Tag: oppression

Climate theatre of the absurd

5:14 pm

Climate theater of the absurd.

The key thing to understand about the climate talks is that they’re not really about the climate. They’re about power and money. They are about the desire of fast-growing emitters such as Brazil, South Africa, India and China to extract billions in so-called climate reparations from rich countries, especially the United States. These and other so-called developing countries now account for more than half of greenhouse gas emissions. They want the rich countries to start cutting large amounts of carbon right away, while they do nothing. The rich countries are understandably reluctant. Hence the impasse.

One comment

A University of Denver professor plans to teach the same course next spring that, because of two anonymous complaints, caused him to be suspended for more than 100 days.

10:49 am

Standing up for his rights: A University of Denver professor plans to teach the same course next spring that, because of two anonymous complaints, caused him to be suspended for more than 100 days.

“I did not do anything wrong,” Gilbert said. “If I cave in on this, it would be terrible for academic freedom,” he said, explaining the decision to carry on teaching the class despite the trouble it had caused for him.

Leave a comment

A Maryland post office bans Christmas carolers

9:46 am

A Maryland post office bans Christmas carolers.

“He told them that they had to leave immediately because they were violating the post office’s policy against solicitation,” Duffy said. “He told them they couldn’t do this on government property. He said: ‘You can’t go into Congress and sing and you can’t do it here either.’”

I like this from the comments:

So our freedom of speech is suspended upon entering government property?

One comment

Deal reached on Defense authorization bill that had included language allowing the military to hold U.S. citizen indefinitely

10:01 pm

A deal has been reached on a Department of Defense authorization bill that had included language allowing the military to hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without charge, both in and outside the U.S.

Not surprisingly for a modern journalist (who routinely miss the lead in their own stories), this article really doesn’t tell us whether that language is still in effect.

Leave a comment

Long faces in Durban

2:56 pm

They might have cobbled together what they call a deal, but nonetheless (and for good reasons), there are long faces in Durban.

I like this quote best:

The leading alarmist among American scientists, James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been as spectacularly wrong as Mr. Gore. Mr. Hansen said in a 1988 interview the sea level off Manhattan would rise 10 feet within 40 years (if atmospheric CO2 doubled). In the 23 years since, the sea level has risen just 2.5 inches. Sea levels fell over the past year.

But alarmism has been good for his pocketbook. Mr. Hansen failed to report $1.6 million in outside income, much of it in violation of NASA’s rules, according to Power Line’s John Hinderaker.

One comment

A college mate of Obama describes the President’s political beliefs

6:34 pm

A college mate of Obama finally gives us a peek into the President’s political beliefs at that time.

Drew: I’m the only person in Obama’s extended circle of friends who is willing to speak out and verify that he was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college from 1980 to 1981. I met him because I graduated from Occidental College in 1979, and I was back at Occidental visiting a girlfriend.

Kengor: Was Occidental known for radical-left politics? Would that have been an attraction to Obama?

Drew: It was considered the Moscow of southern California when I was there. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well. … What I know absolutely for sure — and this is where I really sought you out and I really wanted to be helpful in terms of the historic record — was to verify that Barack Obama was definitely a Marxist and that it was very unusual for a sophomore at Occidental to be as radical or as ideologically attuned as young Barack Obama was.

The article as well as this one discuss thoughtfully whether Obama still holds to these beliefs.

While I’m not sure if this guy is telling us the truth, it seems to me that everything that Obama has done fits into this mindset quite nicely.

2 comments

The draft treaty being proposed in Durban

6:20 pm

Some of the madness contained in the draft treaty being proposed in Durban, as reported by Lord Christopher Monckton:

  • A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.
  • “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.
  • War and the maintenance of defence forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.

There’s more stupidity detailed by Monckton at the link.

All in all, this treaty draft once again reveals these activists for what they are: power-hungry socialists whose real goal isn’t to save the Earth but to take from some to enrich themselves and others. I pray the Obama administration and Congress refuse to go along.

Leave a comment

An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban

2:17 pm

An update on the climate treaty talks in Durban.

I gather from this article that the talks appear to be going nowhere. (The reporter desperately wants a deal, and you need to read between the lines to sense how unlikely the deal is.) Not only is the U.S. reluctant to sign anything, so is India, China, and Brazil. Furthermore, even if the Obama administration agreed to something, it is highly unlikely any treaty could get through the Senate.

Also, it appears that the $100 billion Green Climate Fund is is in trouble as well.

All good news, as far as I am concerned. None of these deals have anything to do with climate or science. Instead, they are designed to redistribute power and wealth, by fiat, from one set of countries to another.

One comment

The National Health Service of the UK is making its patient database available to researchers

5:08 pm

Coming to your US healthcare system soon! The National Health Service (NHS) of the UK is making its patient database available to researchers.

NHS plans to change its constitution to allow patient data to be open to researchers by default, with an opt-out option for individuals. The ability to take advantage of NHS data will be a boon for research in the United Kingdom, said Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust. The more patients who are involved in research, the greater the public benefit, he said in a statement, adding that a patient once told him, “giving my anonymous data is the most painless thing I can do to help others get better.”

Some have raised privacy concerns about the data access plan, which is why the U.K. government will hold a public consultation on the idea before moving ahead, but Leszek Borysiewicz, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, also applauds the proposal. [emphasis mine]

It is significant that the NHS’s constitution forbid the release of this data without a patient’s permission. I suspect that this privacy rule was almost certainly a condition used to convince Great Britain’s population to go along with nationalized healthcare. “Don’t worry about your health records! The nationalized healthcare system will be required to keep it private and available only to you!”

As is typical for a government program, this promise had an expiration date. Government programs like to control things, and they will inevitably do whatever they must — twist the facts, break promises, lie, cheat, — to gain that control.

Right now the patient health records are supposed to remain anonymous once they are released. Want to bet that in a few years these same scientists will demand that they need to know who the patients are in order to do their research effectively? And do you want to bet on whether that information remains secret?

One comment

U.S. military has rescinded its policy that banned bibles at Walter Reed hospital

8:49 am

U.S. military has rescinded its ban of bibles at Walter Reed hospital.

[Congressman Peter] King spoke from the House floor Thursday blasting a policy memorandum from the commander of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center written by Chief of Staff C.W. Callahan. The September 14th memo covers guidelines for “wounded, ill, and injured partners in care.”

“No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit,” the policy states.

I suspect the original intent of the policy was to prevent the proselytizing of patients by outsiders. However, even this is a violation of the First Amendment, as the government has no right to say where and when people can discuss religion.

One comment

Business shuts down because of Obamacare and other federal regulation

10:22 am

Repeal it! The shutting down of business because of Obamacare and other federal regulation. This quote sums things up nicely:

In an economic climate of increasing uncertainties, Puzder says, one certainty is that many businesses that now are marginally profitable will disappear when ObamaCare causes that margin to disappear. A second certainty is that “employers everywhere will be looking to reduce labor content in their business models as ObamaCare makes employees unambiguously more expensive.”

Leave a comment

Occupy Richmond stands up for the Richmond Tea Party

7:03 pm

Pigs fly! Occupy Richmond stands with the Richmond Tea Party against the city government.

After the city accused the Richmond Tea Party of being overdue on tax filings,Occupy Richmond issued a statement saying “it would not surprise us” if the move was “retaliation” for the Tea Party’s criticism of Mayor Dwight Jones. […] “The Tea Party and Occupy movements disagree on many, many issues,” Occupy Richmond’s Thursday statement said. “This should not stop all Americans from proudly standing together against government abuses.” [emphasis mine]

Kudos to Occupy Richmond for understanding that an attack on freedom is an attack against everyone, even if the attack happens to be aimed at your opponents.

This also once again illustrates how completely stupid and politically tone deaf the city’s action is against the Richmond Tea Party. It will garner the mayor and his minions nothing but grief.

Leave a comment

Senate passes bill allowing military to hold US citizens indefinitely, even within the US borders

8:06 pm

Fools and tyrants: The Senate today passed a bill allowing the military to hold US citizens indefinitely, both inside and outside the US borders. The vote was 61-37, with 44 Republicans and 16 Democrats voting in favor.

To me, this is more proof that we need to throw out as many Senate incumbents as possible, with Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) being the first to go. These bastards don’t give a hoot about freedom. What good does it do us to defeat Al Queda if we destroy the very rights and freedoms that makes the United States different from Al Queda?

2 comments

Lame-duck Barney Frank joins effort to repeal Obamacare “death panels”

10:58 am

A bit late, ain’t he? Lame-duck Barney Frank joins the effort to repeal Obamacare’s “death panels.”

Note also that Frank has now essentially admitted that Sarah Palin was right about these panels (though he of course hasn’t come out and said it). Rather than be partisan back when she first brought this issue up, why couldn’t Frank have acted more responsibly and voted against the bill in the first place?

Update: I reworded the above paragraph because the original language gave the impression that Frank had actually said he now agreed with Palin, something he has not done.

One comment

Two weeks after the Richmond Tea Party complained about the city government’s double standard about protests and demanded a refund for its costs, they received a letter that they are being audited.

1:57 pm

Leftwing oppression: Two weeks after the Richmond Tea Party complained about the city government’s double standard about protests — requiring the tea party to pay $8,500 in order to demonstrate but letting Occupy Richmond demonstrate for free while trespassing — they received a letter from the city announcing that they are being audited.

What amazes me is how tone deaf the Democratic Party officials running Richmond are, somehow thinking this is going to help them politically.

Leave a comment

Senate bill would allow the military to arrest and hold US citizens at home or abroad indefinitely

1:46 pm

Madness: A Senate bill, to be voted on today, would allow the military to arrest and hold US citizens indefinitely, both at home and abroad.

Termed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and drafted behind closed doors by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) the NDAA would:

1) Explicitly authorize the federal government to indefinitely imprison without charge or trial American citizens and others picked up inside and outside the United States;

(2) Mandate military detention of some civilians who would otherwise be outside of military control, including civilians picked up within the United States itself; and

(3) Transfer to the Department of Defense core prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal, and custodial authority and responsibility now held by the Department of Justice.

For any elected official to consider this kind of legislation acceptable is only clear evidence that they should be put out of office immediately. Fire them all!

2 comments
1 … 230 231 232 233 234 … 255