifted children of poor parents, without regard to the latters’ position or occupation.
21. The State must raise the level of national health by means of mother-and-child care, the banning of juvenile labor, achievements of physical fitness through legislation for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and maximum support for all organizations providing physical training for young people.
24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided that they do not endanger the existence of the State or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the Germanic race.
The Party as such stands for positive Christianity, without associating itself with any particular denomination. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a permanent revival of our nation can be achieved only from within, on the basis of:
Public Interest before Private Interest.
25. To carry out all the above we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the Reich. Unquestioned authority by the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and over its organizations in general. The establishment of trade and professional organizations to enforce the Reich basic laws in the individual states.
Additional reading includes lists of books that the Nazis banned: http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/burnedbooks/documents.htm
Of potential interest:
“Prinzipelles zur Säuberung der öffentlichen Bücherein,” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Büchhandel [Principles for the Cleansing of Public Libraries] 100 (5/16/1933): Guidelines from Die Bücherei 2:6 (1935), p. 279
6. Writings of a philosophical and social nature whose content deals with the false scientific enlightenment of primitive Darwinism and Monism (H�ckel).
This is just… wow.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/1028037/encyclopedia-dramatica-owner-could-face-charges
The US-based owner of a satirical Wikipedia-style website may be charged under Australian law over a deliberately offensive article about Aborigines.
The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) contacted Encyclopedia Dramatica owner Joseph Evers, after 20 indigenous Australians complained about the article’s content.
…
“While I act in complete compliance with both the civil and criminal codes of the United States of America, and am assured the right of free speech according to our constitution … I can personally be jailed and fined for the violation of this law.”
This would be an astonishing thing if the US government were to go along with this. If the Aussie government tries to prosecute an American for expressing his freedom of speech, no matter how offensive (and, yes, the article – as with most of Encyclopedia Dramatica – is far-over-the-top offensive), the proper response from the US government should be to tell the Aussies to get bent. If he’s tried in absentia, I would think it appropriate for the US government to put a ban on Americans visiting Australia. I’m generally in favor of the US Government allowing its citizens to travel wherever the hell they want, but there are places that violate as a matter of course basic human liberties… and the State Department should at the very least warn off Americans from visiting them. Like the message they issued some years back warning American women to be extremely weary of marrying Saudi men.
The Fark thread on the topic has some dandy, and appropriate comments:
Way to China it up, Australia.
—
Limiting free speech offends America’s cultural heritage.You’re on notice Australia.
—
Delightful.
Australians are all savages who drink blood from the arteries of pallid nuns kept indoors and beaten with reeds to keep their flesh supple. In their spare time they (the Aussies, not the nuns) devote countless hours to the worship and glorification of a hybrid clone of Kim Jung-il, Hitler and Carrot Top. Those who cannot assist in the genetic engineering of the creature show it their fealty by flinging boogers at the wall and then smearing the marks away by squirting it with lymph from a living infant.
Come get me.
—
Really, the politicians of the world need to read up on the Streisand Effect. This sort of thing only invites a response.
Watch THIS, and let me know if Obama’s claim that employer’s health insurance premiums will drop by “three thousand percent” makes any damned sense to you. It sure as hell doesn’t to me.
If your bill drops by fifty percent, that means it’s cut in half. If it drops by one hundred percent, that means you owe nothing. If it drops by two hundred percent, that means that they now owe you the full value of the bill. If your bill drops by one thousand percent, then they owe you nine times the value of the bill.
If a health care premium bill drops by three thousand percent, then doesn’t that mean that the health care insurance company now owes you twenty-nine times the value of the premium? What the hell sort of business model is that?
No insurance company would or could stay in business if they had to pay you in order to insure you. Thus this is a tacit admission on Obama’s part that he plans to put the insurance companies out of business, as he previously claimed he wanted to bankrupt the coal industry. And when that happens… well, gosh, I guess the government will have to step in and just take over, won’t it.
I guess the only other point of view on this is that Obama is a moron when it comes to math, and simply didn’t understand what a “three thousand percent” decrease actually means. Anyone want someone that dumb in charge of the health care industry?
Remington Shotguns
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Location: Contracts (All ED Components):
Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am