By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”

Ecologist Kenneth Watt made that statement on the inaugural Earth Day in 1970. The “peak oil” warning has been going on long before that, but here we are ten years after Watt’s deadline and we’re globally consuming 85 million barrels of oil per day with increasing amounts of proven reserves each year.

Three decades ago, proven oil reserves were 645 billion barrels; five years ago it was 1.28 trillion and in 2009 it was 1.34 trillion. Yet the push to transition to renewable, allegedly cleaner sources of energy has never been stronger. The question to ask is: why?

A large part of the answer, and the justification for subsidies, tax credits and mandates for renewables, is that they will help cool our planet’s fever. Setting aside the debate of whether our planet is in need of any remedy, the truth is what the government selects as green energy isn’t as green they promote. Robert Bryce, author of the new book, Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future, explains:

Unfortunately, solar and wind technologies require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. Even an aging natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet per day generates more than 20 times the watts per square meter of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant cranks out about 56 watts per square meter, eight times as much as is derived from solar photovoltaic installations.

The real estate that wind and solar energy demand led the Nature Conservancy to issue a report last year critical of “energy sprawl,” including tens of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry electricity from wind and solar installations to distant cities.

Nor does wind energy substantially reduce CO2 emissions. Since the wind doesn’t always blow, utilities must use gas- or coal-fired generators to offset wind’s unreliability. The result is minimal — or no — carbon dioxide reduction.”

But it’s actually worse than that. The intermittency of wind forces coal and gas-fired plants to operate inefficiently and actually increase emissions. This has proven to be the case in Colorado and Texas, two states that have adopted a renewable portfolio standard, which mandates that wind be included in the state’s electricity supply. A new study from the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States finds that:

Coal-fired power plants are designed to run most efficiently at stable rates and are not well-suited to accommodate the load variability imposed by the integration with wind generation. Cycling causes coal-fired power plants to operate less efficiently, and reduces the effectiveness of their environmental control equipment, which together drive up emissions.

Paradoxically, using wind energy in such a way that it forces utilities to cycle their coal generation often results in greater SO2, NOX and CO2 emissions than would have occurred if less wind energy were generated and coal generation was not cycled.”

Politicians can’t account for these unintended consequences that occur when trying to plan our nation’s energy future. And that’s reason enough not to do so.

Daily Mail - Belgium became the first European country to impose a full ban on wearing a burka last night. Its parliament approved a draft law which states women can be jailed for hiding their faces in public. The bill - which must be rubber-stamped by the Belgian senate - is set to become law by July. Centre-Right MP Daniel Bacquelaine said last night: 'The notion of recognising people in the street is essential to maintain public order.

I'd first like to note that if such a law were even proposed in America, liberal hypocrites the world over, particularly the ones in Europe, will be caterwauling for years about the racist, bigoted, nazi Americans. Unless off course it was their favorite, empty-suit hero zero who was the architect of it.

None the less, glad to hear Belgium has finally grown a pair and decided to stand up to the islamists, here's to hoping more western nations follow their lead and stand up to islam. If muslims don't like it, they are free to leave, plenty of islamic paradises with sharia and all that. I just hope that this does become law and that they really do enforce it. However I should add as well, don't pop the champagne corks yet folks, there is another problem with this that can't be ignored.

You see Belgium is part of the EU, apart from all the warmth and fuzziness of belonging to the EU, they are subject to EU oversight and apparently if someone were to challenge this in their human rights court, it could well be overturned. And I believe there's a good chance that'll happen. The peoples views, democracy and all that be damned. If the liberal fascists in the EU decide to snuggle up to the islamists, well there goes your burka ban.

Now you know why Conservatives and Patriots the world over oppose organizations like the EU, when push comes to shove, some unelected bureaucratic scumbag in a faraway office decides the very fate of your culture and country.

From what I have seen, Africans do tend to talk loudly on their mobile phones, and anybody who does that is annoying and should in my view be reminded of good manners. The reminder in this case was undoubtedly extreme, however.

I actually have used a rather good remedy in similar situations. Without looking at the offending party, I have myself spoken up in an exceptionally loud voice saying at some length how ignorant it is for people to talk so loudly that other people have to listen to their inane conversations. I have found that remedy to be effective but you probably have to be pretty assertive to use it.

A BRISBANE father-of-four brutally bashed a young rail commuter for speaking too loudly on his mobile telephone, a court has been told. The Brisbane District Court was this morning told Popani Fala Tovale, 40, fractured the nose and left cheek of Chernor Hadi Bah, 20, after punching him up to three times in a so-called “phone rage” attack while travelling on a Brisbane to Beenleigh commuter train on September 6 last year.

The court was told Tovale, a Samoan national, attacked Mr Bah after calling him an "African" and ordering him to get off the passenger train at Coopers Plains, 15km south of Brisbane, for talking too loudly on his phone.

Prosecutor Jacob Robson said Mr Bah had been on the phone speaking with his father and was in the process of trying to end the call when Tovale repeatedly punched him in the head -- leaving him with a fractured nose, left cheek bone and numerous deep lacerations.

He said Tovale told Mr Bah: "Hey, get off the train you African. Why are you talking on the phone?" "Just get off this train or move away from here."

Mr Robson said Mr Bah replied: "I think I am allowed to talk on the phone if I don't talk loudly."

The court was told Tovale punched Mr Bah so hard he was knocked unconscious and later required surgery to insert a plate to repair his cheek and suture his numerous facial cuts.

Mr Robson said Tovale later told police he attacked Mr Bah because he was in a "bad mood" after having an argument with his sister. He said although Tovale called Mr Bah an "African" it appeared their was no suggestion the attack was not racially motivated. "It's not a premeditated racial attack," he said. "The main motivation was (Tovale) was in a bad mood and it was the way (Mr Bah) was talking that upset him."

Tovale was sentenced to 18-month's jail after pleading guilty to one count of grievous bodily harm. He will be eligible for parole on October 30.

The Crown also tendered a victim impact statement, written by Mr Bah, which revealed he now feared people of "islander appearance."

Judge Greg Koppenol, in sentencing Tovale, said unprovoked and brutally violent attacks in public places would not be tolerated by the courts. "There was no provocation for this brutal attack," he said. "Brutal violence leading to serious injury should attract the appropriate (jail) sentence."

Kevin Rudd has put another election promise on the backburner with his controversial internet filtering legislation set to be shelved until after the next election. A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said yesterday the legislation would not be introduced next month's or the June sittings of parliament.

With parliament not sitting again until the last week of August, the laws are unlikely to be passed before the election.

Labor promised before the last election it would force internet service providers to block access to illegal content such as child pornography and X-rated images.

But the US government, Google and free speech advocates have said any efforts to censor the internet would slow download speeds, stop the free flow of information and be ineffective.

GORDON Brown prostrated himself as a "penitent sinner" yesterday after a brush with a voter triggered a calamitous chain of events that threatened to derail Labour on the eve of tonight's pivotal TV debate.

The Prime Minister spent an unscheduled 45 minutes inside the terraced house of Gillian Duffy apologising to the Labour-supporting widow for insulting her behind her back.

His muttered description of her as a "bigoted woman", picked up by a microphone as he drove off from their combative but apparently friendly encounter, plunged Labour's high command into its most serious crisis of the campaign.

Instead of pressing the party's record on the economy before tonight's final trial by television, the election machine was reduced to desperate firefighting as Lord Mandelson led a series of cabinet ministers on to the airwaves.

The Business Secretary said that Mr Brown had been wrong to criticise the pensioner, whose mistake, on her way to buy a loaf of bread, had been to buttonhole the Prime Minister over the deficit, immigration and student debts.

A mortified Mr Brown issued six apologies over the next six hours, including one by e-mail to Labour supporters for letting them down. Despite saying sorry to Mrs Duffy over the telephone, he ignored aides and insisted on driving back to Rochdale from Manchester, abandoning his preparation for tonight's third and final leaders' debate, to atone in person for his blunder.

He emerged from her house smiling fixedly, saying that he had misunderstood her earlier words. But a more telling image showed him in a Manchester radio studio earlier, head in hands, the full horror of the episode dawning as he listened to a tape of his remarks.

The ghastly unfolding seemed unlikely when the pair parted on apparently good terms after a five-minute conversation in the street. Mr Brown told Mrs Duffy that it had been "very good" to meet her and she told journalists that she had found him "nice" and that he had won her vote.

But within seconds Mr Brown could be heard - courtesy of a Sky News microphone that he had worn for his walkabout - declaring their meeting a "disaster", blaming aides for putting him in such a position, and describing Mrs Duffy as "a sort of bigoted woman". He concluded, days into a new campaigning style in which he meets more real people: "It's just ridiculous."

His reaction was apparently sparked by a comment on immigrants, when she said: "All these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?"

The Australian - ONE of the nation's eminent medical experts has turned against the Rudd government's health reforms, declaring they will make little difference to how hospitals are run.

David Penington, a senior fellow at Melbourne's Grattan Institute who initially backed the deal Kevin Rudd struck with the states, said yesterday he was "appalled at the lack of any agreement on governance that differs from the status quo", and had little faith any real change would be forthcoming from the reforms.

He also deplored the fact there was no commitment to the key issue of "a vastly better interface" between the hospital sector and primary care, or aged care and mental health - "all issues of critical importance for the longer term".

You know how dumb gun-hating liberals always point to school shootings as the result of the second amendment right to bear arms. According to stupid liberals if the law-abiding were disarmed, then peace would descend upon the land. I still remember the hysterical caterwauling when a school in Texas decided to allow its teachers to carry guns at school.

The gun-haters were hysterical, promising genocide and rivers of blood if the school was allowed to do such a thing, to date nothing has happened at the school. The teachers didn't instantly turn into mass-killers when they touched their loaded firearms, the guns didn't jump out of their holsters and start firing off bullets at scurrying children, much to liberal gun-haters dismay.

But you know what does happen when you ban guns across the land and/or do something incredibly stupid like institute a gun ban at certain premises, places like schools become a magnet for the evil bastards out there looking for a soft, weak target.

Big government is a bloated mass of contradictions that often have unexpected, harmful consequences. Politicians scold citizens for consuming too much sugar, but the government provides subsidies for producing high-fructose corn syrup that’s widely used in sodas, cookies, and other sweets.

Government subsidizes farmers for growing crops and no crops at all. Government subsidizes homeownership and restricts the number of homes that can be built. Officials criticize business executives who take on too much debt, but government encourages debt by providing tax deductions for interest (but not for equity capital), and of course the government itself is deeper in debt than anybody else.

The voiceover guy long used by insurance company Geico is a Leftist so he took it upon himself to leave a typically abusive comment on the website of FreedomWorks.org, a mainstream libertarian/conservative organization.

Every now and again, however, the patience of us conservatives wears thin and we react to all the abuse we receive by letting the light of publicity shine upon it. I have done so two or three times myself. I publish the abusive comment together with the email address of the author and any other particulars about the author that I can find.

This tends to cause great heartburn in the person "outed" but all mail, including email, is legally the property of the recipient so I am fully within my rights to do that and I hope that the hater concerned will take a good hard look at himself when I "out" him in that way.

Liberals do everything in their power to expand the welfare state, borrowing and spending like drunken teenagers who just swiped dad's credit card and then when the bill comes in, they exclaim with straight faces - Oh shit, this is all so very expensive, we can't go on like this, something must be done..... I got it, dad's just going to have to get a second job, the poor schmuck.

Fox News - Everything is on the table when it comes to finding a way to get America out of debt, according to President Obama's newly appointed debt commission, meaning a value added tax could be headed to a product near you. Former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson will join former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles to lead the elite18-member debt commission convening Tuesday -- a panel appointed by Democrats and Republicans to come up with a plan to save America from its spendthrift ways.

Yes off course, it's all on the table folks, all manner of taxes, the VAT, the GST, the STD, the GLBT, it's all on the table folks, taxes, taxes, taxes. Aren't you glad these 18 elitists are in charge, I'm sure zero will soon tell you that you ought to thank him for looking out for you all. He's such a star isn't he, he's put everything on the table, nothing is spared, everything except off course, the welfare state.

That I assure you will never make it onto that liberal chopping block, so rest easy all you useless parasites, crack-heads and scumbags, resume your daily sponging, they'll always look out for you, their more treasured voting base.

It's always the other lot they're happy to screw over, the hard-working and decent folks who'll be funding all the various schemes liberals deem as human rights and must force them to provide.

The statement of vision defining American values appears in the Declaration of Independence. Understanding that vision is where I think the most fundamental conservative versus liberal divide exists.

Consider how President Obama relates to the Constitution, as he wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope – “Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth….”

Our president is a moral relativist. So we may expect that he doesn’t take very seriously the idea, as state in the Declaration of Independence, that there are absolutes. That we have God given rights that precede government and that the job of government is to secure them.

Rather than seeing government’s job as securing our rights, the liberal sees it to invent them. The politician – or the empathetic judge – defines what is moral and just.

There’s a lot of speculation about what is driving the tea party movement and why, as reflected in the latest survey by the Pew Research Foundation, Americans’ trust in government is at an all time low. I think most fundamentally it’s discomfort with this moral relativism that is driving the pervasive unrest.

Bob McCarty makes an interesting point below but the idea that people dislike a warmer climate and move away from it is rather laughable. All the former New Yorkers in Boca Raton (Florida) must be confused. I myself was born and bred in the tropics -- as were all four of my grandparents -- and I can heartily recommend the relaxed life of the tropics

Remember when the word, gravitas, entered the public conversation for the first time? Well, stay tuned, because solastalgia is next.

A rarely-used 131-year-old word at the time, according to Merriam-Webster, gravitas was introduced en masse to the American vocabulary by members of the liberal media within 24 hours of President George W. Bush’s selection of Dick Cheney to be his vice presidential running mate in July 2000. Almost always used with negative connotations, it was used to describe what “W” was said to lack in terms of experience and what he needed in a running mate. Rush Limbaugh even devoted a segment of his radio show to the mainstream media’s “discovery” of the word.

As some of you would know, I've moved into a new place and since this we've been angling for some new furniture. Given the budget will only stretch so far, we've got some stuff from that Swedish outfit Ikea.

I've never bought any furniture from there, so it was sort of an experience finding the items, dragging it all down to the trolley and picking it up, then paying to get it delivered. Not hard at all, it was just an experience I think.

We got it all delivered yesterday, it's all flat-packed and space-efficient but deceptively heavy. They might look small, but I was struggling to move the stuff around.

A YOUNG Adelaide woman has lost an eye and narrowly escaped permanent brain damage after she was stomped on with a stiletto shoe during a vicious assault in a popular city nightclub.

The attack was believed to have been sparked after the 25-year-old victim accidentally stepped on another girl's foot in the women's toilets of the West Tce venue during an African-themed Rugby Sevens party last month.

The victim, who would give only her first name, Tash, has described how she thought she was going to be killed as up to four women of African descent bashed her in what she maintains was an unprovoked attack in the early hours of March 21.

The retail worker said she was bashed and knocked to the ground in the toilets at about 3am by a group of women, before one stamped on her face - plunging her stiletto heel into Tash's left eye, missing her brain by millimetres.

It's a strange day when I excerpt a column by eccentric Leftist Matt Taibbi but I am running the excerpt below because he is nearly right. That Ayn Rand is responsible for trust in markets is of course just attention-getting nonsense. That trust goes back to Adam Smith, centuries ago, and even Left-leaning economics textbooks spell out the advantages of market systems.

But Smith also warned of a tendency of businessmen to collude in undermining markets -- thus disadvantaging the consumer. So Taibbi is doing little more than updating Smith with modern examples below.

What Taibbi fails to mention is the way big business has the Democratic party in its pocket -- thus ensuring that government also often favours big business at the expense of the consumer. The ties between Goldman and the Obama administration are of course now well known. Without government interventions of various sorts, there would be a lot more transactions governed purely by market forces -- to the great advantage of ordinary folk

Daily Mail - The Government has been plunged into a major diplomatic storm after Foreign Office officials circulated an offensive memo mocking the Pope's forthcoming visit to Britain. In the document, staff who were asked to propose ideas for the 'ideal' visit suggested Benedict XVI could launch a new range of 'Benedict' condoms or back a Miss Developing World beauty contest. Sources in Rome said the document also proposed that the Pope might sing a duet with the Queen to raise money for charity.

The pair are due to meet during the Pontiff's visit in September. The memo, which has dismayed Church leaders in Britain, is also understood to suggest that the leader of the world's one billion Roman Catholics could apologise for the Spanish Armada, reverse his ban on women priests and visit an old people's home. ...He added that an unnamed civil servant involved had been severely reprimanded and transferred to other duties.

Remember all the caterwauling over the white pride emails, the trooper in question was suspended and forced to apologize and attend diversity training. And that wasn't even racist! So how come the assholes, involved in this insult to all Catholics, were not punished in a similar fashion, why weren't they suspended, forced to apologize and made to attend diversity and anti-liberal fascism training. They obviously have a hatred of Catholicism in particular and probably all Christians too, sounds like a hate crime to me.

I think they should be forced to attend one of those lefty re-education diversity training camps, forced to apologize and then be suspended without pay for at least a month. There should be no place for such vile bigotry in public office, the mere fact that this even took place is proof enough for me that the labour government in Britain is plainly unfit to lead the country. They often prattle on about their diversity and inclusion, but clearly that's always been nothing more than a farce and will so remain given the soft-spined way they're handling this outrage.

Which would be a recipe for complete scientific inertia but very cosy. To encourage innovation, the opposite is needed. Funding should principally be directed towards testing new ideas. Very few scientists have more than one new idea in their lifetime and many do not have even one. They just replough well-worn furrows. The conformity over the wildly speculative global warming theory shows that pressures not to think outside establishment dogma are already alarmingly strong

Public funding of science should become more elitist, says the Nobel laureate nominated as next head of Britain’s national academy of science.

Sir Paul Nurse, named yesterday as the only candidate to succeed Lord Rees of Ludlow as President of the Royal Society, called for reform of the £3.2 billion budget to give more support to the few scientists who can “really move the needle” by making major discoveries.

As already noted below, today is the most solemn day of the year in Australia. It is the day we remember our war dead. Australians have died in many wars and there can be few families not affected to some degree by the deaths resulting. I had a much loved uncle die in WWII.

Wherever British or American forces were fighting, there have generally been Australians fighting alongside them -- in two world wars and many smaller wars both before and after that. I have a family member deployed in Afghanistan at the moment and had news of him today. He is OK but finds it no picnic to be wearing body armour in high Afghan daytime temperatures at the moment.

Russians have been routinely navigating parts of the North Eastern passage through the Arctic for over a century so are acutely aware of what the year-to-year variations in it are

A Russian scientist says the Arctic may be getting colder, not warmer, which would hamper the international race to discover new mineral fields.

An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

"I think the development of the shelf will face large problems," Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions.

Scientists who believe the climate is warming may have been misled by data from U.S. meteorological stations located in urban areas, where dense microclimates creates higher temperatures, RIA Novosti quoted Pokrovsky as saying.

"Politicians who placed their bets on global warming may lose the pot," Pokrovsky said.

The Tokaikolo Christian Church choir's joy and dancing banned by local council. Noise restrictions for all other activities cut in at 11pm so this seems discriminatory. And where is the vaunted multiculturalism of the Leftist NSW government? This church is of Tongan origin. The people of Tonga are Polynesians with their own distinctive traditions.

A SMALL western Sydney church has been hit with a $3000 fine by the local council because its choir was singing too loudly and some choristers were caught dancing.

Council officers raided the Granville church and were alarmed to discover choir members dancing in the carpark and the door of the church open an hour after it was supposed to be closed.

The dispute has gone all the way to the office of Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, who has been asked by his fellow minister David Borger to show mercy to the musical Christians and waive the penalty.

The Tokaikolo Christian Church choir was practising Christmas carols and other songs on the evening of December 3 last year.

The "infringement" occurred at 10pm as the rehearsal was finishing. A week later the church was hit with a $3000 fine from Parramatta Council. It has been unable to pay the fine, which has been referred to the State Debt Recovery Office - which slugged the church another $50.

The council claims the church violated the conditions of its development consent by being too noisy and hosting activities outside its approved "hours of operation", which are supposed to end at 9pm.

A spokesman said: "During a site inspection conducted at 10pm on December 3, 2009, the following observations were made: Three males were observed walking up the driveway on the northern side of the premises, towards the kitchen area; a large group of people were observed dancing in the basement carpark area; and the front door of the premises was open."

Reverend Nesiasi Kolo told The Telegraph parishoners would end up footing the bill.

Local MP Mr Borger is lobbying Mr Roozendaal to have the controversial fine waived. "In considering the difficulties the church faces in balancing their community activities with their impact on their neighbours, I would suggest that strong consideration be given to the waiving of the fine and the issuing of a stern warning," he said.

Fox News - By all appearances, Zachary Adam Chesser was the boy next door. He played football and was on the crew team at one of the best high schools in the country. He even studied Japanese. He was hardly the sort of boy you'd expect would suggest on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the edgy cartoon series "South Park" will be targeted for death.

...Two years later, Chesser is literally a changed man. He now uses an alias and has a new set of hobbies. He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism.

Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of "South Park," which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The young man, who just two years ago was studying foreign languages at George Mason University, wrote on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the cartoon's creators, "will probably end up" like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a film critical of Islamic society.

The experts on islam, not the expert followers of islam, would say ol' zack just found the true islam. The one that ol mo practiced, you know, the one full of violence, conquering, blood, murder etc. The western muslims will obviously dismiss this as not the true islam, but if you look closely, what this fellow says is all there in the koran, just read up on a few experts like Robert Spencer or IQ al Rassooli, they'll show you verse by verse and they'll even do you one better, they'll even give you examples where ol' mo set the example for his followers.

An email from Michael Potts [themillshoponline@yahoo.co.uk] below. I hasten to add that the John Ray mentioned is a long-dead English naturalist

Hardly news as such, but if you weren't already aware, I thought you would be interested in taking a look at the website for the John Ray Initiative - a charity set up and run by former IPCC chair Sir John Houghton.

"At Bristol’s Trinity College, we spent a day in March examining the Severn Barrage proposal. ‘Environmental Decision-Making: Does Theology Help?’ was the conference title. The conclusion was that theology does help. It sets the framework of human and creation care in which we must operate"

This is quite representative - all the other newsletters take a similar theme of the end-days approaching and the second coming and see climate change as a harbinger of that. I know it sounds wacky that Sir John Houghton would be publicising this stuff, but it all checks out. The charity is registered and can be verified.

It is late Friday night as I am writing this in Australia, which means that it is sometime around Friday morning in America and around lunchtime in Britain.

And Friday 23rd is of course St. George's day -- England's national day. So as I am mainly of English descent, I thought it appropriate to mark the day -- which I did. I have had the St George cross flying from my flagpole all day and we had a leisurely commemorative dinner for just four family members.

We started the evening by standing and singing "God save the Queen" (the English national anthem) followed by a toast to the Queen and a toast to "St. George and merrie England". Then we sat down to a meal of England's favourite food: curry.

We washed the curry down with some good Australian "champagne" and a very pleasant evening was had by all. The chat over dinner was very wide-ranging and at one stage I even read a couple of choice excerpts from the 39 "Articles of Religion" from the 1662 "Book of Common Prayer" of the Church of England. None of us are religious but we still enjoyed the power of those historic words.

Stephen Spruiell, NRO - ...In 1994, Kentucky governor Brereton Jones, a Democrat, strong-armed a series of health-care reforms through the Democrat-controlled state legislature over the reservations of Republicans and some conservative Democrats. Like both Clintoncare and Obamacare, Kentucky’s House Bill 250 forbade insurance companies to deny people coverage because of preexisting illnesses or charge them higher rates based on their medical histories.

My point for bringing this up is to illustrate that zero-care [funny how that isn't far from the truth is it] has already been tried elsewhere in America, never mind that it's failed just about everywhere else, let's ignore that for a minute. So have a look at how swell zero-care has worked out in Kentucky.

...In Kentucky, average premiums increased between 36 and 165 percent over the four years following the reforms, and more than 40 insurance companies left the individual-insurance market. The two remaining providers, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and a state-run plan called Kentucky Kare, teetered on the brink of insolvency (Kentucky Kare went under in 1999).

Why it's almost as if liberals saw the consequences in Kentucky and decided that's what they like about zero-care and decided they must do the same to every other state in the country. Why else would they want to foist what has led to disaster in Kentucky upon the rest of the nation if disaster isn't what they really want.

On the plus side, Kentucky figured out its ass from its elbow really fast and repealed their version of zero-care. Even the democrats who voted for it stopped bullshitting that it was all wonderful and admitted they effed up, so to speak.

So there is hope, there is a real chance that zero-care can be repealed and zero's arrogant, sneering ass will be kicked back into his place. No I don't mean, back into his place as bill clinton's coffee boy. Just as a mediocre leftist who failed to screw over America.

VDH - Finally, there was the assertion that anti-war protests were all genuinely based on opposition to the American presence in Iraq rather than fueled, in large part, by partisan politics. But since January 2009, when Obama was sworn into office, there have been almost no anti-war demonstrations against the still-sizable American presence there. Popular demonstrations in the U.S. now oppose excessive government, not the war.

And Hollywood has ceased making its usual, unpopular anti-war movies like "In the Valley of Elah," "Redacted," "The Kingdom," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs" and "Home of the Brave." Many on the left no longer oppose the Bush-Petraeus plan of slow, graduated withdrawal from Iraq, as this strategy is now sanctioned by President Obama.

The truth is that liberals were more than happy to sacrifice an entire nation because of their hatred of Bush. They should hang their heads in shame, but I know they won't. Iraqis can be grateful that Bush didn't fold to the left and that he wasn't a Democrat.

I won 19 Emmy Awards by reporting a myth: that business constantly rips us off -- that capitalism is mostly cruel and unfair. I know that's a myth now. So I was glad to see the publication of "The 5 Big Lies About American Business" by Michael Medved. I invite him on tomorrow's Fox Business Network show to talk about that.

"You can only make a profit in this country by giving people a product or a service that they want," he says. "It's the golden rule in action."

Medved used to write about the movies, so he's familiar with the businessman as villain. I'll play a clip from the movie "Syriana," in which an oil tycoon makes this ridiculous speech: "Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the street."

"What's interesting," Medved commented, "is that in the old days, Hollywood would have businesspeople who were very positive: George Bailey, the Jimmy Stewart character, is a banker in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'"

No longer. Today's movie capitalists are criminals or playboys. Apparently, Hollywood writers think it's plausible that CEOs have lots of time to sip cocktails and chase women.

"In school, we all studied a book called "The Theory of the Leisure Class," which ... indicted the leisure class and these people who were out there exploiting other people and really had nothing to do except sit on their yachts and go to their swimming pools and their vacations."

In real life, that's nonsense. "The higher up on the income scale you go, the less leisure time you have. You make money in this country by working hard."

Medved's second myth is that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This is the old zero-sum fallacy, which ignores that when two people engage in free exchange, both gain -- or they wouldn't have traded. It's what I call the double thank-you phenomenon. I understand why politicians and lawyers believe it: It's true in their world. But it's not true in business.

"If you believe that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, then you believe that creating wealth causes poverty, and you're an idiot," said Medved. "One of the things that I hate is this term 'obscene profits.' There are no obscene profits ... . (The current economic downturn shows) "that when the rich get poorer ... everybody gets poorer."

Myth No. 3: Government is more fair and reliable than business. "Remember the last time you went into Starbucks, and then remember the last time you went into the DMV to get your license," Medved said. "Where did you get better treated? And it's not because the barista is some kind of idealist or humanitarian. She wants a tip. She wants you to come back to the Starbucks ... ."

But the left doesn't get it. "This is the suspicion of the profit motive -- the idea that if somebody is selflessly serving me, they're going to treat me better than somebody who wants to make a buck," Medved said. But "(i)f you think about it in your own life, if somebody is benefiting from his interaction with you ... it's a far more reliable kind of interaction than someone who comes and says I'm in this only for you."

Myth No. 4: The current downturn means the death of capitalism. "Capitalism is alive and well," Medved said.

I'm also bugged when people argue that today's problems prove that capitalism "failed." What failed? We had a correction. A bubble popped. But from 1982 to now, the Dow rose from 800 to 11,000. Had it happened without the bubble, we'd say this is one of the great boom periods.

Medved added: "This is one of the biggest lies -- the idea that because of capitalism, we're all suffering. ... Poor people in America today, people who are officially in poverty, have a higher standard of living in terms of medical standards, in terms of the chances of going to college, in terms of the way people live, than middle-class people did 30 years ago. It's an extraordinary achievement of technology and of the profit sector."

The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused Australian politicians of risking Australian jobs and industry on a quixotic scheme to generate 20% of 2020 electricity from sunbeams and sea breezes.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that even if this were possible, it could only be achieved by tripling power costs to industry and consumers.

“The proposed Renewable Energy Target Scheme would legislate that 20% of Australia’s electricity must come from “renewable” sources. They tell us this will reduce our production of carbon dioxide and thus reduce global warming.

“This is a foolish gamble.

“Firstly, there is no evidence that man’s production of carbon dioxide controls climate. The pulsating sun, the churning cosmos, the restless oceans, the changing clouds, the swirling jet streams and the erupting volcanoes on land and under-sea are the real climate controllers. Man’s effect on global climate is insignificant.

“Secondly, there is extensive evidence that a warmer world with more carbon dioxide plant food in the air would be a cleaner, greener and more abundant place for most people.

“Thirdly, the only non-carbon fuel that can reliably supply the legislated 20% of Australia’s grid power by 2020 is nuclear fuel. But that is currently prohibited, and there is not enough time for development.

“Man has been using wind and solar power for centuries. They were invaluable for the cottages and cottage industries of yesteryear. They are not suitable to supply large modern cities and industries – they are very dilute energy sources needing large areas of land for collection, and they can never supply continuous power. Every large solar/wind facility in the world has to be backed up 100% by a reliable power source – coal, gas, nuclear, geothermal, hydro or some not-yet-invented large capacity storage unit. Of these, only gas is immediately available and politically acceptable in Australia.

“Compulsory development of wind & solar energy will thus force the wasteful construction of backup gas-fired power plants. Soaring capital and operating costs will then force Australia’s electricity prices to at least treble by 2020.

“But, alas, burning gas also generates the dreaded CO2. And it is not “renewable”.

“Every producer and consumer should be free to use wind and solar power at their own expense, but Canberra should not enforce such job-killing and job-exporting silliness onto every consumer and industry in the land.

“Abolish Renewable Energy Targets – Australia and its climate will be better without them.”

Fox News - The Tea Partiers are taking the high road. Just because Oregon middle school teacher Jason Levin has publicly denounced them as a bunch of "racists, homophobes and morons," they say that's no reason for him to lose his job. All Levin really needs, they say, is some sensitivity training and some anger management therapy.

Levin, who declared his mission to "dismantle and demolish" the Tea Party on his "Crash the Tea Party" website, was placed on administrative leave last week while a state education board and his school district investigate whether the technology teacher promoted identity theft against Tea Party activists and misused school property.

Look, I'm all for holding hands, singing kumbaya and all that if the Tea Partiers want to, but I really hope they're not naive enough to think that they'll score any points among the haters for taking the high road. No matter what you say, no matter how forgiving you are, the left will never give you any mercy.

It's in their nature, it's actually essential to their survival because in reality they have no defensible position. The only way the left can win is to smear, intimidate and bully any and all opposition into submission and whatever you do, that's all they'll do to you. The next bit proves my point.

Fox News - After the joy of a wedding and the adoption of a baby came arguments that couldn't be resolved, leading Angelique Naylor to file for divorce. That left her fighting both the woman she married in Massachusetts and the state of Texas, which says a union granted in a state where same-sex marriage is legal can't be dissolved with a divorce in a state where it's not. A judge in Austin granted the divorce, but Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is appealing the decision. He also is appealing a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, saying protecting the "traditional definition of marriage" means doing the same for divorce.

Good. They might whine that they only want to get divorced, but what they won't tell you is that as soon as the state grants them a divorce, out will come the homo activists who'll cry, but if you can grant a divorce, then why can't you grant a marriage! Good on ya Texas, if they want to get divorced, then piss off to whichever moron state that granted you the marriage in the first place and if it's not too much trouble, stay there, don't come back.

I have a soft spot for Texas and I'm convinced that if more liberals move there, the place will go down the toilet, just like every other place populated by liberal losers.

THERE has been a huge swing to the Tony Abbott-led Coalition on who is best to handle the issue of asylum-seekers arriving in Australia, with the Liberals holding almost a two-to-one advantage over the Rudd government.

The swing to the opposition came despite the government's suspension of refugee applications from Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum-seekers and the reopening of the notorious Curtin detention centre in remote Western Australia.

The results, in a Newspoll taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, came as a six-month asylum-seeker deadlock at the Indonesian port of Merak was finally broken yesterday, but at least 18 of the Sri Lankans involved have already reached Christmas Island.

During the past three weeks of political debate, dominated by Kevin Rudd's plan to take over 60 per cent of state health funding and the government's suspension of refugee applications from Sri Lankans and Afghans, Labor's primary vote has remained unchanged on 43 per cent while the Coalition's has gone from 38 to 40 per cent. Based on preference flows at the last election, Labor leads the Coalition with an election-winning two-party-preferred vote of 54 to 46 per cent.

Under the Opposition Leader, the Coalition's position on asylum-seekers is that the Howard government's policy of issuing temporary protection visas "stopped the boats". This has not only greatly attracted support among Coalition supporters but is also winning over Labor voters. Support for the Coalition on handling asylum-seekers has doubled from 23 per cent in November last year to 44 per cent last weekend.

Since Mr Abbott became Liberal leader last December, there have been more than 100 illegal boat arrivals and Christmas Island is filled to overflowing with refugees. During the same period, support for the Rudd government's ability to handle asylum-seekers has risen from 20 per cent to 26 per cent.

Voters who were undecided about which party to trust on border protection have shifted overwhelmingly in Mr Abbott's favour.

The Newspoll shows that Mr Abbott's demands for a tougher line on illegal boat arrivals have attracted stronger support among Coalition voters than when Malcolm Turnbull was Liberal leader. In November last year, 54 per cent of Coalition supporters said they preferred the Coalition to handle the issue but last weekend that jumped 27 percentage points to 81 per cent.

Mr Abbott also picked up a large number of Labor supporters, almost tripling his support among them. In November, 8 per cent of ALP supporters backed the Coalition but last weekend the figure jumped 15 points to 23 per cent.

The worst thing about the passage that I have quoted is its apparent endorsement, or uncritical acceptance, of Freud’s characterization of the Nazis as “right-wing.” This seems to me simplistic to the point of dishonesty, or at least symptomatic of a desire that complex social and political realities should be located on an analogue scale from right to left or left to right. If such a scale must be used, it seems to me that there is as much, if not more, reason to place Nazism on the left of it rather than on the right.

Not that this would be satisfactory, far from it. As Bishop Butler said, every thing is what it is and not another thing; Nazism was what it was and not another thing. If it could not, and cannot, be fitted neatly on to a political analogue scale, so much the worse for the scale. To change the figure of speech, we must not construct Procrustean conceptual beds.

Does it matter, however, if Nazism — being what it was and not another thing — is routinely characterized as being right-wing? I think that it does matter, for the following reason. There is a false syllogism that has a profound psychological effect:

Nazism was right-wing.Conservatism is right-wing.Therefore Nazism was conservative and conservatism is Nazi.

But Nazism was not conservative; when the Nazis called their advent revolutionary, they were right. There was nothing conservative about their movement at all. But the “syllogism” above has insinuated deeply into the minds of our intelligentsia, which is why so many of them are afraid of the supposed taint of conservatism.

Fox News - ...The 4.3 million-member NRA, one of the most powerful and well-funded lobbying groups in Washington, has for 35 years dominated the push to expand gun rights.

But its strategies aren't aggressive or imaginative enough for some gun owners who want to openly carry holstered pistols in public places, or to exploit loopholes in state gun laws to purchase semi-automatic rifles.

They are coming together in smaller, loosely organized groups that recruit on the Internet and find inspiration from the tea party movement. On Monday, several thousand gun owners plan to mount two protests—a march in Washington and an "open-carry" rally in Mount Vernon, Va.

News.com.au - TWO masked bandits armed with a gun broke into a house as a couple were sleeping upstairs in Essendon this morning. One of the men was stabbed by a woman during the terrifying burglary in Essendon just after 1am, police said.

The woman and man were awoken after hearing voices, and found the two men inside the house wearing balaclavas. Police said the woman grabbed a kitchen knife and confronted one of the men as he made demands for cash.

Too bad it's pretty much illegal for people to defend themselves with guns in their homes, she might have put two in the scumbag and saved us all a lot of trouble and money. This way he'll probably turn up at some hospital with a sob story and send us the bill, piece of shit. Oh but.. but.. our strict gun control laws keep guns off the streets, crow the gun-haters. Yeah those same laws worked real swell preventing those two assholes breaking into that home with guns.

Hats off to that woman by the way, good on you for taking on those bastards lady, Lord knows what else they were going to do to you, maybe they'll think twice before they take another house, you've done us all a favor.

THE confrontation between the Aboriginal traditional owners of Cape York Peninsula and The Wilderness Society in relation to Queensland's Wild River laws is fundamental. If it is not resolved fairly and soon, it will be the beginning of a long war that our people will never abandon until justice is restored.

What is at stake here is the very meaning of land rights. While our people are defending the principle that Australia was not a terra nullius, TWS is pursuing the restoration of terra nullius through the concept of wilder nullius.

Wilder nullius, which is a vision that TWS has for indigenous homelands across northern and remote Australia, allows for black people in the landscape but in a highly restricted form. These blacks are not supposed to engage in any form of wealth creation or development. They are only allowed to pursue traditional activities. They are to eschew employment or consumption, and not participate in or be in favour of any form of industry.

... after more than 40 years. More than 40 years of apologizing for fascists despots like Ho, Castro, and Arafat. More than 40 years of suppressing history they don't like. More than 40 years of twisting news reports to damage the forces of freedom and democracy and help the forces of revolutionary totalitarianism. More than 40 years of demonizing productive inventors, employers and investors, and glamorizing sloth, extortion, and mendacious whining. More than 40 years of ridiculing a millenia-proven concept known as "normal marriage," and pathetic experimentation and boosterism of every perverted notion that rejects it.

And now, in the latest and most unbelievable chapter, a solid 20 years of coddling and patronizing of the most regressive force unleashed on the globe in 500 years, jihadism. Apparently feminist women only feel free to roar when oppressive males pay them 15% less per hour, not when they execute them for getting pregnant outside of marriage, or throw acid in their faces for walking in the street without a male escort.

And then there's the strange consistency of so many of Pres. Obama's friends, which has never incurred any complaint a thousandth the magnitude of, sayyyyy, Sen. Lott's birthday comments to Strom Thurmond. Consider such characters as Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Rashid Khalidi, Noam Chomsky, Ray Hananiah, William Ayres, Samantha Power and Robert Malley --they're all just filthy little peas in the same crowded Jooooooo-hating pod. And all of this is pointing to the grand blood sacrifice that they secretly yearn for: the conquest of Israel, and the return of the Jews to their proper place of dhimmitude.

Is this really where "liberals" and "progressives" intended to end up as they directed their fearsome energies over the past 40 years? Serving as willing accomplices to a pre-medieval despotism in its efforts to mass-murder peaceful Jews? Yet that is where they are. And in their shriveled, perverted heart-of-hearts, they still know it. They ALWAYS know. Conservatives often give them the benefit of the doubt on their "good intentions," when it is never justified. They know.

Daily Mail - A pensioner with crippling back pain says she was removed from an NHS waiting list because she chose to have a private consultation. Breast cancer survivor Jenny Whitehead, 64, now faces a £10,000 bill to have an operation at a private hospital next month. If she does not pay she might have to wait until autumn to receive NHS treatment in Leeds as she has to start the NHS waiting process all over again. She said: 'If I have to pay for the surgery, and that is now the only means of relieving my constant pain, it will cost between £7,000 and £10,000.'

First she waits and waits for treatment and that fails when she gets it, so she chooses to scrape together some of her OWN money for a private consultation and for that the bureaucratic scum in the NHS decide to screw her over. If you look at the big picture, this is basically what happens, she works most of her life, has no choice but to pay through the backside into the socialized healthcare system so that she can have 'free' healthcare and then when she looks to the system to help her, it kicks her in the teeth.

And leftist scum wonder why we don't want to be forced into one of their wretched schemes.

Part of the reason Tom’s One Man Epic is taking place now is because of the effect that global warming is having on the polar ice caps. Over the past 20 years, scientists have noticed that our world is heating up. As the great polar ice floes melt, sea levels are slowly rising and the huge glaciers are becoming weaker and weaker. Some scientists have even estimated that the polar ice cap will have entirely melted away by 2014!

Tom Smitheringale’s frostbitten thumbs caused him a lot of pain, so much so that he decided to ask for an evacuation. After several phone calls and some rest he cancelled his decision and is more than ever determined to carry on.

Although the weather was favourable for the rescue mission, Smitheringale was about 460 kilometres northwest of Canadian Forces Station Alert — the edge of the operating range of the two twin otter search planes and civilian helicopter that were dispatched to the accident site, said Robert.

..... Smitheringale was picked up around 9 p.m. Thursday and transported to CFS Alert suffering from hypothermia and frostbite in his extremities, said Robert.

...... Smitheringale, who had already trekked nearly 300 kilometres and had endured temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celsius over the previous 46 days, is expected to be evacuated from CFS Alert to a civilian hospital on Friday.

I have been pointing out the Leftist bias of Snopes for years now but a recent article does a pretty good job of pointing out that they cannot be trusted on anything political. Even when given the facts, they ignore whatever does not suit their Leftist agenda

The heading on the story below was "Nazi guard breaks silence", where the presumption of innocence would require the heading: "ALLEGED Nazi guard breaks silence".

The whole thing is just a political show trial in the best Stalinist tradition anyway -- as the man has already been found "not guilty" in an Israeli court -- and if you think an Israeli court would be stepping lightly or incompetent in such a case you have a lot to learn

John Demjanjuk, a 90-year-old accused of helping to murder 27,900 Jews as a guard at a Nazi death camp, denied the charges today in the first statement since his trial began in November.

Mr Demjanjuk said he was "forcibly deported to Germany" where "false charges" were pressed on him, in a statement read out to a court in Munich by his lawyer, Ulrich Busch.

"I find it an unbearable injustice that Germany is trying to make me, a prisoner of war, into a war criminal with this trial," he said.

Mr Demjanjuk is standing trial on 27,900 counts of being an accessary to murder on allegations he was a guard at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland. He denies ever being at any camp, claiming he is the victim of mistaken identity....

Since his extradition from the US last May, Mr Demjanjuk has been in a prison near Munich, again "as a German prisoner of war", he said. "I am again and again an innocent victim of the Germans," he told the court.

He was previously found guilty in Israel of being Ivan the Terrible, a particularly sadistic death camp guard at Treblinka, but released after the Israeli Supreme Court established they had the wrong man....

Despite the Haiti earthquake and the recent one in China -- plus smaller ones elsewhere, the Warmists have yet to claim that earthquakes are increasing due to global warming. They WILL get around to it however, so here is what the U.S. Geological Survey says about it:

We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.

A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite.

This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.

According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 - 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.

On the night of Friday April 9th, a petite female political operative and her boyfriend were attacked and seriously injured in New Orleans by a vicious group of crazed cowards who shrieked political insults while pouncing. After the pummeling, the petite female and her boyfriend were left, collectively, with a compound leg fracture, a concussion, a broken nose and broken jaw. No robbery occurred.

What? But don’t attacks (physical and/or verbal) of a political nature outrage the above media outfits to the point of hysteria? Didn’t all the above media outfits wail an indignant chorus to the high-heavens regarding the “anguish” suffered by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver when dribbled with a few drops of (unconfirmed) Tea-Partier spittle, to say nothing of the fit-of -the-vapors suffered by Barney Frank upon hearing some schoolyard taunts by same?

Sure. But the beating victims in New Orleans (left with perhaps permanently disabling injuries) were Republicans, you see. They were emerging from a Republican fundraising dinner at a French Quarter restaurant shortly after attending the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Their attackers (as appears overwhelmingly probable given all evidence) waved signs saying “Republicans Geaux Home!” and had formed a gauntlet outside the restaurant shrieking anti-Republican insults at all who entered and exited its doors....

Amongst the shriekers and sign-carriers that formed the gauntlet in front of Brennans Restaurant, one waved a sign with Che Guevara’s famous, “Hasta la Victoria Siempre.” Shortly after this sign was waved, a small defenseless woman was wantonly beaten and severely injured. For those familiar with Che Guevara’s handiwork, nothing could be more fitting.

How many more times are we going to see this double standard? The logic is often obscure where political correctness is concerned but, in the circumstances, one has to suspect that offence is taken in one case only because the resemblance is seen to be real in one case only.

"The [conservative] Queensland Liberal National Party (LNP) has condemned the action of a member allegedly responsible for calling Barack Obama a "monkey" on Twitter during the US president's interview on the ABC.

The tweets, from an account allegedly belonging to Nick Sowden, a medical student at the University of Queensland, began just after 7.30pm AEST last night, during ABC TV's 7.30 Report with Kerry O'Brien.

"I'm not sure why they paid kerry to fly to america (sic), if they wanted an interview with a monkey surely a ferry to Taronga would have sufficed," one tweet said, referring to Taronga Zoo on Sydney Harbour.

"If I wanted to see a monkey on TV I'd watch Wildlife Rescue," said another.

LNP state director Michael O'Dwyer said the party did not tolerate such comments and would be looking into the matter. "I'm disappointed when anybody from the LNP makes comments that put the party into disrepute and of such a personal nature," Mr O'Dwyer said.

[Leftist] Deputy Premier Paul Lucas said the LNP needed to act immediately. "I think that sort of language is totally, totally unacceptable, to be saying that about people - whether they're the president of the United States or whether they're anybody else," Mr Lucas said. [I can't seem to find find any record of Mr. Lucas saying that the constant comparisions between President Bush and chimpanzees were "totally, totally unacceptable"]

Hope you have all been alright. I've been real busy the last couple of days, moving house you see. We've been squirreling around in the same place for a long while and now it's off to a new place.

Damn I hate moving, I can't count the number of times I've been going back and forth to the car, moving one box of crap after another. Good thing we got some movers to come drag the heavy stuff out, glad I didn't have to move all that, I think I'd have left it all behind and just bought new stuff.

At one point I lost it yesterday and came close to burning it all down, t'was just a long day and I happened to open another cupboard full of more crap that I'd have to move. But anyway, I've had a sleep and decided to put the dynamite away and just deal with it.

In summary, it's not over yet, the fat lady ain't started yet, but we're on the home stretch now. Hopefully we'll be done and settled in to the new place and I guess it won't be long before we start hoarding crap again and the cycle begins all over again. :)

Massachusetts, with what is essentially it’s own ObamaCare program, has started to ration health insurance. Surely that wasn’t Governor Patrick’s intent when he rejected the insurance companies’ request for premium increases. Like all politicians, he just wanted to get re-elected, and being tough on insurance companies is a very popular stance among Democrats these days.

Nevertheless, rationing is precisely what the outcome has been. The insurance companies did what any business does when faced with a money-losing product: they declined to sell any more of that money-losing product. As a result you can’t buy health insurance in Massachusetts, even though it is against the law not to! Ain’t that a catch-22?

The governor thought that by standing up to the greedy insurance companies he could portray himself as a hero in the fight against the high cost of health insurance. This is an awfully thin argument, considering that three of the four largest insurers in Mass are non-profits, as noted by the Wall Street Journal in a recent article.

Those high costs, I might add, were imposed by the state on its residents when it mandated coverage for all, instituted community rating and eliminated the insurance companies’ ability to refuse coverage to people with preexisting conditions. I’m sure it came as quite a shock to him that his savvy political skills had instead of making insurance more affordable to his constituents made it unobtainable.

The heading I have used above will undoubtedly enrage some but the evidence given below by David Biles supports it. David Biles is a consultant criminologist and was head of research with the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody

Biles has written the article below to put into context a scandalous case in which a cop killed a black in his custody

RECENT media coverage of the legal proceedings relating to the death of Cameron (also known as Mulrunji) Doomadgee at the Palm Island police station in November 2004 has inevitably raised a number of questions about the phenomena of deaths in custody in general.

This case and several others that have been mentioned recently might have caused us to believe that deaths in custody were continuing to occur at a similar rate to that established by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which sat from late 1987 to early 1991 and examined 99 cases that occurred between 1980 and 1989. During that decade data were collected on non-Aboriginal as well as Aboriginal deaths that occurred in police custody and in Australian prisons, even though the former were not subjected to close scrutiny.

This preliminary data collection exercise found quite unexpectedly that Aboriginal people in both police custody and in prison were no more likely to die than non-Aboriginal people in either form of custody.

About time. The word has been way over-used. It was once only used for grossly fat people, not people of middling weight

"Let's say you were carrying a few extra pounds -- would you rather be labeled "obese" or "fat"? City officials in Liverpool, England, evidently prefer the latter and are considering banning the word obesity from all official communications.

It's all because they feel that the word obese is too offensive, especially when it comes to kids. Officials at Liverpool's town hall would rather use the term "unhealthy weight" because it doesn't stigmatize overweight children as much.... "The idea is that obesity has a negative connotation behind it," he added....

Tam Fry of the obesity prevention charity the Child Growth Foundation certainly doesn't think so. "I can see where the children are coming from and the word carries a stigmatization but unfortunately some times schoolchildren have to be taught the realities of life," he told the Daily Mail. "If you have a problem, particularly when it's as serious as this, it needs addressing."

It's not certain whether the change will go through -- the proposal will be considered over the next few months -- but a spokesperson for the Liverpool city council insisted there would only be a subtle difference if it did.

The term "unhealthy weight" is a bit nuts too. Anorexics have an unhealthy weight but they sure aren't fat. What's wrong with "fat", anyway? Too simple and not judgmental enough, I guess.

Funny that we are allowed to be judgmental about people's weight but are not allowed to judgmental about other things -- such as homosexuality. And, because of AIDS, homosexuality is a lot more likely to kill you than being fat is.

News.com.au - KEVIN Rudd has downplayed reports he and his ministers treat staff like dogs as a near-record employee burnout of almost 60 per cent in just more than two years has been revealed. Despite Mr Rudd pledging to tear up former prime minister John Howard's hated WorkChoices, 262 ministerial staff - from a total of 444 positions - have departed since Labor came to office.

You see that's what you get when you have a rude, empty-suit gasbag of a PM issuing gaseous platitudes almost every day, promising this and that like Santa Claus and his staff then have to run around to deliver the impossible. Just like most leftist blowhards, he expects reality and the world to conform his particular fantasy of the day and that just won't happen. And it's no better further down the socialist food chain folks.

Three ministers have recorded staff turnover of more than 100 per cent, with Youth and Sport Minister Kate Ellis having 13 departures from a staff of 10. At least one was a part-time university student while several others left to have families.

He's leading by example you see, he probably shits all over his ministers when they can't make his buffoonery work and they then shit all over their employees too. I'd understand if the fellow was actually achieving something, taking the country forward, lowering taxes or something, but it seems the more kevin fiddles, the more shit seems to pile up.

The Prime Minister himself has lost 28 staff, with Government insiders describing his office as resembling a "transit lounge". But Mr Rudd said the high pressure of a political office meant it couldn't be compared to the private sector.

Oh yeah sure sauce-boy, here's another thing you can compare to the private sector, with your track record of broken promises, stuff ups and cost blowouts. You'd never last a month in the private sector chump. Oh and I'm sure you'd whine that you can't be held accountable like in the private sector.

Here's to hoping the voters of this country boot you out onto your useless ass at the next election.

This is a REAL example of cultural relativism. What some Europeans deplore about Australia is precisely what Australians are most proud of.

There may be more devotion to high culture in Europe but so what? I myself have a devotion to much high culture -- from Buxtehude to Janacek -- but if one of my fellow Australians enjoys reading "Phantom" comics as much as I enjoy reciting Chaucer in the original Middle English, good luck to him. As the Romans wisely said: "De gustibus non disputandum est".

Besides, it is precisely to avoid the social rigidities of Germany, Britain etc., that millions of their citizens have migrated to Australia.

Despite my "highbrow" tastes, I personally am most at ease among working class people here in Australia. I think their realism, relaxed attitude and sense of humour is hard to beat.

For Europeans, as the Swiss banker father of a friend of mine once said, Australians are the plebeians of the Western world.

The cliches were presented by the editor-in-chief of the German broadsheet Die Welt, Thomas Schmid, last year in an editorial. He argued that Australia lacks civilisation, everyone is dressed informally, there is a lack of social differentiation and the only thing setting the upper class apart from the middle is its higher income.

It is an empty place with nothing in the middle - in geography nor identity. These are prejudices Australians have had to deal with almost since the arrival of the First Fleet, a fate they shared with other New World societies such as the United States.

One reason was that while on the political spectrum undemocratic Old World societies constituted one end of the scale and democratic New World societies the other, it was the other way round on the cultural spectrum, which ranged from the distinguished, educated European gentleman to the materialistic, uncouth philistines in the colonies.

Behind our "Western" heart

As the name of this blog implies, we have always welcomed contributors and readers from anywhere in the Western world. But there is also something else behind the name. The blog originated in Australia and most contributions come from Australia. And that is very fitting. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart -- and you will see that in the posts appearing here. Events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.

A primer in American politics for non-Americans:

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land

The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.

The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Some brief observations about Leftism

As a good academic, I first define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His excellent short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left.

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among people who should know better, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

“Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics.” -- C.J. Keyser

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state – capitalism frees them.

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in a MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

You can email me (John Ray) here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR"

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)