The Democrat Party, that is. But first, conservatives are deluded if they believe, as Sean Hannity claims, that domestic drilling and “energy independence” are the path to less expensive gasoline. Crude oil is a commodity, subject to commodities speculation. Engine fuel prices that are lower than world market prices result from government controls, such as in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, where you fill your tanks with a wink and smile.

Government control is the only conclusion one can draw from Hannity’s leap from domestic exploration to lower prices at the pump. Increased supply wouldn’t account for a large reduction in price with consumption growing in India, China and other developing countries. Government control is not a conservative viewpoint (If there’s something I’ve missed, I’d welcome a comment) There are other reasons to develop domestic energy sources.

It’s a complicated issue, nevertheless. THIS from Powerline illustrates the party divide on domestic energy development, but how much of the price increase is due to restrictions? I don’t know. Does anyone?

This isn’t unheard of in one country’s interest in another’s positions.

FBI: China may use counterfeit Cisco routers to penetrate U.S. networks

Federal authorities in February seized some 400 counterfeit Cisco Systems knockoffs worth $76 million. [snip]

Among the purchasers of the fake equipment were the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center, U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center, U.S. Air Base at Spangdahelm, Germany, the Bonneville Power Administration, General Services Administration, and the defense contractor Raytheon, which makes key missile and weapons systems.

After the one ringy-dingy phone system changed with the intro of the Stepper and direct dialing, this government worked with AT&T to give away the protocols used in phone operating systems. This avuncular gift belied the trapdoors written in to allow the government to snoop where and when it wanted. In exchange AT&T got a monopoly that lasted for years.

We should expect every other power to do the same. It isn’t a question of are you paranoid, but are you paranoid enough.

An orgy of feel good activity here in Congress and among the garden variety eco-idiots produced the following:

Food price escalation transversing the globe

[snip]
From subsistence farmers eating rice in Ecuador to gourmets feasting on escargot in France, consumers worldwide face rising food prices in what analysts call a perfect storm of conditions. Freak weather is a factor. But so are dramatic changes in the global economy, including higher oil prices, lower food reserves and growing consumer demand in China and India.[snip]

Among the driving forces are petroleum prices, which increase the cost of everything from fertilizers to transport to food processing. Rising demand for meat and dairy in rapidly developing countries such as China and India is sending up the cost of grain, used for cattle feed, as is the demand for raw materials to make biofuels.[snip]

Meanwhile, record oil prices have boosted the cost of fertilizer and freight for bulk commodities — up 80 percent in 2007 over 2006. The oil spike has also turned up the pressure for countries to switch to biofuels, which the FAO says will drive up the cost of corn, sugar and soybeans “for many more years to come.”

In Japan, the ethanol boom is hitting the country in mayonnaise and miso, two important culinary ingredients, as biofuels production pushes up the price of cooking oil and soybeans. [snip]

In decades past, farm subsidies and support programs allowed major grain exporting countries to hold large surpluses, which could be tapped during food shortages to keep prices down. But new trade policies have made agricultural production much more responsive to market demands — putting global food reserves at their lowest in a quarter century.

Without reserves, bad weather and poor harvests have a bigger impact on prices.

“The market is extremely nervous. With the slightest news about bad weather, the market reacts,” said economist Abbassian. [snip]

But attempts to control prices in one country often have dire effects elsewhere. China’s restrictions on wheat flour exports resulted in a price spike in Indonesia this year, according to the FAO. Ukraine and Russia imposed export restrictions on wheat, causing tight supplies and higher prices for importing countries. Partly because of the cost of imported wheat, Peru’s military has begun eating bread made from potato flour, a native crop.(emphasis added)

“We need a response on a large scale, either the regional or international level,” said Brian Halweil of the environmental research organization Worldwatch Institute. “All countries are tied enough to the world food markets that this is a global crisis.”

Try a couple choruses of Kumbaya, which has more effect than giving the UN any food or money. Unless of course, the idea is to fatten up a collection of UN approved dictators.
Let us see the the idiot greenies undo this problem.

This post is for Vermont moonbats, our fount of all knowledge global warming. Can you spell Maunder Minimum?
For the Gorbots, dealing with facts is inconvenient; such is the difficulty of Godhood pretension. Global warming arm wavers had better save their carbon.

Forget global warming:
Welcome to the new Ice Age

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. [snip]

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter’s weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.[snip]

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased. [snip]

Isn’t that ice age the one that interfered with the “hockey stick” favored by all greenies? Nah, can’t be, otherwise the Goracle would have used it in the “hockey stick” computations.

I suspect the carbon loathing greenies will be arm flapping trying to keep warm.

Dr. Lawrence Britt is a Secular Humanist which explains his reluctance to include any of the Marxist/Communist/Progressive governments engaged in heinous conventions. There cannot be any argument that all Islam incorporates this definition; they define the term. Additionally, he says nothing about Woodrow Wilson or the biggest fascist in this hemisphere, FDR.

Ah yes, he incarcerated (interned) about 120,000 Japanese, 62% (74,400) were American citizens. Furthermore, in the early ‘30’s FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court to overrun the Constitutional dictum on the Separation of Powers. All to get his socialist New Deal policies operating.

I ask that the reader look at the actions of the Soviet Union with the following in mind. Examine China too, along with Cuba, Venezuela.

The U.S. Congress of today regarding the disparagement of the wealthy and ideas about corporate “patriotism” a la Obama attain the true bill describing Fascism.

One finds that all countries may flirt with fascism at times. Those that have a strong constitution and follow that will step back. The shredding the document by redefining it as one “needs” removes the restraining chains, giving freedom to the slippage. Today’s Congress, particularly the House, exhibits many symptoms.

General characteristics of a Fascist Country

1. Fascism is commonly defined as an open terror-based dictatorship which is:

• Reactionary: makes policy based upon current circumstances rather than creating policies to prevent problems; piles lies and misnomers on top of more lies until the truth becomes indistinguishable, revised or forgotten.
• Chauvinistic: Two or more tiered legal systems, varying rights based upon superficial characteristics such as race, creed and origin.
• Imperialistelements of finance capital: Extending a nation’s authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political domination of one state over its allies.

Though a dictatorship is the most common association with fascism, a democracy or republic can also be fascist when it strays away from its Tenets of sovereignty. In the 20th Century, many Fascist countries started out as republics. Through the use of fear, societies gave up their rights under the guise of security. Ultimately these republics morphed into Fascist states.

2. Fascism is an extreme measure taken by the middle classes to forestall lower-working class revolution; it thrives on the weakness of the middle classes. It accomplishes this by embracing the middle-class’ love of the status-quo, its complacency and its fears of:

1. Generating a united struggle within the working class
2. Revolution
3. Losing its own power and position within society

In a more simplistic term the people currently in control fear that if they allow equal rights and equal consideration to those being oppressed, they will become oppressed and lose everything. Generally those in power are of a smaller segment of society, but they hold the wealth and control of key systems like manufacturing, law, finance and government position, [snip]

In reality it is the oppressors’ fear of retribution by the oppressed that perpetuates fascism; for justification they dehumanize, demonize, strip them of rights, add new laws, restrict movement and attempt to control them by whatever means possible to prevent an uprising. It is very common in a fascist system to have the oppressed referred to as sub-human, animals, terrorists, savages, barbarians, vermin or any other term designed to create justification for the acts of terror and fascism perpetrated on the oppressed. [snip]

Propaganda also empowers the oppressors with elitism racially, socially, intellectually and/or spiritually.

The 7 conditions (Warning signs)that foster & fuel fascism are:

Instability of capitalist relationships or markets
The existence of considerable declassed social elements
The stripping of rights and wealth focused upon a specific segment of the population, specifically the middle class and intellectuals within urban areas as this the group with the means, intelligence and ability to stop fascism if given the opportunity.
Discontent among the rural lower middle class (clerks, secretaries, white collar labor). Consistent discontent among the general middle and lower middle classes against the oppressing upper-classes (haves vs have-nots).
Hate: Pronounced, perpetuated and accepted public disdain of a specific group defined by race, origin, theology or association.
Greed: The motivator of fascism, which is generally associated with land, space or scarce resources in the possession of those being oppressed.
Organized Propaganda:

a) The creation of social mythology that venerates (creates saints of) one element of society while concurrently vilifying (dehumanizing) another element of the population through misinformation, misdirection and the obscuring of factual matter through removal, destruction or social humiliation, (name-calling, false accusations, belittling and threats).

b) The squelching of public debate not agreeing with the popular agenda via slander, libel, threats, theft, destruction, historical revisionism and social humiliation. Journalists in particular are terrorized if they attempt to publish stories contrary to the agenda.

3. Fascism dovetails business & government sectors into a single economic unit, while concurrently increasing in-fighting and distrust between the units fostering advancement towards war.

4.

• Fascism promotes chauvinist demagogy, (appealing to the prejudices and emotions of the populace) by fostering selective persecution and accepted public vilification of the target group. It then promotes this a “patriotic”, “supportive” or “the party line” and disagreement with such as “anti-government”, “anti-faith” or “anti-nation”.
• Fascismcreates confusion through “facts”. It relies on junk science, revisionism, the elimination of cultural records/treasures and obfuscations to create its case and gain acceptance. Fascism can also combine Marxist critiques of capitalism or faith based critics of the same to re-define middle class perceptions of democracy and to force its issues, confuse logic and create majority consensus between targeted groups. This is also referred to as creating a state of Cognitive Dissonance, the mental state human beings are most easily manipulated.

5. Both middle and upper-middle-class dictated democracy and fascism are class dictatorships that use organized violence (verbal or physical) to maintain the class rule of the oppressors over the oppressed.

The difference between the two is demonstrated by the policies towards non-lower-working class classes. Fascism attains power through the substitution of one state’s form of class domination with another form, generally a middle class based republic segues into an open terrorist dictatorship, run by a few elite.

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

by Dr. Lawrence Britt

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14-defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
   Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
   Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
   The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military -
   Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism -
   The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media -
   Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security -
   Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
   Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected -
   The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
    Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
    Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
    Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
    Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections -
    Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Massive unemployment looms

China watchers are predicting a drop in the GNP growth rate this year and for the foreseeable future. Most are attributing the expected fall off this year — from last year’s official 11.4 percent, the fifth year in a row of double digit expansion — to the expected downturn in the U.S. and the world economy in general.

Even the 2007 growth rate wasn’t that high when compared with the peaks of the 1980s and 1990s, when GDP growth in some years surpassed 15 percent, coming out of the stagnation and even losses at the end of the Maoist era.

The downturn is going to be welcomed in some Chinese leadership quarters because of the fear of runaway inflation from an overheated economy — now fed by food shortages and the impact of the worst winter in 50 years. [snip]

Hmmmm, I wonder if they’ll want to sell some of our bonds and dollars? What do you think that will do to our economy.

What is the difference between 1980
and 2008? There’s no Reagan up next.

 We’re getting a good dose of economic malaise, support for a gun ban in DC, Israel gets butt kicked again by us and the  Olympics in China not Russia.

Looks like that Seventies Show rerun.

Carter had the field to himself for worst President, pushing Harding back into the gloom. Bush certainly clawed his way down, crawling over Harding. The damn apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it.

At the beginning of the week, Hotspur, in commentary, opined on the scrabbling in DC for protectionist legislation.
The government is the problem; nowhere in DC is the solution. Decibels of ululating amend not some very harsh facts. One may not eternally spend that which one does not have. Once more congress will violate that rule and hold a drowning economy’s head underwater. Shall we acquire the benefits of Carteresque economic policy once more?

When the Japanese acquired everything from Rockefeller Center to Movie studios, they over paid for businesses that they did not understand and for places that were mis en place. Today, the foreign buyers are procuring manufacturing, not moviemakers. While the physical plant may be immoveable, profits travel well. Globalization does quite well in textbooks; reality stains ones mellow like chaw drippings in a beard.

Overseas Investors Buy Aggressively in U.S.

Last May, a Saudi Arabian conglomerate bought a Massachusetts plastics maker. In November, a French company established a new factory in Adrian, Mich., adding 189 automotive jobs to an area accustomed to layoffs. In December, a British company bought a New Jersey maker of cough syrup.

For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market. [snip]

The surge of foreign money has injected fresh tension into a running debate about America’s place in the global economy. It has supplied state governors with a new development strategy — attracting foreign money. And it has reinvigorated sometimes jingoistic worries about foreigners securing control of America’s fortunes, a narrative last heard in the 1980s as Americans bought up Hondas and Rockefeller Center landed in Japanese hands.

With a growing share of investment coming from so-called sovereign wealth funds — vast pools of money controlled by governments from China to the Middle East — lawmakers and regulators are calling for greater scrutiny to ensure that foreign countries do not gain influence over the financial system or military-related technology. [snip]

Debate is swirling in Washington about the best way to stimulate a flagging economy. Despite divided opinion about the merits, foreign investment may be preventing deeper troubles by infusing hard-luck companies with cash and keeping some in business.

The most conspicuous beneficiaries are Wall Street banks like Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which have sold stakes to government-controlled funds in Asia and the Middle East to compensate for calamitous losses on mortgage markets. Beneath the headlines, a more profound shift is under way: Foreign entities last year captured stakes in American companies in businesses as diverse as real estate, steel-making, energy and baby food. [snip]

As the German company ThyssenKrupp Stainless broke ground in November on what is to be a $3.7 billion stainless steel plant in Calvert, Ala., its executives spoke effusively about the low cost of production in the United States and the chance to reach many millions of customers — particularly because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which allows goods to flow into Mexico and Canada free of duty.

“The Nafta stainless steel market has great potential, and we’re committed to significantly expanding our business in this growth region,” said the company’s chairman, Jürgen H. Fechter, according to a statement.

Foreign giants like Toyota Motor and Sony have been sinking capital into American plants. Investment in the American subsidiaries of foreign companies grew to $43.3 billion last year from $39.2 billion the previous year, according to the research and consulting firm OCO Monitor.

“This is a vote of confidence in the American economy, the American marketplace and the American worker,” the deputy Treasury secretary, Robert M. Kimmitt, said. “These investments keep Americans employed and keep balance sheets strong.”

Five million Americans now work for foreign companies set up in the United States, Mr. Kimmitt said, and those jobs pay 30 percent more than similar work at domestic companies. Nearly a third of such jobs are in manufacturing, which explains why Rust Belt states have been wooing foreign investment. [snip]

“It’s the culmination of a series of fool’s errands,” said Leo W. Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers. “We’ve hollowed out our industrial base and run up this massive trade deficit, and now the countries that have built the deficits are coming back to buy up our assets. It’s like spitting in your face.”

Other labor groups take a more pragmatic view.

“We need investment and we need to create good jobs,” said Thea Lee, policy director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Washington. “We’re not in the position to be too choosy about where that investment comes from. But it does bring home the consequences of flawed trade policies over many, many years that we’re in this position of being dependent.” [snip]

Never mind that it is these very unions that put most manufacturing job overseas to start.

“This is a phenomenon that could be called the growth of state capitalism as opposed to market capitalism,” said Jeffrey E. Garten, a trade expert at the Yale School of Management. “The United States has not ever been on the receiving end of this before.” [snip]

If fear of foreign money now inspires Americans to erect new barriers, that would damage the economy, said Todd M. Malan, president of the Organization for International Investment, a Washington lobbying group financed by foreign companies.
[snip] (Emphasis mine)

No such outcry has greeted the purchase of stakes in major Wall Street banks by state investment funds in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, China, Singapore and South Korea. This is largely because the banks sold passive slices and ceded no formal control, which would have set off a federal review of the national security implications. But the silence also reflects the imperative that these enormous institutions swiftly secure cash.
[snip]

“They’re buying financial assets at well under book value,” said Gary C. Hufbauer, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
[snip]

“The forces sucking in this capital are much bigger than the political forces,” said Mr. Garten, the Yale trade expert. “If there is a big controversy, it will be between Washington on the one hand and corporate America on the other. In that contest, the financiers and the businessmen are going to win, as they always do.”

Maybe the Donkephants should raise taxes to confiscatory levels, suck the economic marrow right out of US fiscal growth. That will solve the protectionist problem; the companies’ values drop to zero.

Citigroup’s hopes for investment from Chinese bank hit a snag

NEW YORK: Citigroup’s talks with the China Development Bank to make a multibillion-dollar investment in the company have reached an impasse after the Chinese government spurned a possible deal, according to a person close to the situation.

While Chinese investment groups have bought big stakes in Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, the scuttled deal suggests there may be limits on how much the Chinese government is willing to invest in the Western banking system. The exact reasons for the breakdown are unclear, and it is possible the two sides may return to the negotiating table.

Citigroup is turning to cash-rich investors, including foreign governments, for a second time as it confronts mounting losses on mortgage-related investments. It hopes to raise about $10 billion, people briefed on the plan said Friday. [snip]

In the prior post on this subject, I mentioned how the Chicoms have bought into the US banking industry, along with the Arabs. Well, I think the Chinks just choked. There are limits; someone in charge of the yuans, woke up saying this ain’t chop suey!

Where did the $24 billion go? It wasn’t and isn’t paper profits like a stock purchase. This money changed hands many times. The 24,000 individuals getting the free career makeover will have time to look for the loot.

Democratic voters look like a pretty homogeneous lot. The same nebulous themes of “hope” and “change” that elected Deval Patrick are now being bandied about on the national level by Barack Obama. And rather effectively at that given Obama’s comfortable Iowa win.

Obama has yet to impress me as a deep thinker, but his weak kneed themes make me wonder if he has the stones for the job. He voted “present” 130 times as an Illinois state senator. How many state issues can possibly be that vexing? But Obama partisans are quick to defend him:

They said Mr. Obama cast 4,000 votes in the Illinois Senate and used the present vote to protest bills that he believed had been drafted unconstitutionally or as part of a broader legislative strategy.

So the vote should have been “no” after all. He did take an oath to “defend” the constitution, not offer “protest” votes when it gets trampled on. And if merely voting to defend your beliefs is too daunting a challenge, what would a President Obama do if China invades Taiwan? You get the feeling he’d instruct our UN ambassador to vote “present” during the Security Council deliberations to maintain a Swiss like neutrality. Wouldn’t do to offend anyone after all.

This kind of rudderless indecision would be disastrous on the national and international levels. This man simply doesn’t have the experience to be president. His campaign slogan should really read—”Making change for changes sake and hoping for a plan”.

Only a lawyer and a politician could screw up something like this:

‘Insane’ red tape reins in lil’ Santa’s gift sleigh for Everett victims

Political red tape, and not a blown bulb in Rudolph’s red nose, has grounded a pint-sized Santa Claus’ miracle mission to deliver toys and clothing to the victims of this month’s tanker-truck catastrophe in Everett.

Mayor John F. Hanlon told the Herald that because of the massive recalls of misfit toys manufactured in China with lead paint, novelties dropped off to make the Christmases of nine displaced children a little merrier are instead quarantined at the Everett Armory.

And that’s just where the brand-new electronic and board games, trucks, blocks and crayons 10-year-old Peter-Anthony Hereu of Wellesley has collected will be dumped at the insistence of the city’s attorneys, Hanlon regrettably confirmed.

“It’s the liability,” Hanlon explained. “If you trip on ice, trip on a stair, trip on a present, we’re going to get sued. I don’t know what to do with the toys. We’re holding on to them until next year. A little kid 10 years old, I don’t want him to be disappointed.”

Neither do the fifth-grader’s parents, Peter and Judy Hereu, who yesterday threatened to load up a fleet of vehicles with toys and go looking for the needy tots themselves.

“He still believes in Santa,” his mom said. “I’m riding that until the wheels fall off.”

She called Everett’s fear of litigation “insane” considering 47 residents, burned out of their homes Dec. 5 by a rig that rolled over on Sweetser Circle and unleashed a flood of gasoline-fueled fire on a neighborhood, are hurting for the holidays.

“I can’t believe the world is like this,” she said. “This is why people are hesitant to give of their time and money. That’s what Christmas is all about: giving.” [Snip]

Even after the family scoured the donations for any hint of “Made in China,” Hanlon’s office told the Hereus thanks, but no thanks, to both toys and clothes.

When reached by the Herald yesterday, Hanlon agreed to accept new clothing. He’ll also take the toys off their hands, but reiterated they’ll meet an unknown fate at the armory. The Hereus want the toys to go straight to the families.

Peter-Anthony’s father said he has only told his son they are waiting on an address to make the delivery.

“I want him to take away from this that one person can make a difference,” the proud papa said. “And he did make a difference.”

Do the right thing Everett and distribute the toys. Otherwise you’ll be forever remembered as the Grinch who stole Christmas!

Think positive, this ’slow motion train wreck’ is good for the U.S.

Yes, America needs a recession. Bernanke and Paulson won’t admit it. And investors hate them. We’re all trapped in outdated 1990s wishful thinking about a “new economy” and “perpetual growth.” [snip]

Let’s focus on 17 benefits from this recession. [snip]

1. Purge the excesses of the housing boom
No, it’s not heartless. Not like wartime calculations of “acceptable collateral damage.” Yes, The Economist admits “the economic and social costs of recession are painful: unemployment, lower wages and profits, and bankruptcy.” [snip]

2. U.S. dollar wake-up call
Reverse the dollar’s free fall and revive our global credibility. [snip]

3. Write-offs
Expose Wall Street’s shadow-banking system. [snip]
A lack of transparency is killing our international credibility. Write it all off, now!

4. Budgeting
Force fiscal restraint back into government. [snip]

5. Overconfidence
A recession will wake up short-term investors playing the market. [snip]

6. Ratings
Rating agencies have massive conflicts of interest; they aren’t doing their job. They’re supposed to represent the investors, but favor Corporate America, which pays for the reports. Shake them up.

7. China
Trigger an internal recession in China. [snip]

8. Oil
Force the energy and auto industries to get serious about emission standards and reducing oil dependency.

9. Inflation
Expose the “core inflation” farce Washington uses to sugarcoat reality.

10. Moral hazard
Slow the Fed from cutting interest rates to bail out speculators.

11. War costs
Force Washington to get honest about how it’s going to pay for our wars, other than supplemental bills that are worse than Enron-style debt financing.

12. CEO pay
Further expose CEO compensation that’s now about five hundred times the salaries of workers, compared with about 40 times a generation ago.

13. Privatization
Stop the privatization of our federal government to no-bid contractors and high-priced mercenary armies fighting our wars.

14. Entitlements
Force Congress to get serious about the coming Social Security/Medicare disaster. [snip]

15. Consumers
Yes, we’re all living way beyond our means, piling up excessive credit-card debt, encouraged by government leaders who tell us “deficits don’t matter.” Recessions will pressure individuals to reduce spending and increase savings.

16. Regulation
Lobbyists have replaced regulation. Extreme theories of unrestrained free trade plus zero regulation just don’t work; [snip]
Get real, folks.

17. Sacrifice
“We have not seen a nationwide decline in housing like this since the Great Depression, says Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf. As individuals and as a nation Americans have always performed best in crises, like the Depression or WWII, times when we’re all asked to make sacrifices. Pampering us with interest-rate cuts and tax cuts… setting the stage for this new subprime/credit crisis.
Wake up, the train wrecked. Time to think positive, find solutions, demand sacrifices.

The only difference between the hard times of yesteryear is the surfeit of liberal thought eg. “Let the government save me while I idle away my time.” Perhaps an economic wedgie of hard conditions might change their aversion to self-sufficiency. Then again, they may just starve.

Flash news

The U.S. Ag bureau advises tomato growers to diversify crops. Prices will drop when the extended growing season at Nome hits full production.
Chick Little posts advisories on sky conditions, postulating serious positional shifts.
Gov. Schwarzenegger predicts fewer fires in CA in the next millennia.
Vermont gets beachfront property again.

U.N. Report Describes Risks of Inaction on Climate Change

Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees.

UN Panel Gives Dire Warming Forecast

“Only urgent, global action will do,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, calling on the United States and China - the world’s two biggest polluters - to do more to slow global climate change.
“I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role,” Ban told reporters. “Both countries can lead in their own way.”
Ban, however, advised against assigning blame. [snip]

It is providential to have a U.N. Secretary-General who isn’t a finger pointing hysteric.

Cult awaits end of days in cave after leader’s arrest

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) – Members of a Russian doomsday cult barricaded themselves in a cave to wait out the end of the world as the cult’s leader underwent psychiatric exams Thursday, Russian media reported. [snip]
“It is obviously some kind of insanity,” Mitropolitan Kirill, a high-ranking Russian Orthodox Church official, told Russian television. “It is perhaps even a medical case. A very dangerous phenomena is happening in Russia’s religious life.”

I’m surprised the UN isn’t in the cave with them. Well, they are secure from the sky calamity in the homemade grotto.

When Sam Walton ran Wal-Mart, they actually used to push American products. Now Wal-Mart sells the cheapest Chinese junk they can find, but those times might be changing:

Millions of Chinese-made toys have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.

With only seven weeks until Christmas, the recall is yet another blow to the toy industry — already bruised by a slew of recalls this past summer.

There’s a business lesson here—you can outsource the production, but not the responsibility for quality. And my guess is that toys aren’t the only shoddy Chinese products flooding our store shelves. Every company doing business with China should be examining its products very closely. The PR hit from an “incident” could be devastating.

Sadly, we accept substandard Chinese products because companies have been “programming” us to accept slipshod, disposable goods for decades. Think about the durability of goods you bought just 10 years ago compared to their counterparts today. There’s really no comparison. For example, an old fashion mop works ten times better than a Swiffer, but the latter has the added benefit of making you buy disposable pads.

We need someone like Sam Walton to sell us decent products at a decent price. Somewhere along the line, his company and others lost that focus. And it probably wouldn’t hurt you to buy a real mop instead of a Swiffer either.

…It’s called a Britain’s National Health Service….

London (AFP) - Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday…

Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping for private treatment, said the study.  One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers….

And they say THIS stuff comes from China…