No Go Areas Expanding

http://www.jihadwatch.org/
"Occupation without tanks or soldiers": "No-go" zones for non-Muslims proliferating in Europe


Of course, this topic is largely off-limits for discussion for fear of the appearance of "Islamophobia," on one hand, and for fear of sparking riots in the afflicted areas of European cities on the other. "European 'No-Go' Zones for Non-Muslims Proliferating," by Soeren Kern for Hudson New York, August 22 (thanks to RK):

Islamic extremists are stepping up the creation of "no-go" areas in European cities that are off-limits to non-Muslims.

Many of the "no-go" zones function as microstates governed by Islamic Sharia law. Host-country authorities effectively have lost control in these areas and in many instances are unable to provide even basic public aid such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services.

The "no-go" areas are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated rather than become integrated into their European host nations.

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls "Londonistan" – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers, called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been plastered with posters declaring "You are entering a Sharia controlled zone: Islamic rules enforced." And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims is regularly vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.

In the Bury Park area of Luton, Muslims have been accused of "ethnic cleansing" by harassing non-Muslims to the point that many of them move out of Muslim neighborhoods. In the West Midlands, two Christian preachers have been accused of "hate crimes" for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. In Leytonstone in east London, the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid by saying: "How dare you come to a Muslim area."

French government map link and this was in 2006
http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/Atlas/ZUS/
In France, large swaths of Muslim neighborhoods are now considered "no-go" zones by French police. At last count, there are 751 Sensitive Urban Zones (Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS), as they are euphemistically called. A complete list of the ZUS can be found on a French government website, complete with satellite maps and precise street demarcations. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the ZUS, parts of France over which the French state has lost control.

Muslim immigrants are taking control of other parts of France too. In Paris and other French cities with high Muslim populations, such as Lyons, Marseilles and Toulouse, thousands of Muslims are closing off streets and sidewalks (and by extension, are closing down local businesses and trapping non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for Friday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of "Allahu Akbar" via loudspeakers into the streets.

The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com [links at the Hudson NY site above], and which have been denounced as an "occupation without tanks or soldiers," have provoked anger and disbelief. But despite many public complaints, local authorities have declined to intervene because they are afraid of sparking riots.

In the Belgian capital of Brussels (which is 20% Muslim), several immigrant neighborhoods have become "no-go" zones for police officers, who frequently are pelted with rocks by Muslim youth. In the Kuregem district of Brussels, which often resembles an urban war zone, police are forced to patrol the area with two police cars: one car to carry out the patrols and another car to prevent the first car from being attacked. In the Molenbeek district of Brussels, police have been ordered not to drink coffee or eat a sandwich in public during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

In Germany, Chief Police Commissioner Bernhard Witthaut, in an August 1 interview with the newspaper Der Westen, revealed that Muslim immigrants are imposing "no-go" zones in cities across Germany at an alarming rate.

The interviewer asked Witthaut: "Are there urban areas – for example in the Ruhr – districts and housing blocks that are "no-go areas," meaning that they can no longer be secured by the police?" Witthaut replied: "Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas crimes no longer result in charges. They are left 'to themselves.' Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture."

In Italy, Muslims have been commandeering the Piazza Venezia in Rome for public prayers. In Bologna, Muslims repeatedly have threatened to bomb the San Petronio cathedral because it contains a 600-year-old fresco inspired by Dante's Inferno which depicts Mohammed being tormented in hell.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch court ordered the government to release to the public a politically incorrect list of 40 "no-go" zones in Holland. The top five Muslim problem neighborhoods are in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. The Kolenkit area in Amsterdam is the number one Muslim "problem district" in the country. The next three districts are in Rotterdam – Pendrecht, het Oude Noorden and Bloemhof. The Ondiep district in Utrecht is in the fifth position, followed by Rivierenwijk (Deventer), Spangen (Rotterdam), Oude Westen (Rotterdam), Heechterp/ Schieringen (Leeuwarden) and Noord-Oost (Maastricht).

In Sweden, which has some of the most liberal immigration laws in Europe, large swaths of the southern city of Malmö – which is more than 25% Muslim – are "no-go" zones for non-Muslims. Fire and emergency workers, for example, refuse to enter Malmö's mostly Muslim Rosengaard district without police escorts. The male unemployment rate in Rosengaard is estimated to be above 80%. When fire fighters attempted to put out a fire at Malmö's main mosque, they were attacked by stone throwers.

In the Swedish city of Gothenburg, Muslim youth have been hurling petrol bombs at police cars. In the city's Angered district [how appropriate - ed.], where more than 15 police cars have been destroyed, teenagers have also been pointing green lasers at the eyes of police officers, some of whom have been temporarily blinded.

In Gothenburg's Backa district, youth have been throwing stones at patrolling officers. Gothenburg police have also been struggling to deal with the problem of Muslim teenagers burning cars and attacking emergency services in several areas of the city.

According to the Malmö-based Imam Adly Abu Hajar: "Sweden is the best Islamic state."

claims to reality

http://asiancorrespondent.com/62435/a-short-history-of-climate-science-hysteria/
A short history of climate science hysteria


By Gavin Atkins Aug 15, 2011 5:35AM UTC

72 Comments and 17 Reactions

Tim Blair recently posted this list of things that the media have trumpeted as being the “first casualties of climate change”.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to check the veracity of each story – but what I was not expecting is that every story up until 2010 (after which some of the claims are too recent to verify one way or another) has either been completely debunked, or has since had some serious doubts placed on it.

So the following examples have not been cherry picked – it’s a quick analysis of every claim made about “the first casualty of global warming” up until 2010.

Here are the stories that Tim gathered together, followed by the latest information about them:


The claim:

The golden toad was the first casualty of global warming

The reality:

“There is no evidence of a trend associated with global warming. Rather, the extinction of the Monteverde golden toad (Bufo periglenes) appears to have coincided with an exceptionally dry interval caused by the 1986–1987 El Niño event.”



The claim:

Tuvalu: Global Warming’s first casualty. Ten thousand people, Tuvalu’s entire population, are packing their bags as their homes among nine low level atolls are being swallowed by the rising sea.

The reality:

The last census shows that Tuvalu’s population continues to grow.



The claim:

Polar bears are set to become the first casualty of global warming.

The reality:

The total number of the world’s polar bear population is still thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000.



The claim:

The first casualty of global warming is India’s mangrove island on the Bay of Bengal, Lochachara ~ it is now gone.

The reality:

The loss of the island was almost certainly caused as part of the natural erosion of an island in a delta.


The claim:

The Maldives are the likely first casualty in any serious increase in global warming.

The reality:

The Maldives population continues to increase.



The claim:

Water could be the first casualty of global warming.

The reality:

Not in Australia it ain’t. Also, the argument that smaller glaciers means less water is pure illogical claptrap as explained eloquently by Jennifer Marohasy.


The claim:

Australia Could Become First Major Casualty Due To Global Warming.

The reality:

People in Sydney and Melbourne have wasted millions on desalination plants because of false predictions about water shortages.



The claim:

Losing winter: as climate change takes hold, North America’s coldest season is the first casualty.

The reality:

North America has experienced some of its biggest snow seasons on record.



The claim:

First Casualty of Global Warming? Rare breed of possum may be extinct.

The reality:

Live possums were discovered four months later.



The claim:

The Alaskan village of Newtok is the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

The town of Newtok is still exactly where it always has been.



The claim:

UNEP had also recently declared that coral reefs, which support the majority of marine life, will be the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

The reefs are doing fine.



The claim:

Brunt of climate change perceived in India; small Himalayan glaciers first casualty.

The reality:

UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning



The claim:

In India … agriculture is the first casualty of climate change.

The reality:

India produces record wheat and pulses crop.

Understanding Progressives/Radicals and Conservatives

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/07/intellectuals-fall-from-grace.html#more
The Intellectual’s Fall From Grace


I reported a couple of weeks ago that I had started reading The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt Against the Liberal Elite by Lee Harris. Life is hectic, and has thrown me a few curve balls in the meantime, so I’m still reading it. Circumstances seem to conspire to minimize the amount of time available for extra-curricular reading.

In Chapter 4 Mr. Harris continues his observations on the influence of the different philosophical strains of the European Enlightenment — particularly the conflict between Burkean and Lockean concepts of human liberty — on American political culture. The clash between these competing ideologies has flared up again in recent years, with the Tea Parties, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin representing the Burkean viewpoint, and the rest of the political establishment — including the entire Democrat Party and the vast majority of Republicans — channeling Locke.

The European Enlightenment was a response to the unprecedented explosion of scientific knowledge that had transformed Europe during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Rapid advances in the physical sciences, and later biology and medicine, led to the conceit that human society — especially political economy — could also be understood and improved by the enlightened scientific mind.

This has been the gravest and most fundamental error of the last three centuries. The philosophe arrogated unto himself the role of architect of a new society, in which outmoded customs and traditions would be discarded in favor of an improved model of society constructed by scientists armed with their superior knowledge and understanding.

The results of all this utopian tinkering — the French Revolution, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Multiculturalism, and the modern welfare state — brought untold suffering upon the human race, culminating in the heap of corpses that is commonly known as the 20th century.

The lesson has yet to be learned, unfortunately. Political hubris is endemic in Western intellectual culture. The utopians are still with us, and the closer we come to the utter collapse of our civilization, the more determined they are to have their way with us — the ignorant peons who so stubbornly resist our transformation into a more perfect version of the human race.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here’s what Mr. Harris has to say about the huge divide that has emerged between ordinary people and over-educated intellectuals (pp. 62-64):

Generally speaking, people who have only a high school education or less will be inclined to have more conservative or traditionalist views on all sorts of contemporary issues than people with a college education or advanced degrees. These two groups will normally tend to disagree on immigration, gay marriage, the war on terror, the threat of socialism under the Obama administration, and a host of other questions. It does not matter in the least which group is right or wrong — all that matters for the purpose of my argument is that there will be substantial disagreement between the two groups. It is obviously true that there will be a certain amount of crossovers from either side. There will be college professors who oppose gay marriage, and high school dropouts who approve of an ultraliberal immigration policy, but they will tend to be the statistical outliers.

At this point we are only dealing with a sociological phenomenon, namely, that better educated people in the United States today tend to be liberals, and that liberals tend to be better educated. But this phenomenon is open to two radically conflicting interpretations. One way of interpreting it would be to argue that better educated people will obviously have the right answers on the issues of the day, because they are smarter and see things more clearly. Needless to say, this interpretation of “the education gap” tends to be favored by educated liberals. Yet there is another way of interpreting this phenomenon, which is to argue that the so called education gap is really an “indoctrination gap.” The wide consensus among the better educated on different questions is not proof that they have been taught to think for themselves, but irrefutable evidence that they have been programmed to think alike.


To most of us, education is good, while indoctrination is bad. But how exactly can we tell when a program of education has in effect become a program of re-education? The underlying metaphor of education starts with a blank slate that represents the student’s fresh and open mind, so that the teacher’s mission is simply to fill him full of knowledge and information. But the premise of re-education is quite different. It assumes that the student’s mind is already cluttered with ignorance and prejudices, normally those he has picked up from his family’s inherited traditions. This means that the first task of the re-educator is to cleanse and purge the student’s mind of those traditions he has been taught to accept by his family. Only then can the re-educator fill his student’s mind with the right ideas and opinions — namely, the ideas and opinions to which the re-educator subscribes. But this kind of re-education seems suspiciously like straightforward indoctrination.


The slippery slope between education and indoctrination is an ambiguous heritage from the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. It is a direct result of the new way of looking at the world adopted by the enlightened elite of that time. Before the Enlightenment, European intellectuals most often saw their job as defending the status quo. After the Enlightenment, they came to see their mission as improving the world in accordance with their own values and ideals. These improvements, however, came at a cost. They required the abolition of traditions and customs that ordinary — that is, unenlightened — people dearly cherished. But this abolition could not take place without a power struggle: The average person did not want his traditional world turned upside down. The unenlightened fought back and resisted, and this required the enlightened elite to enter more forcefully into the political arena. Hitherto the intellectual had contemplated the world. Now he was determined to reform it. Thus the enlightened intellectual began his struggle to achieve cultural hegemony and domination — a struggle he inevitably justified in the name of human progress, often employing the standard argument that the end justifies the means. This was his fall from grace, for the intellectual, by committing to the implementation of his utopian visions of a perfect world, deliberately risked his most precious asset — his reputation for being reliably objective and disinterested about all the questions that came to his attention. But the enlightened intellectual is willing to take this risk because he is convinced that he has a world to win, and ever since the European Enlightenment, he has been trying to win it. And today he is succeeding, which is precisely what is driving the populist conservatives nuts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The black American academic Thomas Sowell wrote a book entitled 'The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy'
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If you are ever buying a present for a 12-year-old, I recommend The Giver by Lois Lowry. She does a brilliant job of capturing the essence of a totalitarian society at the middle-school reading level. She creates a dystopia that sounds seductive at first, like an anodyne New Age colony, and slowly reveals what a horrible place it is. And she does it all in fewer than 200 pages.
-------
The Giver.
The sales on this are massive. Over 3300 reviews!
It has a Newberry Medal, too, so uber left parents would be reassured. However, it has generated controversy:

Although it is a Newbery Award Winner, The Giver is a controversial book that has been challenged and even banned. After parents complained that the violent and sexual passages were inappropriate for children, the Bonita Unified School District in California temporarily banned the novel from classes. The Giver has been challenged in other school districts around the country for its "mature themes" of euthanasia, infanticide, and suicide.

I do not agree with banning and challenging of this novel. It is a great book, and part of what makes it so great is the incorporation of these controversial issues. They force readers to wrestle with their own thoughts and figure out their stance on the issues. Good literature makes readers think.

Hmmm...I can see parents going off over that one.

One responded:

These books need to at least be screened by parents. I homeschool so that's not an issue with me. This is not appropriate for 12-14 year olds -- especially public schooled kids, who have enough angst as it is.

In my own children's case, I would've held off till high school, though the Newberry Award would've lulled me. Euthanasia and infanticide are subjects best considered by older kids.
Not to say it wouldn't be a great book for a "resistant" reader in high school, esp. given the enthusiatic reviews from that group.

I saw that many of the nay-sayers in the one star reviews were children who found the book confusing or disturbing.

Sounds like it would make a good book for a discussion group.
--------------------------
Mentions of Angelo Codevilla are always welcome.
The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It

Does New Zealand halal meat finance Islamic mission?Country: NEW ZEALAND, UNITED KINGDOM

https://barnabasfund.org/UK/Act/Campaign/Operation-Nehemiah/Campaign-updates/Does-New-Zealand-halal-meat-finance-Islamic-mission.html 
does not seem to link up??

http://www.christianfriendlyproducts.com/print.php?news.7

Operation Nehemiah can reveal that some of the money paid by consumers in Britain for halal meat is apparently being used to finance dawa (Islamic mission) and Muslim construction projects in New Zealand.

The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) claims to certify over 90% of meat exports from the country as halal, making New Zealand the leading global exporter of halal meat with the largest halal slaughterhouses in the world. Despite the country's having an estimated Muslim population of only 41,000 (0.9%)*, over 80% of its meat and poultry plants are supervised by FIANZ, bringing the total value of halal meat exports to 300 million NZ dollars, and it is increasing annually. FIANZ accounts show revenues and assets amounting to millions of NZ dollars. Since obtaining its first Middle Eastern contract in 1984, FIANZ has been recognised in 45 countries.

Mosque of the Muslim Association of Canterbury

FIANZ issues over 9,000 halal certificates each year, for which they charge the meat suppliers. But in addition, over the past twenty years FIANZ has been providing annual grants to its regional associations for dawa activities. Muslim dawa involves more than gaining individual converts to Islam. For many Muslims it includes the establishing of Islamic enclaves that reveal the power and benefits of Islam to others, while for Islamists it involves the eventual and complete Islamisation of non-Muslim societies, both people and structures.

In 2006, a FIANZ dawa group coordinated a lecture tour of New Zealand by Dr Bilal Philips, who has since been banned from entering the UK and whom Operation Nehemiah recently revealed was linked to a major dawa campaign for the 2012 Olympics in London. FIANZ told the New Zealand press that such clerics will not be invited in future. Yet the Canterbury regional association insisted they would continue to invite people such as Sheikh Khalid Yasin, who is also banned from the UK.

Money absorbent Power Hungry Influence

Ideological money laundering

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/6/16/ideological-money-laundering.html
Jun 16, 2011

Climate: IPCC Climate: Parliament Energy Greens
This is a guest post by Ben Pile, of "Climate Resistance" fame.


As everybody now knows, the headlines from IPCC WGIII report on renewable energy appear to have been written by Greenpeace. When the Summary for Policy Makers was published last month, I was one of many who noted the role of Greenpeace, and the extent to which the SPM's authors were involved in the renewable energy industry. Steve McIntyre's discovery has caused further criticism of the IPCC's letting such overt agendas near its evidence-making for policy-makers, even from the green camp, albeit only because it is such bad PR. But there is yet more to this story.

The European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), who co-authored the report with Greenpeace, claims to be an 'umbrella organisation of the European renewable energy industry, trade and research associations' of the renewable sectors. 'EREC represents an industry with an annual turnover of EUR 70 billion and providing over 550.000 jobs'. They consist of a number of partner organisations, each representing one technology sector within renewable energy, such as wind, geothermal and solar, and each of these has as many as hundreds of members. As Mark Lynas points out, then, it is no surprise that the EREC 'are of course enthusiasts for renewable energy’s prospects because they make money from selling wind turbines and solar panels, so hardly count as an unbiased source'.

Etatism

“what is intervention?” and “what is the free market?”, the statists just need to read Rothbard’s “Power and Market” starting at page 1057. Rothbard explains the terms that are the starting point of this debate. It’s a bright shiny line. It’s really not that complicated.




http://mises.org/Books/mespm.PDF

Mises also explains the bright line differentiation:

The most important event in the history of the last hundred years is the displacement of liberalism by etatism.



Etatism appears in two forms: socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion.******

 Etatism assigns to the state the task of guiding the citizens and of holding them in tutelage. It aims at restricting the individual’s freedom to act. It seeks to mold his destiny and to vest all initiative in the government alone.*******



The state is a human institution, not a superhuman being. He who says “state” means coercion and compulsion. ******



The thesis of etatism that the members of the government and its assistants are more intelligent than the people, and that they know better what is good for the individual than he himself knows, is pure nonsense.******



http://mises.org/etexts/mises/og/chap3a.asp

Cate Blancards filthy stinking carbon stupidity

Cate Blanchett's ad about the proposed carbon tax is misleading, argues Andrew Bolt. Source: Herald Sun


IF THE science on global warming is so good, why are we told such lies?

That is the true disgrace of those behind the ad that features Cate Blanchett telling us to "say yes" to the Gillard Government's carbon dioxide tax.



It's not that it stars a multi-millionaire actor blithely instructing the little people to pay a tax that she wouldn't even feel herself.



Click here to have your say at Andrew's blog



It's not that it stars a hypocrite telling us to cut our emissions while she herself jets off to Cannes, New York and LA, and helps to flog luxury Audi cars.



No, it's the lies that should shame Blanchett and the ad's other star, Michael Caton, of Packed to the Rafters, who are not responsible for them, but speak the lines put in their mouths.



Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.

Related CoverageChat online: Andrew Bolt's blog

Andrew Bolt: Unelected body will set power prices

Andrew Bolt: The Left promotes its own echo

.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.

It's the flagrant lies in this ad that should shame all the green groups and unions which made the wretched thing -- and that should warn the rest of us there is much less to this scare than such shameless people claim.



How dare they? And where are the regulators? Does the Advertising Standards Bureau exempt global warming alarmists from its demand that "ads shall not be misleading or deceptive"?



The lies start with the very first shot of the ad, showing Caton standing under black skies made filthy by a power station billowing soot --labelled "carbon".

USA economy recovery ? ?

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-questions-to-ask-anyone-foolish-enough-to-believe-the-economic-crisis-is-over

If you listen to Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama and the mainstream media long enough, and if you didn't know any better, you might be tempted to think that the economic crisis is long gone and that we are in the midst of a burgeoning economic recovery. Unfortunately, the truth is that the economic crisis is far from over. In 2010, more homes were repossessed than ever before, more Americans were on food stamps than ever before and a smaller percentage of American men had jobs than ever before. The reality is that the United States is an economic basket case and all of these natural disasters certainly are not helping things. The Federal Reserve has been printing gigantic piles of money and the U.S. government has been borrowing and spending cash at a dizzying pace in an all-out effort to stabilize things. They have succeeded for the moment, but our long-term economic problems are worse then ever. We are still in the middle of a full-blown economic crisis and things are about to get even worse.

If you know someone that is foolish enough to believe that the economic crisis is over and that our economic problems are behind us, just ask that person the following questions....



#1 During the 23 months of the "Obama recovery", an average of about 23,000 jobs a month have been created. It takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So shouldn't we hold off a bit before we declare the economic crisis to be over?

#2 During the "recession", somewhere between 6.3 million and 7.5 million jobs were lost. During the "Obama recovery", approximately 535,000 jobs have been added. When will the rest of the jobs finally come back?

#3 Of the 535,000 jobs that have been created during the "Obama recovery", only about 35,000 of them are permanent full-time jobs. Today, "low income jobs" account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States. If our economy is recovering, then why can't it produce large numbers of good jobs that will enable people to provide for their families?

#4 Agricultural commodities have been absolutely soaring this decade. The combined price of cotton, wheat, gasoline and hogs is now more than 3 times higher than it was back in 2002. So how in the world can the Federal Reserve claim that inflation has been at minimal levels all this time?

#5 Back in 2008, banks had a total of 27 billion dollars in excess reserves at the Fed. Today, banks have a total of approximately 1.5 trillion dollars in excess reserves at the Fed. So what is going to happen when all of this money eventually hits the economy?....

#6 If the U.S. economy is recovering, then why are shipments by U.S. factories still substantially below 2008 levels?

#7 Why are imports of goods from overseas growing much more rapidly than shipments of goods from U.S. factories?

#8 According to Zillow, the average price of a home in the U.S. is about 8 percent lower than it was a year ago and that it continues to fall about 1 percent a month. During the first quarter of 2011, home values declined at the fastest rate since late 2008. So can we really talk about a "recovery" when the real estate crisis continues to get worse?

#9 According to a shocking new survey, 54 percent of Americans believe that a housing recovery is "unlikely" until at least 2014. So how is the housing industry supposed to improve if so many people are convinced that it will not?

#10 The latest GDP numbers out of Japan are a complete and total disaster. During the first quarter GDP declined by a stunning 3.7 percent. Of course I have been saying for months that the Japanese economy is collapsing, but most mainstream economists were absolutely stunned by the latest figures. So will the rest of the world be able to avoid slipping into a recession as well?
#11 Next week, Republicans in the House of Representatives are going to allow a vote on raising the debt ceiling. Everyone knows that this is an opportunity for Republican lawmakers to "look tough" to their constituents (the vast majority of which do not want the debt ceiling raised). Everyone also knows that eventually the Republicans are almost certainly going to cave on the debt ceiling after minimal concessions by the Democrats. The truth is that neither "establishment Republicans" nor "establishment Democrats" are actually serious about significantly cutting government debt. So why do we need all of this political theater?

#12 Why are so many of our once great manufacturing cities being transformed into hellholes? In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.

#13 According to one new survey, about half of all Baby Boomers fear that when they retire they are going to end up living in poverty. So who is going to take care of them all when the money runs out?

#14 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average of about 5 million Americans were being hired every single month during 2006. Today, an average of about 3.5 million Americans are being hired every single month. So why are our politicians talking about "economic recovery" instead of "the collapse of the economy" when hiring remains about 50 percent below normal?

#15 Since August, 2 million more Americans have left the labor force. But the entire period from August to today was supposed to have been a time of economic growth and recovery. So why are so many Americans giving up on looking for a job?

#16 According to Gallup, 41 percent of Americans believed that the economy was "getting better" at this time last year. Today, that number is at just 27 percent. Are Americans losing faith in the U.S. economy?

#17 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years, and one out of every four American children is currently on food stamps. During this same time period, Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke have told us over and over that the U.S. economy has been getting better. So what is the truth?

#18 America has become absolutely addicted to government money. 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another. U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes. Americans hate having their taxes raised and they hate having their government benefits cut. So is there any hope that this will ever be turned around before disaster strikes?

#19 The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. How in the world is the U.S. government going to be able to afford to guarantee all of that debt on top of everything else?

#20 If the U.S. national debt (more than 14 trillion dollars) was reduced to a stack of 5 dollar bills, it would reach three quarters of the way to the moon. The U.S. government borrows about 168 million dollars every single hour. If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days. So how in the world can our politicians tell us that everything is going to be okay?

The Ten Cannots

(by William J. H. Boetcker, originally published 1916,)

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.

And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._H._Boetcker

Boetcker also spoke of the "Seven National Crimes":[3]


I don’t think.

I don’t know.

I don’t care.

I am too busy.

I leave well enough alone.

I have no time to read and find out.

I am not interested.

Bjorn Lomborg:- climate debate back to basic principles

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5473160936763325359

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Paul Comrie-Thomson: the climate debate in this country seems stuck at the Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire level. can't we do better than this? well consider the following: In the March 2011 edition of Quadrant magazine, we read this:
Paul Comrie-Thomson: Bjorn Lomborg, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and director of the Copenhagen Business Centre. His new documentary is called Cool It, and Michael, it's out in about three weeks. I cannot wait. Bjorn was speaking in Melbourne last Monday at an event presented by the Australian Institute for International Affairs.

Man-made emissions are likely to cause a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide during this century and this increase will continue to have a warming effect on global temperatures. But one of the disappointing distortions of the climate science debate is the claim that sceptics deny this relationship. What sceptics are sceptical about is the strength of these anthropogenic global warming effects.

That's from the Quadrant article 'The Intelligent Voter's guide to Global Warming' written by Geoffrey Lehmann, Peter Farrell and Dick Warburton.

But ten years earlier, in The Sceptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg stated this:

My book accepts the reality of manmade global warming but questions the way in which future scenarios have been arrived at and finds that forecasts of climate change of six degrees by the end of the century are not plausible. I shall argue that the limitations of computer modelling, the unrealist nature of the basic assumptions made about future technological change and political value-judgments have distorted the scenarios being presented to the public.

The initial response to Lomborg's dispassionate analysis was ugly. He was trashed by the environmentalist establishment. And over the next ten years it appeared he was labouring in the wilderness. Then, post-Copenhagen Lomborg was finally recognised by many as being the environmentalist that made the most sense.


In a recent address in Melbourne presented by the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Bjorn Lomborg recommended we bring the whole climate debate back to basic principles. Here now are edited highlights of his address.

Bjorn Lomborg: What is it we're actually trying to achieve, because we have a tendency in this climate debate to just jump right ahead and say that it's all about cutting carbon emissions. But let's just remember -- presumably this is about making a better world. And we've got to ask ourselves how do we do that. And I think a large part of what we do in the climate debate is mostly about feeling good rather than actually doing good. It's about something that's fashionable rather than something that actually does good, something that's rational. So I'd like to pause and say, 'What can actually work?'