Today the Tamil Tigers and the civil war they have been trying to carry on are both defeated. The reason; they got tired of being dead.

The IRA ended up the same way. The ‘troubles’ ended when it became impossible to find enough new young men willing to die for the cause.

The only answer to terrorism that has been demonstrated to work every time it has been employed is to keep killing them.

Muslim terrorists are just like all terrorists. The cause gets pretty old when new members begin to look around and see only a few old guys standing around preaching to them about how great the victory will be if only more new guys were willing to be dead.

Sooner or later, even the biggest ‘believer’ will see that plenty of other guys are good and dead and the ‘cause’ hasn’t achieved much by way of tangible goals.

Sooner or later, even the biggest ‘believer’ will start to wonder why a lot of the old guys have a very much higher standard of living than they do. Sooner or later anyone figures out that being dead isn’t as good as not being dead.

When that inevitability strikes, the cause is over and with it the killing.

If Western civilisation is to survive, if the personal freedoms we enjoy are to endure, we will have to defeat Islamic Jihad.

The best way is to simply find and kill every Jihadist we can and kill enough officials of the states that support these terrorists until they learn that peaceful coexistence beats being good and dead every time.

Cheers,

The best question asked during the election elicited nothing but ridicule on all fronts. Some may recall the question posed by a woman anchor with a Florida television station. She asked Joe Biden if Senator Obama was indeed a Marxist. Joe laughed, ha ha ha, that was absurd he said, Obama isn’t even a leftist, he is a centrist yadda etc.

She based her question on actual research; she knew that Obama had more or less never held a real job in his life. He worked for a few Alinsky organisations and has based most of his political life on the plans laid out by Saul Alinsky in his book “Rules for Radicals”

Alinsky isn’t a ‘socialist’ or a ‘progressive’ he is, like Bill Ayers, a Marxist. In 1973 he saw that those who like Ayer’s thought that America could be over-thrown by violent revolution, were obviously wrong. Ayer’s is a Marxist-Leninist. Obama is a Marxist-Alinskyite.

In “Rules for Radicals” one sees the plan that has been executed over the past 35 years in America. Education has been taken over by a post-modernist philosophy, the idea of ‘truth’ has been eliminated. Truth has been replaced by relativism.

‘Truth’ is a necessary condition of knowledge. There is no knowledge without it, and as such, knowledge has been replaced in all areas of our society. Science itself is no longer rooted in truth.

John P. Holdren has been named President Obama’s science advisor. Dr. Holdren is a very political fellow. Holdren holds MS and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering and plasma physics from MIT and Stanford.

However he is famous for his endless blather in a field that he seems to be self-accredited in. Global climate change, nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and science and technology policy.

During the election campaign he gave an interview with the UK press in which he asserted that the ‘debate’ about climate change was over, and that anyone who did not agree with this was either a ‘moron’ or a ‘Republican.’

The ‘debate’ is not by any stretch over, with easily as many scientists directly involved in climate science opposed to Holdren’s views as are in support of them.

The scary thing though is that the “Chief Science Guy for the President” does not believe that scientific proof of a ‘thing’ is necessary. Only an opinion poll of interested observers is necessary. He and those like him are responsible for the loss of academic freedom in the investigation of these scientific issues and others.

It is essentially impossible for researchers to get funding for projects that look at the data and conclude something outside the conventional wisdom. So it is no wonder at all that more and more ‘evidence’ will be found to support these politically charged scientific issues.

Holdren is the epitome of post-modern science and education. He is the ‘bleeding’ edge what constitutes ‘scientific enquiry’ in America. He is emblematic of the far left agenda and its long path of destroying freedoms of all sorts long held as inalienable by the American public.

What’s next; just read “Rules for Radicals.” It calls for ‘nationalisation’ of all sorts of private industry and replacing economic freedoms with government dictate.

The banking industry will be nationalised within a year. Oil and Gas will be the next ‘crisis’ that will need the government to step in and save us all. The result is going to be tragic for what was once the most free people in the entire history of the world.

Reading “The Road to Serfdom” by Frederick Hayek tells you what the true role of a free government is. It is not to own the means of production by any means, yet that is exactly what Obama and the Congress are doing.

If the words “means of production” sound familiar, it is because they are from “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

As more and more of Obama’s policies become known, more and more of them will be shown for what they are; hard-left, hard socialist, and at the least semi-Marxist.

The result is inevitable and history has always shown on result of such policies; loss of freedoms for individuals and more centralised power in the hands of a few hundred politicians.

My Canadian friend is a specialist in Internal Medicine, Critical Medicine, General Surgery and Emergency Surgery. He spent 19 years in medical school.

This week, his wife had a heart attack. She had to wait to get basic tests for two days. She spent those two days in the emergency ward of a major city hospital.

His elderly mother fell and broker her arm. She requires Orthopaedic surgery to have her arm properly set. She has no idea when she will get that surgery because there simply is no operating space available in this city of over a million people.

His father-in-law who was recently widowed was in a car accident. He was admitted to the hospital at which my friend works. His care was given to a colleague of my friend. He called my friend about 6 hours after being admitted and told him that he was being sent home. My friend went back to work (he works at least 100 hours per week, because there are not enough doctors) and found out that his colleague discharged his father-in-law without looking at any of the medicine or the very difficult to get emergency CAT scan (forget about MRI's, the waiting list is about 10 months). After giving his colleague a third anal orifice, he had to take charge of his own father-in-law's care. Not an ideal situation.

This took place last week. Nothing has yet changed; his mother is at home in pain waiting for an operating room and surgeon to re-break her bones and set them properly. His father-in-law is staying at my friends home. He is in constant pain from his spleen injury (as well as everything else) and his wife is at home resting while waiting for more advanced testing to find out why her heart gave out. She is the last person in the world one would think would have a heart attack.

Because his two sisters are nurses, they are able to help take care of these people. Without them, he would have to miss work to care for his family himself.

This is what public health care really means. Shortages, high expenses, taxes at levels that would make American's burn down the White House.

This is the promise that Obama is really making.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

It doesn't seem to dawn on many American's as to how much the Democratic Party has come to look like the Communist Party over the past 30 or so years.

William Ayers and his ilk, were hoping (like Charles Manson) to start a revolution in America just like the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that created the Soviet Union.

They did not have enough support from the 'masses' to make anything like that happen.

So they looked at what Saul Alinksy proposed as an alternative. Using Alinsky's tactics they have taken over the Democratic Party.

They changed the education curriculum to make it more in conformation with post-modern ideals. The truth became fungible, not just to politicians, but to us.

We are no longer able to actually think our way through things. We simply believe things or not.

This is great for getting into power. All you have to do is tell us that you are going to fix everything and make us all richer, smarter, and better looking and we will elect you.

This has been the basis for government since the Clinton administration. Don't lead, simply look at polls and do what a population wants.

Since most of the population is too lazy, stupid, ignorant, and unable to gain knowledge, they could be taught to believe in whatever you wanted them to believe in. Give them what they believe they want and the votes are yours.

So when bankers didn't want to give loans to people who couldn't pay for them, they were accused of being racists. So the rules were changed to allow banks to give mortgages to anyone regardless of their ability to pay. The banks said, no way someone else has to take the hit when these people can't pay their loans.

So the government said, no sweat banks, just sell them to Fannie or Freddie and all will be great.

Risk-free no equity loans are the recipe for greed by anyone involved.

Of course sooner or later those bad loans end up somewhere. We are seeing exactly where they are now.

But can a Democrat see how this was caused. No way, because a Democrat simply cannot see the truth.

This is the goal of Alinsky. Destroy the economy and fill the void with the 'magic' of communism. Obama and Hillary are his vehicle, and the rest of the 60's radicals have put them there by taking over the Dems.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

What we are seeing is the dot.com bubble back with bigger teeth and worse breath.

This is the result of pushing too much M1 and M2 into the money supply as has been happening at an accelerating rate since the end of the last few years of Bush I.

All that money went into vapour ware then.

Jimmy Carter, the most idiotic left wing doofus to be President up to if Obama gets elected started this bone-head situation. Nothing much happened until Bubba was President and his commie wife bleated to him about how banks were not lending to people who couldn't pay back loans because banks were racists.

So Bubba, asked her how to get those darn bankers to loan more dough to folks who couldn't pay them back. She told them that the nice folks at ACORN had some cool plans on how to do that. All he needed to do was set up some new regulations so that banks couldn't ask if people could actually pay back their loans.

This was great. Then of course the banks were in trouble because the had too many loans and mortgages that were going bad.

No trouble said Bubba, our pals over at Freddie and Fannie will back up those crappy loans, you just bundle them up in crappy sacks and drop them by.

Now the banks saw a way to make stupid amounts of money. Lend money to anyone who could secure it with a house. Let them buy nice boats, cars, whatever, the value of their houses would always cover the loan. If the borrower screwed up and couldn't pay the loan, they would foreclose and sell it for more than the loan value.

So the prices of housing inflated to keep up with the amount of money floating around.

This was what made a good economy. Consumer inflation hidden in the prices of homes and the stock market.

Suddenly, someone figured out that business was cyclical and that median house prices were stupidly high compared with the median incomes.

The party is over. Let everyone who can't pay their loan lose their house. Let the banks who can't afford their own stupidity, die.

There will be a recession. The market will go way down, lots of people who shouldn't suffer are going to.

In the end, all of the pin-headed Democrats who thought they could regulate bad loans will be searched out and driven from office.

Reasonable oversight will be put in place, and the market will start to reward diligence and honesty over greed and duplicitous mis-management.

Three years from now, the economy will be growing at record speed.

Do the bail-out, and soon the banks will be hands out asking for us to pay off everyone's credit card or school loan, or car loan.

Until the concept that the value of any asset is the net present value of its cash-flow is understood again by everyone, this will continue until the government owns everything, and we are all slaves to the crown. Just like it was before America became America.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

More of course will be done as competitive forces keep driving down the cost of more efficient energy using devices. As an example an increase of efficiency in an electric motor of 10% will repay the owner of that motor the capital cost of the motor more than 20 times over its lifetime.

More can be done to solving the so called energy crisis by conservation than by any other means. One of the greatest scams perpetrated on America is the banning of PCB’s as a result of health concerns.

Because of this ban, the ability to transport electricity and increase and decrease its voltage has resulted in about a 40% increase in the amount of electricity wasted instead of put to use.

The reality is that there is no actual link between exposure of PCB’s at any levels below actually bathing in it and drinking it on a day to day basis for 20 to 30 years.

The EPA has, despite the fact that it cannot actually find a real link between exposure to PCB’s at reasonable levels has issued dire warnings about its ability to cause disease in humans.

While there is not doubt that if a rat is fed more or less 25% of its body weight of PCB’s per day some liver cancers result, rats are not humans.

In humans, only by working hard to ignore real-life evidence has it been possible for the EPA to claim that PCB’s are carcinogenic at all in humans. If one takes the time to actually review the literature, in the handful of cases where rare cancers have occurred in humans who where exposed to PCB’s over decades under conditions that could only be called idiotic (all from Japan and all from a time when health and safety of Japanese workers were not at all considered), one would find other more probable causes than PCB’s.

If the ban where lifted and reasonable worker hygiene and industrial hygiene to limit emissions, there would be little or no difference in the incidence of health related issues with PCB’s than there are now with the ban.

However America would consume a lot less oil, coal, natural gas, producing its power. Some estimates are that at least 2 million barrels a day of oil could be saved.

This is yet another example of how an entirely ignorant public has driven policy in an absurd direction.

Of course the ban was driven by the same people who are now telling us that there is an energy crisis in America and if there isn’t then there certainly is a climate change crisis. Neither are as factually conclusive as the average American has come to believe.

Attached is the fact sheet about PCB’s from the EPA. I suggest that one discuss this matter with an electrical engineer to see that what is claimed is true. In many cases you will find that many people who actually worked with PCB’s used it as a hand cleaner, because it was great at removing grease and it left their hands soft.

Some people, when splashed with hot PCB oils have experienced acne like rashes, these are both rare and heal completely and scar free. It is as likely that the heat itself causes the reaction as it is the PCB’s.

When you read the information below, carefully see that there is no proven link between PCB’s and cancer, only a very conservative position of there being a probability of cancer not as a result of any conclusive human study evidence but rather only from the results of rat studies.

Rat studies are not conclusive about cancer causality and are never used on their own to prove the effectiveness of cancer treatment drugs. So why all of a sudden are they good enough to have cost the US economy trillions of dollars?

Take care also to notice that only 15 people who are invested in being anti-PCB supported the EPA’s dubious claim of the carcinogenetic effects of PCB’s. It is not beyond the realm of reason that one could hand-pick 15 other experts who would not come to the same conclusion.

Health Effects of PCBs

Cancer

EPA uses a weight-of-evidence approach in evaluating the potential carcinogenicity of environmental contaminants. EPA's approach permits evaluation of the complete carcinogenicity database, and allows the results of individual studies to be viewed in the context of all of the other available studies. Studies in animals provide conclusive evidence that PCBs cause cancer. Studies in humans raise further concerns regarding the potential carcinogenicity of PCBs. Taken together, the data strongly suggest that PCBs are probable human carcinogens. 

PCBs are one of the most widely studied environmental contaminants, and many studies in animals and human populations have been performed to assess the potential carcinogenicity of PCBs. EPA's first assessment of PCB carcinogenicity was completed in 1987. At that time, data were limited to Aroclor 1260. In 1996, at the direction of Congress, EPA completed a reassessment of PCB carcinogenicity, titled "PCBs:  Cancer Dose-Response Assessment and Application to Environmental Mixtures" (PDF) (83 pp., 197K)  In addition to Aroclor 1260, new studies provided data on Aroclors 1016, 1242, and 1254. EPA's cancer reassessment reflected the Agency's commitment to the use of the best science in evaluating health effects of PCBs. EPA's cancer reassessment was peer reviewed by 15 experts on PCBs, including scientists from government, academia and industry. The peer reviewers agreed with EPA's conclusion that PCBs are probable human carcinogens.

The cancer reassessment determined that PCBs are probable human carcinogens, based on the following information: 

There is clear evidence that PCBs cause cancer in animals. EPA reviewed all of the available literature on the carcinogenicity of PCBs in animals as an important first step in the cancer reassessment. An industry scientist commented that "all significant studies have been reviewed and are fairly represented in the document". The literature presents overwhelming evidence that PCBs cause cancer in animals. An industry-sponsored peer-reviewed rat study, characterized as the "gold standard study" by one peer reviewer, demonstrated that every commercial PCB mixture tested caused cancer. The new studies reviewed in the PCB reassessment allowed EPA to develop more accurate potency estimates than previously available for PCBs. The reassessment provided EPA with sufficient information to develop a range of potency estimates for different PCB mixtures, based on the incidence of liver cancer and in consideration of the mobility of PCBs in the environment. 

The reassessment resulted in a slightly decreased cancer potency estimate for Aroclor 1260 relative to the 1987 estimate due to the use of additional dose-response information for PCB mixtures and refinements in risk assessment techniques (e.g., use of a different animal-to-human scaling factor for dose). The reassessment concluded that the types of PCBs likely to be bioaccumulated in fish and bound to sediments are the most carcinogenic PCB mixtures. 

In addition to the animal studies, a number of epidemiological studies of workers exposed to PCBs have been performed. Results of human studies raise concerns for the potential carcinogenicity of PCBs. Studies of PCB workers found increases in rare liver cancers and malignant melanoma. The presence of cancer in the same target organ (liver) following exposures to PCBs both in animals and in humans and the finding of liver cancers and malignant melanomas across multiple human studies adds weight to the conclusion that PCBs are probable human carcinogens. 

Some of the studies in humans have not demonstrated an association between exposures to PCBs and disease. However, epidemiological studies share common methodologic limitations that can affect their ability to discern important health effects (or define them as statistically significant) even when they are present. Often, the number of individuals in a study is too small for an effect to be revealed, or there are difficulties in determining actual exposure levels, or there are multiple confounding factors (factors that tend to co-occur with PCB exposure, including smoking, drinking of alcohol, and exposure to other chemicals in the workplace). Epidemiological studies may not be able to detect small increases in cancer over background unless the cancer rate following contaminant exposure is very high or the exposure produces an very unusual type of cancer. However, studies that do not demonstrate an association between exposure to PCBs and disease should not be characterized as negative studies. These studies are most appropriately viewed as inconclusive. Limited studies that produce inconclusive findings for cancer in humans do not mean that PCBs are safe. 

It is very important to note that the composition of PCB mixtures changes following their release into the environment. The types of PCBs that tend to bioaccumulate in fish and other animals and bind to sediments happen to be the most carcinogenic components of PCB mixtures. As a result, people who ingest PCB-contaminated fish or other animal products and contact PCB-contaminated sediment may be exposed to PCB mixtures that are even more toxic than the PCB mixtures contacted by workers and released into the environment. 

EPA's peer reviewed cancer reassessment concluded that PCBs are probable human carcinogens. EPA is not alone in its conclusions regarding PCBs. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has declared PCBs to be probably carcinogenic to humans. The National Toxicology Program has stated that it is reasonable to conclude that PCBs are carcinogenic in humans. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has determined that PCBs are a potential occupational carcinogen.

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/pcbs/pubs/effects.htm

American’s are paying much less for gasoline than nearly any other free-market country. Its northern neighbor Canada is energy independent and its gasoline costs are close to double those common in the US. Clearly chasing the dream of energy independence is not the answer to much of anything.

American’s need to remember that in 1975-76 everyone was telling us that we were out of oil or would be at some early future date, the one that sticks in my mind was 1980.

There are more reserves of petroleum now than there were in 1975-76. There is easily a 300 year supply of oil and gas in conventional forms. There is no structural shortage right now.

American’s should think back to the year 1980 when we were supposed to be out of oil and look at the real-dollar cost of crude back then. At one point in the year it was 9 bucks a barrel.

The biggest problem America faces is its continued inability to remember what happened last week or two decades ago. Instead any sign of a change in anything that negatively affects their pocket books is seen as a dire emergency and impending disaster.

Let the market do its job and stay out of its way. If the oil companies gave back all of their combined profits, the price of gasoline may drop by 30 or 40 cents.

They clearly are not the problem.

The reason oil was 9 buckish in 1980 was political. The same could be true of the high price today.

In 1980 President Reagan decided to crush the Soviet Union economically. He knew in his bones that all economic information coming from the Soviet Union was either an outright lie, or impossible for them to actually get.

He knew that the only way the Soviet Union could stay intact was to have a huge military to compete with America and NATO. The only way they could do this was to spend hard currency on military stuff.

The only real source of hard currency that the Soviets had was their vast supplies of oil that they exported for the market price of the day. They also gave loads of it away at below market cost to those in their sphere of influence.

So President Reagan took the well documented decision to drive the price of oil down to nothing. He knew it would kill the oil industry in America, but it would also destroy the Soviet Union. The oil industry would recover but the Soviet Union would be gone. In his mind a small price to pay.

It worked.

This time last year, everyone in the US was worried about how the trade balance with China was going to destroy the American economy.

China needs to generate US Dollars to purchase oil and a great deal of other commodities. If the price of oil keeps going up and the value of the US Dollar keeps going down, their economy will be seriously damaged.

China has a banking system that is bankrupt. The Renminbi is not tied to anything but the value the Chinese Government puts on it. Its real value is very much lower than that level.

If the Renminbi were tied to the US Dollar two things would happen; the cheap labor advantage would disappear and the Chinese banks would have an immense run on them. The savings of the Chinese peasantry is held in those banks. China has always been ruled at the pleasure of the peasantry.

Those peasants will not be at all happy when they find out that the value of those savings has been wildly reduced.

The banking system in China would simply implode. Growth of the Chinese economy would turn into a recession or possibly the deflation would be so large that it would turn into a depression. Projects in China that are now underway by being financed by its banks would inflate in cost to the point that they simply could not be sustained. Especially since its false cost advantage would have destroyed its ability to generate exports.

What could be taking place right now is a plan to bring about the downfall of the Communist government in China. Just like what happened to the Soviet Union.

The Chinese people would look to the success of large market economies in Europe, North America and Japan and conclude that their personal economic freedom is worth more than any promise the Communist Tyrants who rule now could possibly provide. The Army simply would be overwhelmed by the peasantry and could not retain the hold over the people they currently have. China is no stranger to bloody revolt by its peasants; this would simply be the continuation of its ancient traditions of the change of its government.

No one can predict what the results could be, but certainly the potential of freeing a billion people from oppression is a worthy goal.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

Why would a "proud Liberal" be so consistently against the truth?

The word 'recession' has a meaning. The country is not even close to a recession. Hasn’t been since 9/11.

The press has continued for far too long to lie about what a recession is and the state of the economy in general.

You in particular and Liberals in general (I'm watching Alan Coomes doing it right now) can't seem to discuss any given topic based on any sort of normal rules of argument. Instead all discussion is reduced to logical fallacies (your red-herring here) or simply shouting down opposition.

Why lie? Isn’t his real record good enough?

I don’t think any major international corporation would hire him as lead corporate council worthwhile as CEO, yet American’s are in sheep-like fashion seriously considering electing this wildly left-wing man as their Commander-In-Chief.

The result will be the opportunity to see America lose its primacy on the world stage and bankrupt itself to boot.

If you took a few minutes to think about the formation of capital, how it is utilised and how fungible it is, you would not be so keen to think that taxing the brains out of rich people and corporations will yield lower GINI index numbers. The capital needed to continue the growth of America’s economy will be in places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada. Places that understand that the most important freedom they have is their economic freedom.

Look to Zimbabwe if you really want to get a glimpse of the glorious revolutionary ‘change’ that Obama really stands for.

Cheers,

Bloefeld