Saturday, October 25, 2008
SATURDAY MORNING POST EDITION 106 FOR 12.07.2008
Within the past three years we have learnt a lot about the vengefully irrational partisan and religious hatred that Iranian dictator Makhmud Ahmadinejad has exercised against Israel.
Mr Ahmadinejad has a major league problem with coexisting with a sovereign republic that treat their Muslims INFINITELY BETTER than his country treat THEIR Jews!
Let us examine some of the incriminating evidence against Mr Ahmadinejad:
In April 2006 Ahmadinejad announced plans to contribute US$50m to fund the terrorist-riddled Palestinian Authority after Western nations withdrew aid in the wake of the terror group Hamas winning elections held in that part of Israel three months earlier. His foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced Iran's determination to help the Israeli Arabs.
In December 2005 Ahmadinejad dismissed the reality of the Holocaust of Nazi Germany as a myth, suggesting the relocation of Israel to Canada, Alaska, the United States, or Europe.
In October 2005 Ahmadinejad claimed that all hurdles for Iranian nuclear development had been cleared --- and that no power could stop him.
In May 2007 Iran were reportedly within three years of a nuclear bomb.
And the crown jewels of the lot: Not only has Ahmadinejad called for "wiping Israel off the map" --- he has even made the same threat against the United States too!
Near the end of June 2007, National Intelligence Director Admiral Michael McConnell exposed a clear pattern of Iran supporting Iraqi terrorists attacking Coalition forces with roadside and other homicide bombs.
A January 2007 Karbala attack by Shia Muslims who as it turned out were trained by the Quds Forces.
In November 2007 it was discovered that Iranian chemical and biological weapons, under even greater secrecy than their nuclear programme, could deliver their dangerous toxic payloads to Iraq, Israel, and even the United States.
In February Iran announced the launch of a "research rocket" that was launched from what turns out to be a missile development site where missiles capable of striking targets 6000 kilómetros away were under development.
In April Iran announced the installation of 6000 nuclear centrifuges, thus trebling their uranium enrichment capacity.
A suspicious report about Iran's nuclear capabilities was found to have been crafted by former State Department officials instead of senior United States intelligence intelligentsia. And Iranian officials have condemned the independent media news website NewsMax and condemned Israel/Syria talks.
Ahmadinejad is not alone, either, as we will find. Take for instance Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, affirming that Hitler SAVED EUROPE!
And other nations have obviously noticed, too: On 17 September 2007 French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner advised that a nuclear Iran would be a grave danger to the world. In fact some of the American Embassy hostages held in captivity for more than 14 months even claimed Ahmadinejad was one of their captors!
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited France in October 2007 newly-elected president Nicholas Sarkozy concurred with Olmert about the need to stop Iranian nuclear aspirations.
Last fall, Bahranian Crown Prince Prince Salman BinHamad BinIsa AlKhalifa became the first Arab leader to lodge a claim about Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Israel in fact expressed a fact contrary to CIA sentiment, that Iran are still continuing their nuclear programme...though Iranian defectors have been known to provide crucial information about nuclear programmes.
Our own president, George Walker Bush, warned of war with Iran last October, citing the need to prevent Iran from having necessary knowledge for arms construction. At the same time, Iraqi Military Commander General David Petraeus lodged an accusation against the Iranian ambassador to Iraq being allied with the terrorist gang called the Quds force. Subsequently the United States Government levied new sanctions against Iran. Zogby would confirm growing American sentiment favouring strikes on Iran shortly afterward.
Even Dennis Ross, a Middle Eastern peace process developer, has warned of a nuclear Iran.
Is it any wonder the US State Department have called Iran the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism? The Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned about Iran's dogged determination to get nuclear arms!
A treasonous university president in New York City refused to rescind the invitation for Ahmadinejad to speak --- and consequently a number of Jewish groups urged mass protests in New York but were subsequently disappointed at the low turnout for such protests. One brave former Embassy hostage, however, questioned the logic in letting someone speak freely on American soil when he does not afford his own people that same freedom.
And Illinois Democrat Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has called for talks with Iran even as he claims support for Israel, thus raising a number of doubts about where his true allegiances lie.
On the other hand, a number of pundits have assembled their own strategies against Iran --- such as this brave columnist from TownHall.com explaining how to defeat Ahmadinejad, or a great well-known married couple calling for New York's disinvestment from Iran.
And now reports have streamed in that as Iran prepare to attack Israel's nuclear heart, Israel are preparing a pre-emptive strike against Iran --- something that Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney had already considered asking for at the same time Ahmadinejad rejected talks about Iranian nuclear capabilities and millions of his countrymen rallied against Israel. A subsequent assessment by Iran's Judiciary Ayatollah claimed a global referendum against Israel's supposed "illegitimacy" as the capital Tehran's provisional "Prayers Leader" demanded "continued resistance against Israel and the United States". Yet Iranian emissaries have met with Iranian exiles in Europe and America to deliver a controversial message about the Iranian people supporting swift, decisive strikes to the Ahmadinejad regime.
How close are we to seeing Iran facing war with Israel and/or the United States? The idea of an American bombing campaign has been floated before. And Iran clearly have no desire for another hawk in the Oval Office. In fact, just three months ago, Jewish sources made it abundantly clear that military strikes were increasingly likely.Tough beans, Mr Ahmadinejad, you had it coming from the moment you started spewing your anti-Semitic, anti-American horse manure. And if Bush doesn't stop you --- either Macca, Olmert, or even Netanyahu surely will.
And in the most recent days, the Iranians carried out nine missile tests in two days, ostensibly to threaten Israel, who along with the United States slammed the new tests. Allegations have been raised about a doctored photo released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Some are even questioning the bold claims of the Iranian government about their missiles. Israeli Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has expressed his support for a strike on Iran.
We are facing an ever more precarious situation in the Middle East where we will have fewer and fewer options. Hemming and hawing over the process needlessly will produce greater risk, will perpetuate danger in the Middle East, and will place us in a number of terror threats.
Iran are clearly emboldened by our current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, wishing for us to get out of those areas because they have expressed a desire to fill a supposed power vacuum we would supposedly leave.
But this is NOT the time to remain soft. Consider this: We have a number of advanced methods of weaponry we are currently not using against the Taleban in Afghanistan or the likes of AlQaeda and other terror gangs in Iraq. We could easily use some of those methods to take out Iranian military, nuclear, and administrative centres, thus delivering serious neural injury to the Iranian regime promoting totalitarianism in the name of a perverted and radicalised form of Islam.
The Iranian people are yearning for freedom. And maybe it will be only one of the US or Israel...or maybe it will be both simultaneously. Though the idea of both might appear to alienate most Arab nations --- in reality a number of the neighbours of Iran and even Iraq when they were dictated by the late Hussein have had their suspicions and grievances. Some might call it just jealousy, but more enlightened minds see a potential for real peace if Iran are neutralised. Iraq are already on their way to developing into a full-fledged republic rooted in direct democracy like Israel, having held several elections. Hope for Iran still abounds.
But then again, we cannot be sure how this one turns out.
CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT: A PROFILE IN COURAGE AT THE CIRCUS
I have to admit, I have total respect for veteran actor Christopher Knight.
The man who played Peter Brady on the late 1960s/early 1970s sitcom, The Brady Bunch, has long since grown up, appearing on the 2000s reality series, My Fair Brady, and even marrying an America's Next Top Model Winner, Adrianne Curry.
On that alone, I am quite impressed.
But all of that pales in comparison to what he just did.
Recently you may have seen him on Celebrity Circus on NBC. On 2 July he made a stunning decision out of regard for his own health and safety.
By resigning from the show before he had wanted to, he basically went out on top, like John Elway, who retired from professional football after a number of years as the iconic Denver Broncos quarterback in the number 7 jersey, then guided his team to two back-to-back Super Bowl championships in the National Football League.
But how he got there was nothing short of inspiring in itself.
First, he attempted the German wheel, which involves a lot of twisting and turning, and when performed well, can be rather graceful.
Unfortunately, Mr Knight experienced a broken arm when he faltered.
Now, for most of us, that could have been the end of the experience.
Not Chris Knight.
He got up, attended an X-ray, learnt of his broken arm, and was quickly assigned a new activity.
Enter the tightrope.
He managed the highwire very deftly, and for a 50-year-old man period, let alone one with a broken arm, he was impressive in the premiere of the series. After taking his walk across the ring he walked back with a lovely woman standing on his shoulders. Now THAT is a classic circus act --- and what a class act he was.
He was graded fairly hard by the three judges at first but the viewers must have thought differently, so he was back the next week.
Where he attempted a unique combination of a fire act and a clown act, teaming with an experienced firehandler in an entertaining routine performed to the Beach Boys classic, Good vibrations. We evidently MUST have been digging his good vibrations and his act, for we gave him enough votes that he was safe.
Last week, he pulled himself up and down a very entertaining and acrobatic act with two other trapeze artists, but with a twist --- the trapezes were attached to bungee straps! He handled himself very impressively to the routine set to the Black Eyed Peas' hit, Let's get it started, and his stellar act started the show for sure. Two of the judges gave him very high scores, with the third drawing jeers for his significantly lower score. But once again enough of us must have thought differently.
Now as it turns out, he was safe, for he obviously had enough votes to continue. Someone else who was about to lose his spot on the show just got a second wind because Chris chose to resign from the act. I won't speculate here, I don't believe in speculation --- when you achieve proficiency in three other circus acts after a broken arm, you deserve total respect.
He lived out a good part of his youthful dream of circus life, and it is good to dream when we are young. Some young celebrities thrust into the spotlight are inhibited for a time in their ability to enjoy their youth, and as they get older they often express themselves in more lavish methods, like Michael Jackson's former home/amusement park, the Neverland Ranch.
And Christopher Knight has lived his by participating in this show, and with the true grit he exhibited in light of the setback he endured during his progress in the series, he has clearly earned my respect. Well done, Chris. Take a bow. You deserve it.
WHY NOT GET YOUR OWN PERSONAL WIND FARM --- ON YOUR CITY LOT
I have been batting this idea around in my head for a number of months.
And admittedly it sounds like it is a nutty idea on the surface.
That said, given the rising costs of energy, including natural gas and electricity and even heating oil, alternative energy sources have caught on in our society, with mixed results depending on the source.
We are now finding that ethanol is a bust given the soaring petrol costs, the skyrocketing animal feed costs (which are heavily corn-based --- corn is a major source for ethanol), and the low impact that ethanol has truly had on our fuel supply.
Some people have failed to understand the inefficient nature of maize-based ethanol and now there is a push to abolish that mandate, even here in Missouri, where I live.
That said, renewable energy sources should not be ruled out completely. Even if it will take a number of months at the very least before we start seeing fuel prices some down to more reasonable levels, homeowners CAN take advantage of the environment --- to their own profit.
The big question is: HOW?
The answer requires multiple solutions.
Let's take a look at some good ideas that are popular.
Solar panels were first noticed in the 1970s as a good source of energy and the technology has improved since. Today you can use solar panels on your rooftop to heat your water --- and improved solar panels are able to heat more water more quickly.
Solar panels are also useful for other necessities like lighting, especially with the new power-efficient fluorescents and LEDs coming onto the scene. Myself, I went all-fluorescent years ago by choice, for economic reasons. However, you should STILL be able to choose your own lightbulb --- and that INCLUDES incandescent. Politicians have already started questioning the Establishment Media's Congress' hostile policy toward Thomas Alva Edison's greatest invention. But back to the subject at hand: You can even buy refrigerators and freezers that run off of solar and wind energy, which are usually expressed in direct current (DC) but can be converted to alternating current (AC) with certain implements. Most conventional electrical appliances, from televisions to computers to microwave ovens, work via AC.
Windpower has become increasingly accessible, to the point where homeowners can easily obtain a wind turbine and set that in their yards.
One major drawback of the wind turbine with its propellers is it can cause lethal injuries to flying birds. Another is you may have to get a variance to exceed the maximum height allowed for residential areas, typically 35 feet, for man-made structures. And then there are the space limitations.
Enter another type of wind turbine that is becoming more commonplace --- the vertical axis wind turbine.
You can purchase VAWTs for use at your urban home, and you can set them up in a small area.
Six VAWTs can easily fit in a 4x8ft area, generating as much as 6000 kilowatts. In a 10x10ft area, you can set up nine --- or even 15 --- turbines, and in a staggered formation at that --- in which the VAWT, whose blade apparatus is actually a drum, like that in an old evapourative cooler (I actually got one of those running again in 2000). The drum spins in any wind direction and does not need to be rotated, unlike the traditional fan-blade turbine.
Thsoe turbines can help your electric bill come down --- in some cases to the point you see a CREDIT --- that means the electric agency PAY YOU for energy PRODUCED when it exceeds that which you consumed.
And the typical mast of the turbine is rather compact --- 30 feet, with the drum running another four feet or so, meaning you are inside the 35ft variance limit. This means that it is even easier still to take advantage of those breezes that cross your property.
Of course, communities could do their part by raising the variance to as much as 50ft. Whilst it is unlikely that most folks will place a structure taller than that, 50 feet will put more --- and taller --- turbines within the limit and maybe even catch stronger breezes. Most wind turbines can handle 160km/h (100mi/h) winds and even stronger, as much as 200km/h (125mi/h).
Communities could also use vertical axis wind turbines in local parks and greenspaces to generate extra energy, helping to power municipal street lights and traffic robots and signals, just as is being done now for solar panels. I can personally attest to a solar-powered pair of signals on each side of an old railway overcrossing just blocks from my home that have replaced traditional electric landlines. Why not place more traffic signals with solar panels and wind turbines, so that even in foul weather, power will not be interrupted, thus making traffic control easier?
Although such applications may be more difficult in built-up old town areas, especially in the downtowns of older and more densely-packed cities like New York and Chicago and Cleveland, even inner-city single-occupancy housing can easily handle those VAWTs --- and the technology will further improve for them with stronger posts being designed even for warehouses and skyscrapers.
Another idea that has hit me is the prospect of creating our own hydroelectric dams on streams that run through our properties and our water gardens. The first half of that may well be more applicable to rural landowners, but still quite useful. In addition to providing a better habitat for aquatic and amphibious fauna, we can create more aesthetic ponds that may even benefit our own personal water supplies.
As for water gardens --- I wish I had thought of this idea years ago when I had a house of my own AND a water garden --- streams and rills could be outfitted with small hydroelectric structures made with paint stirrers with drum heads, and the shafts cut down to fit a structure. Of course a filter will be needed and checked carefully at regular intervals, but the electricity could help power low-power lighting around the ponds and streams and even the plants that line them.
Whilst we may not completely replace coal, natural gas, and even hydroelectric power, we CAN make an impact upon our energy use --- by changing the way we GET our power, by taking matters into our own hands, using our own resources. Initial resources will be fairly expensive, but the payoff will dwarf the investment over time, as you may have to worry less about power restoration after a power outage in the local power grid.
MY JOURNEY THROUGH INDEPENDENCE DAY
First of all I should state that Independence Day for me started at midnight and continued with me working on some of these articles on this weekend's blog.
But I should ALSO state that I was starting to doze off, because I had been up since 5.30a the previous day, having to go to work on the last day of a two-week temporary assignment at a tinned milk facility on the Missouri-Oklahoma border about 20 miles from my home. When I wrapped that part of it up scrubbing milk residue off of a magnet table I headed in to the temporary agency and picked up a cheque. I was not disappointed by the amount, and figured I could withdraw some of what my regular employer had deposited then combine the two to make a substantive rent payment.
Was I right.
What a sigh of relief that was. Then it was off to the filling station to put $40 worth of petrol in my truck --- almost enough to fill it all the way. That amount would surely have topped off my car which has a smaller fuel tank.
Then I accepted a phone call from my good friend David Cholesterol from Chimpsy Radio, who conducted an interview with me. He was amazed at some of the folks on my profile, but I told him to just add them, baby, as if to paraphrase a slogan from my beloved Oakland Raiders. We also talked about this blog, and I must admit, you are going to be here a while. That show is scheduled to air on 23 July at 8.00p American Eastern Time; he should also have a podcast on his blog shortly afterward. The show will re-air several times before the next show.
But as I worked on more articles on this blog I also started feeling more and more tired. At about 3.30a I finally surrendered and went to sleep.
I was up at about 10.30a to take a shower, check on my email and other stuff, then headed to Big Lots in Webb City, driving the car to get the charcoal and lighter fluid for a barbecue I had also picked up for my mother at Lowes the day before in the truck.
Them Mum barbecued some steaks and prepared some macaroni style. As she was preparing, I grabbed a couple of double cheeseburgers from Hardees and ate them on the way back to Mum's house. Later, I ate everything on my plate but half of my steak then took home some of the leftovers, including the baked beans with sauteed onions.
Then after going home, I took my neighbour to the store and then headed over to the local Independence Day festival.
At Landreth Park, along Murphy Boulevard which runs diagonally through most of Joplin, there is an open-air stage where entertainers perform for a couple of festivals held annually at the park just north of downtown. This year, we had a couple of local acts on stage, Duke Mason, a little man with a big voice, big heart, and big talent, and a local rock band called Rukas.
In between acts I would grab a snowcone with mango flavour, then a plate of funnel cakes --- tiny globs of fried batter covered with powdered sugar --- and also some pop, Sprite and Coke specifically. When I grabbed the Coke I also grabbed a Philly-style cheesesteak sandwich, then sat back down and enjoyed both. I must admit, that was one of the better sandwiches I have had lately.
Then came the big name act of the night, veteran country recording artist Mark Chesnutt, who performed one of his big hits, Bubba shot the jukebox. Along the way he performed some new tracks from a recent CD, a couple of George Jones classics, and after a train passed through just 70 or 80 yards away from the stage, he started into a medley of Johnny Cash classics. He then performed a few more major hits, including It sure is Monday, palying most of his major hits, but not the one that drew me into his music --- Almost goodbye, from the 1994 MCA CD of the same name.
Then after an ambulance cleared the area where fireworks would be shot off it was time for the fireworks, set to patriotic music.
I must admit that we are somewhat complacent as conservatives, compared to how even the most liberal of folks were 100 years ago, let alone the folks that were in place shortly after we won our War for Independence. The more liberal folks of that time would have gladly fought for traditional freedoms, for the concepts spelled out at Independence Hall on a hot summer afternoon in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania so long ago.
Which is a lot different from the most liberal fringe amongst us today. The most extreme leftists want to silence critics of liberalism, simply because they actually have an audience in real talk radio, the one area they have had real problems securing monopoly control with regard to content. Talk radio is one of the few refuges most folks have to the print media and television news --- both of which are overwhelmingly liberal in establishment. That is why Fox News continue slamming MSNBC and CNN in the ratings: Fox News take a more objective viewpoint that CNN and MSNBC evidently cannot handle.
Suffice it to say that as we conclude our Independence Day holiday we need to remember, that this is not merely a day off, but a day that we must remember those who gave their lives so we could live ours in liberty.
SHOULD THE ACLU BE SHUT DOWN UNDER THE RACKETEER AND INFLUENCE CORRUPT ORGANISATION (RICO) ACT?
HAVE THE ACLU VIOLATED THE RICO ACT?
In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1961-1968. At the time, Congress' goal was to eliminate the ill-affects of organized crime on the nation's economy. To put it bluntly, RICO was intended to destroy the Mafia.
Click Here To Read The Text Of The Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organisations (RICO) Act.
We all know that the American Civil Liberties Union have involved themselves in a number of controversial courtroom decisions in recent years. We have seen them get involved in issues ranging from immigration issues to marriage issues to unborn rights to freedom of speech.
But their voracity toward attacking laws that the people approved in effort to counter some of the more radical problems afflicting our society with some common sense may have gone way too far.
So what does the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act---the RICO Act---have to do with the ACLU's antics? More than you think. And here's one example:
In 2005 the ACLU successfully won the overturn of an Oregon law prohibiting live sex acts. But before you start cheering, understand that they also explain their own motives in their Policy 211: “The ACLU supports the decriminalization of prostitution and opposes state regulation of prostitution”.
There is a sinister side behind this policy: With their opposition to zoning laws and their claim that whatever consenting adults do in private is "their own business" it suddenly becomes more evident that such activity can suddenly become public and next thing you know you have houses of ill repute opening near schools and churches and amusement parks and neighbourhood park.
But wait, you say. What about my right to conduct business like that?
NO! WHAT ABOUT PARENTS' RIGHTS TO RAISE THEIR CHILDREN WITHOUT THAT SORT OF THING CONSTANTLY LOOMING OVER THEIR HEADS? You want to sell pornograhic magazines at corner markets? I have no problem! But this is different!
And speaking of children and sex acts, they even challenged a 1997 Massachusetts law prohibiting the mere possession of child pornography. But for those who do not have the benefit of HighBeam.com membership I'll reprint excerpts from that Boston Herald article.
From the Boston Herald, ACLU: New child porn law won't pass high court challenge, 9 December 1997:
QUOTE: John Roberts, executive director of the Boston branch of the American Civil Liberties Union
"Mere possession should not be a crime. This law really sweeps too far, and from an ACLU point of view, this really gets into areas that we believe are protected by the First Amendment."
And the ACLUnatics would even like to see child pornography legalised---which a Supreme Court ruling appeared to favour in their 2004 case that crippled the Child Online Protection Act.
Right off the bat I can tell you of SEVERAL RICO Act violations committed by the ACLUnatics:
Section 1503 (relating to obstruction of justice)
Section 1510 (relating to obstruction of criminal investigations)
Section 1511 (relating to the obstruction of State or local law enforcement)
Sections 2251, 2251A, 2252, and 2260 (relating to sexual exploitation of children)
In their particular quest for seeking the appeasement of paedophiles and paedophilia and decriminalisation of child pornography the ACLUnatics have dug themselves a deep enough hole that if we had an attorney general with enough balls to indict them we could surely see them hit with no less than seven ways to pursue criminal charges under the RICO Act...and the case would stick like peanut butter to hot toast.
"The law was officially signed by acting Gov. Paul Cellucci at a ceremony yesterday. Under the statute, individuals who are caught with any visual or computer image of a child under 18 engaged in sex acts could be prosecuted as felons.
First-time offenders could be jailed for up to five years if convicted, while second-time offenders could face five years to life imprisonment and those convicted a third time could be jailed for 10 years to life, the law states. "
And that's supposedly not good enough for the ACLU? Hello, I thought that this was the ACLU that cared so much for children's rights when they have problems with schools that won't let them wear "(EDIT) BUSH" tee shirts!
Alas that is the other side of the coin: The ACLU will eagerly protect child molestors claiming it is just a lifestyle choice, denigrating homosexuals and bisexuals by comparing paedophilia to those two groups...and this ON TOP of the ACLUnatics' blind defence of a Marxist agenda concerning LGBT folk!
""There will be zero tolerance for those who dare to dabble in this filth," Cellucci said, adding that Massachusetts was the 43rd state in the nation to enact such a law.
Cellucci was joined at yesterday's signing by the father of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in October allegedly by two men branded by authorities as sexual predators.
Curley dismissed the legal concerns about the bill, and said it was a "major step forward in the fight against child predators.""
And guess who is bankrolling the canteen of one of the killers of young Jeffrey Curley?
The Boston Herald reports that Jaynes is now battling efforts by his victim’s mother to uncover whether NAMBLA is bankrolling Jaynes’ prison canteen. There were court affidavits from two inmates claiming Jaynes engages in sex acts in the prison without discipline, shows off his victim’s autopsy and has a fat canteen account courtesy of NAMBLA.
What do the ACLU have in common with the North American Man/Boy Love Association?
From "The ACLU And Nambla: A Match Made In Hell"
"The ACLU is a supporter of NAMBLA, representing the organization in the civil case related to the aforementioned murder. The ACLU is representing NAMBLA PRO BONO. Their official position: “In representing NAMBLA, the ACLU does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children. What we do advocate is robust freedom of speech. This lawsuit strikes at the heart of freedom of speech. The defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive.” "
Want to know how Jeffrey Curley was murdered? Get ready for this, from the same source:
"Charles Jaynes, 25, reportedly viewed the group’s web site shortly before the killing of Jeffrey Curley, a 10 year old boy, slain in 1997. Jaynes also had in his possession some of NAMBLA’s publications. Also convicted in the killing was 24 year old Salvatore Sicari. Sicari, convicted of first degree murder, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Jaynes’ second degree murder and kidnapping convictions enable him to seek parole within the next 20 years. Was this a case of misunderstanding? Does this fit with NAMBLA’s philosophy of man/boy love that is non violent? Hardly. Prosecutors said Jaynes and Sicari were sexually obsessed with the boy, lured him from his Cambridge neighborhood with the promise of a new bike, and then smothered him with a gasoline soaked rag when he resisted their sexual advances. They then stuffed him into a concrete filled container and dumped it into a Maine river."
Sick? OK, I'll wait for you to grab a SevenUp or some saltines.
Now, this is the sort of filth that the ACLU seek to appease in their entirely ungodly alliance with Nambla. And we come back to those four elements of the RICO Act which if we had an attorney general with enough balls we could easily break those filthy bastards under that act...and then bust Nambla under the same act to boot! THINK ABOUT IT!
Back to that Boston Herald article:
"But even supporters of the bill such as Plymouth County District Attorney Michael J. Sullivan admitted the law will be tough to enforce because it will involve monitoring private activities in the home or on a personal computer.
"Detection obviously is going to be a challenge," he said.
And civil rights lawyers scoffed at the notion the bill will pass constitutional muster."
I can't see why we mayn't be able to trace child pornography if we can trace terrorist activity...but more importantly it is going to come down to us to start busting child pornographers online and those efforts are being aided by law enforcement and by websites like this one. And BTW that law would most certainly pass constitutional muster considering the grave impact child pornography would impose upon the general public!
ANOTHER EXCEDRIN HEADACHE (BristolMyersSquibb trademark, 1964): APPEASING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Illegal immigration is constantly in the news day and night, 24X7X366. Most Americans, irrespective of skin colour, age, ancestry, sex, or sexuality, are increasingly opposed to people jumping the borders...so much that an organisation formed in order to monitor the borders to check for gaps in the Immigration and Naturalisation Service's and the Border Patrol's efforts.
What you may or may not also know is the ACLUnatics have been front and centre in their efforts to oppose the Minuteman Project---in fact they harassed the organisation by interfering with their efforts to help enforce immigration laws and the borders by falsely branding them as "racists" and setting up warning systems and advising illegal aliens not to cross the border where Minuteman Project volunteers were working in Arizona. Sounds like the Minuteman Project are within their rights to sue the ACLUnatics for defamation of character and libel...and could crush them with a bootheel from HELL.
The ACLU even have an "Immigration Rights Project" which for 19 years has worked to find ways to flout US immigration laws. And this is on top of their move to ask a Los Angeles court to allow illegal immigrant groups to intervene in Judicial Watch's Special Order 40 Lawsuit in September 2006.
Earlier this year the ACLU complained about immigration law reforms stripping away the due process rights of illegals...showing you just how far off course immigration law enforcement has really gone.
I just found another THREE sections of the RICO Act with which we can indict the ACLUnatics which apply in this situation and they are as follows:
Section 1425 (relating to the procurement of citizenship or nationalization unlawfully)
Section 1426 (relating to the reproduction of naturalization or citizenship papers)
Section 1427 (relating to the sale of naturalization or citizenship papers)
In addition, because such activities invariably involve forged government documents like passports and drivers licences and visas, we find that these articles ALSO warrant prosecution under the following acts:
Section 1542 (relating to false statement in application and use of passport)
Section 1543 (relating to forgery or false use of passport)
Section 1544 (relating to misuse of passport)
Section 1546 (relating to fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents)
The ACLU have even been known to defend illegal aliens' supposed rights to welfare payments. Therefore I propose that we also charge them under the following section of the act:
Section 1954 (relating to unlawful welfare fund payments)
How many charges could we file in this case? I could think of no fewer than 15 counts of RICO Act violations...and that is only the tip of a massive iceberg in which we could nail the ACLU for hundreds if not thousands of RICO Act violations...and George Romero, the ACLU President, would be amongst those headed to federal prison where they belong!
Is it any wonder talk radio host Mark Levin calls them the American Criminal Liberties Union?
And since I wrote the preceding paragraphs of this article 21 months ago, in October 2006, the ACLUnatics have engaged in yet even MORE dangerous activities.
Currently they have joined several anti-democracy, anti-family, anti-real marriage fascist organisations hellbent on forcing a totalitarian agenda in the name of the thin minority of people who happen to be homosexual, in their effort to interfere with Californians' right to vote on the legality of homosexual marriage. And such organisations have already successfully gotten away with interfering with the will of the Massachusetts people to engage in the same activity, with the ACLUnatics even levelling false charges of assault and battery against an innocent man innocently protesting that state's gay marriage laws.
Responsible homosexuals should insist that George Romero and the rest of his organisation at the ACLU gang stop trying to deface the great culture of the United States of America in the name of "diversity", "tolerance", or "equality". Those three are code words for "we will force our fringe minority viewpoint on the American people whether they like it or not", basically, they are codes for socialism, totalitarianism, tyranny, and other Marxist concepts.
And at least some of us are asking what do homosexuals need marriage for anyway. They already have the ability to declare anyone a beneficiary, they have the ability to declare who can visit them in hospital, and so forth.
They cry for "equal rights", yet they ALREADY have equal rights, they ALREADY have equal opportunity. The problem is a few radicals are screaming for special recognition of their lifestyle and therefore screaming for special rights. Contrary to seemingly popular misbelief this is NOT analogous to the civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s when there REALLY WERE genuine discrepancies between how Caucasians were treated and how Negroes were treated. And as a result of the radicals' false comparison, most Negroes today are justifiably offended at the weak excuse for a comparo.
And what is with the constant attempts to redefine discrimination anyway, even to the point of throwing temper tantrums about antidiscrimination bills that don't go their way?
Their ilk are the type of folks forcing such draconian homonazi measures that in their quest to defend homosexuals they attack innocent people innocently expressing a constructive moral objection to homosexuality to the point where a professor can get dumped from his or her job simply for stating their beliefs on this topic! Evidently they don't believe in the First Amendment --- UNLESS the person's words jibe with their beliefs so they push for "hate crimes" laws that criminalise criticism of their sexuality.
The radicals are the VERY reason people are feeling resentful toward their results. Time to exclude those with irrational partisan hatred from these debates. The hotheads who cry about the need to tamper with marriage because it doesn't go their way in civilised society are the first who should be locked out of the debate. Then we target those who want to force "tolerance" by behaving INtolerantly toward those who disagree with them on moral grounds, and knock them out of the debate as well. Crying because you know that the people are vigourously against the imposition of same sex marriage DOES NOT excuse you to abuse the courts and force your will --- which is most certainly NOT held even by the majority of homosexuals anyway --- will draw only MORE outrage and venom.
And there is ALREADY TOO MUCH of that in this case!
I have already explained that I have stood in solidarity with a homosexual teen who simply wanted to wear a couple of homosexual pride tee shirts to school. (I would do it again in a heartbeat too.) I should also tell you that I learnt how to shoot revolvers and handguns from a lesbian couple 20 years ago. One of them had a .44 Magnum --- "The most powerful handgun in the world, and it could blow your head clean off...you gotta ask yourself a question...Do I feel lucky...Well, do ya, punk?!"--- that chestnut from the Dirty Harry films.
So you could say that LGBT folks sort of HELPED me understand the importance of the First AND Second Amendments.
Back to the ACLUnatics on other RICO Act Violations: They have sought to interfere with the executive branch's authority to conduct necessary investigations on terror suspects, thus bringing in the Immigration and Nationality Act, Sections 274 and 277 into play. Sounds like a real criminal enterprise at work, don't you think?
But then again what do you expect from a gang of misfits that claim that crossdressing men supposedly are entitled to enter women's restrooms? Sounds like they may be encouraging other criminal conduct, including rape. Do women NOT have the civil liberty not to expect to be raped when using public restrooms? Of course they do. Problem is we have to take great care to prevent the occasional pervert from slipping through the cracks.
And then there are their efforts to interfere with the religious freedom of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy. This ties in perfectly with both the ACLU's socialist roots and the Marxist aim of eliminating religion from society.
One thing is very abundantly clear: The American Civil Liberties Union have clearly gone way overboard and over the top in their efforts to force neosocialist totalitarianism, not unlike that of the Castro, Chavez, Mugabe, Mengistu, Hitler, Mao, and Il regimes. Attorney General Michael Mukasey should authorise investigations into the ACLUnatics and make an effort to shut them down. The charges are clearly in place and it would be a moderately difficult yet provable and credible case; such principals as George Romero could easily be led off to prison where they belong, with the ACLUnatics' assets being frozen and liquidated at auction, and the proceeds used to fund necessary government functions such as corrections facilities or highway construction.
And maybe we could start breathing a sigh of belief. We could wind up feeling like we live in America again...instead of the fringe leftist cloudcuckooland of Disturbia.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Exposé
By Exposé
SATURDAY MORNING POST EDITION 105 FOR 05.07.2008
JESSICA SIMPSON CAN AND WILL TOO AD INFINITUM EAT WHATEVER SHE WANTS --- AND SO WILL I!
I blew up in a fit of rage on Monday afternoon when I saw this outrageous article from some kook fringe nutcase deriding contemporary singer Jessica Simpson's culinary and dietary freedoms.
I understand perfectly clearly the need to pay attention to animal welfare. That said, everyone knows that it is common knowledge that bullying us into not eating meat is NOT the solution to the supposed "problems" of animal welfare --- to the contrary it is A WHOLE NEW PROBLEM altogether, an invasion of our right to eat whatever we want to eat.
And sadly, governments are starting to peck into those delicate areas of our lives, wanting to dictate what we can and cannot eat.
Case in point: New Jersey legislators are now targeting fast food restaurants with extra taxation. Come on, we just want to eat a halfway decent meal, one that tastes as good as we can get it in a short period of time, and get on our way, and government want to bully US with their inflammatory interference with OUR right to eat what we want to eat?
Maybe Jessica Simpson should slap a restraining order on the fringe leftist kooks at "PETA", though it might not do any good. And even if she did obtain a good scientist to help her with a defamation lawsuit, it would still be tough to prove --- this is even in a British court, where the loudmouthed anti-meat kook shot his mouth off at her, and also where the defendants have the burden of proof is on the defendants, instead of the plaintiffs as is the case here in the United States.
And then there is the outrageously unconstitutional calorie posting regulation in New York City. Someone at the Thomas More Law Centre and/or the Centre for Consumer Freedom should be able to craft a constitutional challenge --- and trash that new law* in a heartbeat. (*Adobe Acrobat required for this link --- it is a .PDF document.)
Down the shore in Maryland, Montgomery County officials, not content with imposing their ideas of proper education for children by forcing onesided sex education down the gullets of little kids, even want to force their residents onto their idea of a "diet".
On the Left Coast --- and in this case Left is CERTAINLY appropriate for the Pacific Coast states that propose this crap --- a new California law is basically strongarming schools and food companies into some sick twisted fringe leftist kook's dumbassed idea of "healthy food". (And that link even shows you a comment I left on that article too.)
In San Francisco, College Republicans took to the streets to protest a proposed beer tax.
Down in Los Angeles there is a push by fringe kooks opposed to your culinary and dietary freedom to force people into eating "slow food". Their proponents claim that it is "gaining popularity" but in reality it is mere propaganda by left-of-centre loudmouths who have an irrational animus against successful restaurants that serve food we the people actually want to eat.
And a New York newsanchorman-turned-state legislator has rallied to the aid of the lowly cupcake, threatened in the Boogie Down Bronx. (Read my response to that article, too.)
In Philadelphia, the City Council also addressed a possible calorie and salt content mandate on restaurant menus.
And the ever-opportunistic, grossly-misnamed "Physician's Committee on Responsible Medicine", merely a left-wing front group for trial lawyers hellbent on robbing innocent food companies, are always begging for new "plaintiffs" so they can harass our food companies with nuisance lawsuits.
More lawsuit mania from the food fascists: At the beginning of 2006 the Centre for Science in the Public Interest --- who as I pointed out in my blog last week deserve to be broken under the RICO Act --- decided to file an outrageous lawsuit against FritoLay over alleged issues in their advertising. They have also threatened lawsuits over sodium content in everyday foods.
Such ninny-nanny neocommunists are meeting increasing resistance from Americans, however...
But such blatantly idiotic disregard to culinary and dietary freedoms are not limited to the USA either: North of the border, the province of Ontario have pushed a new prohibition on so-called "trans fats" in food served in schools.
Across the pond, British community councils have started offering five-hole salt shakers in hopes of reducing salt intake, out of an irrational fear of health problems supposedly associated with a normal salt intake. Renfrewshire have decided to bar burger and ice cream vans from within 500m (1600ft) of schools even though a number of British students, as is the case with American students, disapprove of substandard school cafeteria food.
And young Britishers' culinary and dietary freedoms are under special attack: Now, school instructors are being encouraged to commit the criminal theft of a child's lunch simply because it doesn't jibe with what the schools feel is "appropriate" --- even to the point of locking in schoolchildren at lunch for the sake of healthier eating.
Then there are the concerns of Britishers who fear draconian warning labels on dairy foods as a few activists cry for cheese to be treated as "junk food". And of course there is an all-out assault on the bacon butty, a traditional British staple featuring bacon on brown bread, similar to the BL&T.
And the medical journal The Lancet have called for a 10 percent meat diet to fight the so-called ruse of so-called "global warming", even though it does not exist and mankind has NO ability to alter the climate of the Earth whatsoever.
And such idiocy has spread across Europe too: Last year, some nutcase wrote a blog demanding the taxing of snack foods and fast food. I remember such a tax being imposed in California in 1991, and it failed miserably after only 18 months due to its inherent consistencies. Fatty foods have been targeted with extra taxation in Holland. In Norway, an adult novelties store chain were targeted with food safety authorities harassing them about the labelling on certain edible products.
The European Commission have even bullied a number of food companies like Nestlé and CocaCola into "voluntary" advertising restrictions with regard to children.
In Japan, the government have taken to bullying their people into limits for waistlines and other body parts that have driven people into dangerous dietary behaviours such as fasting, even as companies are threatened with fines for overweight staff. Meanwhile, Taiji prefecture officials have branded dolphin meat as "toxic waste". (Come on!
Where ELSE do you get mahi mahi from?!)
Down under, a Queensland Labor member who operates nine McDonalds restaurants exploded in a fury when confronted with his party's push to eliminate certain food adverts. Maybe he should switch to the more conservative-leaning Liberal Party. (Which are COMPLETELY different from the American standard for liberalism!)
And how about this for a one-world government? An idea is floating with the "International Obesity Task Force" and "Consumers International" designed to outlaw advertising for fast food and snack food all over the world. Which when you consider the one-world order already being pushed by the United Nations,
href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=c0fbd593-17b7-485b-b0c5-f7cefdc7ade9" target="_blank">who have now blasted the world's overweight over their so-called "excess consumption", is rather disturbing in and of itself.
However, not all is lost: In one instance from last year, a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judicial panel dismissed two class action complaints targeted against Anheuser Busch and Advanced Brands and Importing regarding supposed claims of marketing alcohol to minors.
In the District of Columbia Circuit Court, the Court of Appeals decided last November to reject an appeal of the dismissal of a class action lawsuit against a number of milk sellers in the name of the lactose-intolerant.
In Georgia, a proposed shame-based approach toward children has been bravely questioned by a columnist at no less than the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
A Mississippi legislature bill that would have allowed restaurants to deny service to fat people has met its demise.
A Hawaii bill that would have outlawed aspartame bit the dust due to lack of coherent scientific evidence.
Here is a look at a brave nutritionist exposing the lack of integrity in certain school meal projects.
This California editorial exposed a fatal flaw in menu labelling legislation.
And then there is the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, which passed the US House in 2005 but has yet to reach the Senate.
In the UK, Tesco shareholders rejected a television cook's call for "improving chicken-rearing standards" for sale in the supermarket chain's stores.
And how about this brilliant Australian newspaper column demanding that the people take guard of their culinary and dietary freedoms and watch out for jackboots hellbent on destroying them?
These and many more stories abound in our quest to enjoy, exercise, and even protect our culinary and dietary freedoms --- and certain fringe minority neoliberals' efforts to sabotage them, thinking that you don't have any sense of self-responsibility when it comes to what you eat and drink.
And we the people have no choice but to start taking a stand.
Why?
You should remember how the National Socialists eradicated people in Germany. Let us recall the words of Pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (1892-1984):
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich nicht protestiert; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Now let's translate that from German to English:
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
And there you have it: The ninny-nannies have already targeted smoking, they have already targeted drinking, they have already targeted off-road vehicles, they have already targeted large families, and now they are targeting food and drink.
What this means is the likes of food fascists like Michael Jacobson, Kelly Brownell, Marion Nestlé, Margo Wootan, and now this PETA nutcase, Alistair Currie. What a waste of a perfectly good name on an absolutely irrational and totally spiteful jerk who cannot learn to coexist with meat-eaters.
I tried vegetarianism myself three times when I was in college and never lasted more than 10 days. I must admit, it CAN be a good way to lose weight, and I was able to keep the weight off for a few years.
But that was a decision I made of my own free will. And you know what? I didn't have any more problems with the vagaries of our own individual diets.
I figured that as a meateater I could easily get along with vegetarians and vegans, and generally that has been the case. I had a couple of very good friends who were vegans, and who also helped me to understand some of the other problems in our society, including urban pollution, which has been largely eliminated due to improvements in technology, with or without legislation.
A car built today will produce LESS pollution than a car built even 10 --- let alone 20, 30, 40, 50, or even 60 --- years ago. A farm tractor can produce even less pollution than their counterparts of previous years, and emissions controls on small engines, such as those on lawn mowers and weed choppers and brush hoggers, continue to advance.
And so it is with our foods. We have seen reformulations of a number of breakfast cereals and other grain products with whole-wheat and whole-grain sources in recent years, so that it is easily possible to enjoy even more whole-grain goodness at every meal. And in the old days, whole-grain was very common indeed.
Then with advances in refrigeration, flash freezing, food preservation, and even to some point some COMMON SENSE food regulations --- namely the establishment of food safety regulations --- we began seeing yet even safer and safer foods. And we even saw the growth of families fostering the increases in sizes of some packages, like hot dogs and hot dog buns.
And people appeared a lot happier back then.
Now I am not saying let's go back to the '50s when as Michael Savage says "the chrome was thick and the women were straight"; I am sure that even our homosexual neighbours could stand a lot less haranguing from the food fascists. Because guess what, Todd and Paul, Marion Nestlé and Michael Jacobson and Kelly Brownell ALSO want to crap all over your choices in the foods you eat, just like they want to crap all over the food choices of the typical Tim and Faith, the typical George and Laura, the typical Jermaine and Latasha, the typical Eduardo and Pilar, the typical Wolfgang and Heidi, the typical Sergio and Gioia, the typical Shlomo and Golda, and EVERYBODY ELSE THAT LIVES IN OUR GREAT REPUBLIC!
You want to see AMERICAN schools stealing snacks from children? IT'S ALREADY HERE.
And NOW is the time to start taking stock of the people whom we put into elected office.
That means find out where people stand on culinary and dietary freedoms --- and if they disfavour your right to eat whatever you want, then start removing them from office. Start electing politicians who truly care about our culinary and dietary freedoms, who will work to keep the likes of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest and all the animal rights jackboots (NOT TO BE confused with folks GENUINELY concerned about animal rights, who do NOT engage in violence). PETA members were known to throw blood on people who wear fur.
I myself accepted the notion that fur is unnecessary, in fact, in one instance in high school, I recall leaving a note for a girl wearing a rabbit skin coat that read, Cruelty Without Beauty, in the vein of Morrissey's video, Every day is like Sunday, I enjoyed Jane Wiedlin's album, Fur, and its title track, with its catchy chorus:
No I don't wear fur, I won't do it, fur is for fools, I'm too cool...
That said, I NEVER believed that wanton violence, like throwing blood or smashing fur shops, was EVER the answer.
God forbid that the ninny-nannies like Mr Brownell and Mr Jacobson and Ms Nestlé start encouraging people to smash out the front windows of their local Maccas and Burger Kings and Hardees and Braums and Arbys and Sonics and Jack In The Boxes and Del Tacos and White Castles and Lions Choices. Then the managers of those stores NEED to start keeping loaded shotguns on the premises. (They will ALSO come in handy when a prospective robber comes calling.)
Yeh. That's right.
If a restaurant manager has to shoot one of those ninny-nanny nutcases to the floor in defence of his business and paramedics cannot save the punk who was trying to bust out the front windows of the restaurant, so be it. It's all worth it to send a loud and clear message to those criminals and tyrants: We ARE going to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, wherever we want, and if you don't like it, get out of the United States of America and stay out.
The plain and simple is people are FED UP of being told what they can and cannot eat. We are under enough stress as it is, dieting and exercising ourselves to death, or at least to the point of obtaining unhealthy body images.
But I am NOT advocating we should firebomb the headquarters Centre for Science in the Public Interest. That is why we have a legal system. Let's get after Michael Mukasey or some other competent attorney general, and at least a few brave US Attorneys as well, to start investigating the likes of the CSPI, PETA, the patently anti-meat Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and even the Sierra Club under the Racketeer and Influence Corrupt Organisation (RICO) Act.
That is because every time the ninny-nannies bully another food company, they are committing a violation of Section 1951. Sad to say the RICO Act is a horribly underused yet very versatile and powerful tool that needs to be used.
Understandably John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales shied away from that if only to avert the abuses of Janet Reno under the Clinton anointistration. Fair enough. But this is getting to a fevered pitch. Would Ronald Reagan have tolerated such an attack on culinary and dietary freedoms?
HELL NO!
He would have shut the CSPI gang, the PCRM gang, and other anti-freedom outfits under the RICO Act --- and bust them hard. Edwin Meese would have had no problem with locking some asses behind bars.
Getting just one of those gangs shut down under RICO would discourage other likeminded gangs from tempting the law, knowing full well that they would be investigated.
Then maybe we would FINALLY get left the hell alone.
What animal rights advocates should do is be careful with your approach. Exalt the benefits of vegetarianism and even veganism if you must, but do it in a way that doesn't turn off your audience.
And as for Jessica Simpson, she has made significant contributions to pop culture, contemporary music, and society. What the hell have YOU contributed, BESIDES irrational hatred and propaganda?
And this is especially for YOU, Alistair Currie: Jessica Simpson has more than earned her right to eat whatever she damn well pleases, so for Christ's sakes, LEAVE JESSICA SIMPSON ALONE!
SOME WISDOM I LEARNT FROM OLD DRIVERS EDUCATION FILMS
Whilst I was away from MySpace during all of 2007 I had my experience with a number of videos online, both as a member of YouTube and in exploring some other sites, like SpikeTV and the Internet Archives.
And in particular, I would like to note some interesting classic drivers education films from the 1950s and 1960s.
Take for instance, the film that kickstarted the whole genre back in 1959, Signal 30, which was produced by the Highway Safety Foundation, started by a travelling Ohio accountant named Richard Wayman, who was also a law enforcement supporter and avid photographer, when he encountered a fatal collision during a 1954 business trip.
During the decade, Mr Wayman and a number of associates, starting with Phyllis Vaughan, crusaded with their photography of a number of motorcrashes appearing in regional media throughout northern Ohio, including a 27 May 1956 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine.
All eyes turned upon Mansfield --- Mr Wayman's hometown --- when on 16 October 1959 Mr Wayman and company presented a print of Signal 30, which took its name from an Ohio police code for a fatal accident, to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. This film, which for the purposes of this article appears in two parts, click here, and then click here, contained graphic footage of motorcrashes, most of them involving some sort of fatality, with a number of the still-living victims moaning and crying in pain. One vivid example shows a young woman forced to accept the fact that she by driving badly caused a motorcrash that killed her mother whose painful crying was heard in the film, with the dour voiceover of the male announcer advising, "The woman whose crying you are hearing died a few hours later from her injuries." The dreary tone of the music accompanied the dire consequences showcased in the collisions featured in the film, this on top of the soundtrack of the film beginning with tyres screeching, crashing metal and glass, and then the opening scenes of a fatal collision, mangled automobiles wrapped around trees, people thrust into steering columns and through windscreens and out of doors in horrifically askew positions.
One must-see feature is the interview an Ohio trooper had with a widow of a collision victim who had had to correct her late husband's speeding quite often and would then have to go to work soon to support their children.
Millions of young American drivers were educated with the stark consequences of irresponsible driving on display such that they resolved not to turn up like those corpse-like and injured (and in one case charred), though a number of them were driven to tears, sickness, vomiting, fainting, and shock. Call it a "Scared Straight" '50s/'60s style for teens wanting to become drivers.
Myself, I wish like hell I could have watched this film when I was taking drivers education in high school myself. As horrifying as it would appear, it would have motivated me to become a yet even better driver.
And that was just the beginning for Highway Safety Films. In 1961 another brutally honest drivers education film, Mechanised Death, started reaching the youth of America, with roughly the same results and techniques. The film opened with a woman practically spewing her own lung all over, and another scene from the film shows a baby bottle wedged in the door --- with a baby found under the car itself.
Then came the 1963 classic, Wheels Of Tragedy, which featured not only a number of the same collisions, but also a fatalistic driver disregarding his passenger's warnings about speed and tiredness. There is even a scene of an accident victim who is basically in a coma.
The films with rough content mixed with important message about personal responsibility continued into 1966 with the film The Third Killer, illustrating how motorcrashes had become one of the leading causes of death in American society, followed by a 1969 film, Highways of Agony.
And the truckers were not spared either: In 1965 the film Carrier Or Killer was released, and a Mansfield policeman who would later become chief of police even urged Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa to buy copies for the truckers in his labour union.
But not all of the Highway Safety Foundation's offerings were blood-and-gore hard knocks lessons about drivers safety, however. Some of them were otherwise helpful to law enforcement, like The Child Molester, a 1964 film that focused upon the 1962 kidnap-murders of two local girls. Then there was A Great And Honourable Duty (1965) which extolled the virtues of careers in law enforcement. The Paperhangers followed the next year to advise people about how to deal with con artists who write forged cheques. There was even a 1968 film about drivers education that did NOT feature blood and gore, A Matter Of Judgment.
Their work began to really pay off when in the early 1970s a number of celebrities, key amongst them Sammy Davis Jr, got involved in the efforts, even hosting a 24-hour highway safety telethon in 1973. Though their efforts would later collapse and then become a part of the State of Ohio, as a part of the Ohio public safety authority, the Highway Safety Foundation would leave a positive impact upon drivers --- and other members of society as well --- by bringing about better drivers, better policemen, better merchants, and higher levels of honesty and respectable behaviour.
And the Highway Safety Foundation were not alone with these films either: Witness the powerful impact of Anatomy of an Accident, a 1961 film depicting the horrific death of a father and slow painful death of a son in a head-on collision, leaving a grieving mother and daughter to deal with the aftermath.
In 1971 "The Suicide Club" released a rather gory but very useful film, Death On The Highway, in the same vein as that of the Highway Safety Foundation, with more still shots and more gruesome footage of mutilated, decapitated, charred, and otherwise mangled collision casualties. Of special note, some of those stills were painted with red paint for a garish accent on the bloodied condemned.
And then there is the classic Red Asphalt series from the California Highway Patrol. Starting in 1964 millions of California and other drivers education students got to see the same sorts of graphic images depicted in the Highway Safety Foundation films in Ohio.
The Bottle And The Throttle, vintage 1961, takes place in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City and features a reference to the driver who strikes a little girl and her mother crossing the street having a blood alcohol content of 0,08 percent, with a then-current legal limit of 0,15 percent. We all recall how the BAC under the law was 0,10 percent, but 0,15 percent?! Today, that driver would be arrested, and probably facing even more serious charges, like homicide or even murder.
In 1992 a San Luis Obispo County prosecutor successfully obtained a murder conviction for a drink driver who caused the death of four-year-old Ashley Harris --- yet the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers REJECTED her grieving mother!
Even the kids got in on the act: The film, One Got Fat (Interlude Films, 1963), showcases a number of children riding a short distance to the park displaying a number of faults regarding young bicyclists, lessons that definitely need to be learnt even today. The film features some macabre moments and grotesque monkey masks.
And yet the prevailing politically correct attitude today in a number of public schools, is, We don't want the children to be scared off from driving, so many changes have happened in so many cars between now and then.
Guess what folks? Right there is a sign of denial of the problem. Indeed, seatbelt usage is now mandatory in practically every state in the nation. Indeed, a number of metal components like unforgiving steel dashboards have given way to plastic and composite parts that collapse for the purpose of improved safety, along with airbags becoming increasingly commonplace, even in side panels.
That said, there is still a lot of wisdom in those old films, that we need to learn from. We need to understand the consequences of our irresponsible ways behind the wheel, because that is a two or three metric tonne weapon you are getting behind the wheel of, with the added force of a number of kilómetros per hour, leaving a Newton-metro force that can cripple or kill. And you stand to become a killer if you do not exercise due caution. That was the basic lesson of those old films.
But as with so many things that were once held as sacrosanct, personal responsibility appears to have left the milieu of academia. Nowadays we endure dangerous professors who want to kill White people, we endure hazardous secondary school instructors who seek to encourage terrorists to bomb the United States, we endure perilous intermediate school instructors who indoctrinate children with radical leftist propaganda, we even force horrific environazi lies upon primary school children, yet we won't teach budding drivers the necessary concepts behind responsible driving.
Why?
Because we are afraid we'll have to call in the custodian to clean up three gallons of vomit off the damn floor? Because four kids were left crying about that film when they had to watch it at an assembly over at Poly High in Manchester? Because we are afraid to scare them out of driving?
Telling the young drivers the plain and simple truth about the importance of responsible driving MEANS you show them the consequences of irresponsible driving. Who in the HELL wants to wind up getting his or her ass scraped off the bloody bitumen after sustaining 200 to 400 metric tonnes of impact in a collision on a motorway at 100 kilómetros an hour?!
These old drivers education films provided some older drivers (maybe including some of you folks reading this article) something that many young drivers-to-be are missing right now in drivers education if not in the rest of their education in general. It's called a healthy dose of wake-the-bloody-hell-up-and-smell-the-awful-reality.
Such films have become the subject of a documentary film called Hell's Highway which has been available for several years on DVD. And now you can find a number of these old films on specialty sites targeted toward drivers education.
Maybe your local public schools will consider them too. And don't let the prevalence of blood-and-guts video games and movies and TV shows fool you: You just might wake someone up to the real impact of seeing a dead body being prised out of a tree all night and make them think...What if it were to happen to me?
And then it hits them...How do I prevent this? It makes them pay better attention to their drivers education. It makes them pay better attention to their driving during drivers training. It makes them pay better attention behind the wheel on their own.
And I don't think that kids are learning these things soon enough. We could make drivers education a MANDATORY course in the EIGHTH grade, make drivers training MANDATORY for ALL high school freshmen (EXCEPT those without the vision to do so; but even 20/100 eyesight can be corrected with the correct lenses), and issue full licences to 15-year-olds, and have very few if any problems whatsoever.
The key is the technique, coupled with a constant reminder of what their 50-to-70kg bodies and young minds will have to understand when piloting a two-metric-tonne motor vehicle capable of 130 kilómetros an hour or more, and the lethal force it often contains, that will provide suitable education for the students who seek to drive.
No I am not suggesting turning back the clock to 1963. But I am suggesting that we can do better when it comes to drivers education. We can keep the tried and true lessons with the new updated lessons addressing the realities of modern technology.
But that technology gets one only so far. Personal responsibility is the MOST important thing to carry with oneself behind the wheel --- so the driver doesn't wind up just another "Signal 30."
THE LOOMING IRANIAN THREAT: A TICKING TIMEBOMB IN TEHRAN
Within the past three years we have learnt a lot about the vengefully irrational partisan and religious hatred that Iranian dictator Makhmud Ahmadinejad has exercised against Israel.
Mr Ahmadinejad has a major league problem with coexisting with a sovereign republic that treat their Muslims INFINITELY BETTER than his country treat THEIR Jews!
Let us examine some of the incriminating evidence against Mr Ahmadinejad:
In April 2006 Ahmadinejad announced plans to contribute US$50m to fund the terrorist-riddled Palestinian Authority after Western nations withdrew aid in the wake of the terror group Hamas winning elections held in that part of Israel three months earlier. His foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced Iran's determination to help the Israeli Arabs.
In December 2005 Ahmadinejad dismissed the reality of the Holocaust of Nazi Germany as a myth, suggesting the relocation of Israel to Canada, Alaska, the United States, or Europe.
In October 2005 Ahmadinejad claimed that all hurdles for Iranian nuclear development had been cleared --- and that no power could stop him.
In May 2007 Iran were reportedly within three years of a nuclear bomb.
And the crown jewels of the lot: Not only has Ahmadinejad called for "wiping Israel off the map" --- he has even made the same threat against the United States too!
Near the end of June 2007, National Intelligence Director Admiral Michael McConnell exposed a clear pattern of Iran supporting Iraqi terrorists attacking Coalition forces with roadside and other homicide bombs.
A January 2007 Karbala attack by Shia Muslims who as it turned out were trained by the Quds Forces.
In November 2007 it was discovered that Iranian chemical and biological weapons, under even greater secrecy than their nuclear programme, could deliver their dangerous toxic payloads to Iraq, Israel, and even the United States.
In February Iran announced the launch of a "research rocket" that was launched from what turns out to be a missile development site where missiles capable of striking targets 6000 kilómetros away were under development.
In April Iran announced the installation of 6000 nuclear centrifuges, thus trebling their uranium enrichment capacity.
A suspicious report about Iran's nuclear capabilities was found to have been crafted by former State Department officials instead of senior United States intelligence intelligentsia. And Iranian officials have condemned the independent media news website NewsMax and condemned Israel/Syria talks.
Ahmadinejad is not alone, either, as we will find. Take for instance Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, affirming that Hitler SAVED EUROPE!
And other nations have obviously noticed, too: On 17 September 2007 French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner advised that a nuclear Iran would be a grave danger to the world. In fact some of the American Embassy hostages held in captivity for more than 14 months even claimed Ahmadinejad was one of their captors!
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited France in October 2007 newly-elected president Nicholas Sarkozy concurred with Olmert about the need to stop Iranian nuclear aspirations.
Last fall, Bahranian Crown Prince Prince Salman BinHamad BinIsa AlKhalifa became the first Arab leader to lodge a claim about Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Israel in fact expressed a fact contrary to CIA sentiment, that Iran are still continuing their nuclear programme...though Iranian defectors have been known to provide crucial information about nuclear programmes.
Our own president, George Walker Bush, warned of war with Iran last October, citing the need to prevent Iran from having necessary knowledge for arms construction. At the same time, Iraqi Military Commander General David Petraeus lodged an accusation against the Iranian ambassador to Iraq being allied with the terrorist gang called the Quds force. Subsequently the United States Government levied new sanctions against Iran. Zogby would confirm growing American sentiment favouring strikes on Iran shortly afterward.
Even Dennis Ross, a Middle Eastern peace process developer, has warned of a nuclear Iran.
Is it any wonder the US State Department have called Iran the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism? Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned about Iran's dogged determination to get nuclear arms!
A treasonous university president in New York City refused to rescind the invitation for Ahmadinejad to speak --- and consequently a number of Jewish groups urged mass protests in New York but were subsequently disappointed at the low turnout for such protests.
One brave former Embassy hostage, however, questioned the logic in letting someone speak freely on American soil when he does not afford his own people that same freedom.
And Illinois Democrat Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has called for talks with Iran even as he claims support for Israel, thus raising a number of doubts about where his true allegiances lie.
On the other hand, a number of pundits have assembled their own strategies against Iran --- such as this brave columnist from TownHall.com explaining how to defeat Ahmadinejad, or a great well-known married couple calling for New York's disinvestment from Iran.
And now reports have streamed in that as Iran prepare to attack Israel's nuclear heart, Israel are preparing a pre-emptive strike against Iran --- something that Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney had already considered asking for at the same time Ahmadinejad rejected talks about Iranian nuclear capabilities and millions of his countrymen rallied against Israel. A subsequent assessment by Iran's Judiciary Ayatollah claimed a global referendum against Israel's supposed "illegitimacy" as the capital Tehran's provisional "Prayers Leader" demanded "continued resistance against Israel and the United States". Yet Iranian emissaries have met with Iranian exiles in Europe and America to deliver a controversial message about the Iranian people supporting swift, decisive strikes to the Ahmadinejad regime.How close are we to seeing Iran facing war with Israel and/or the United States? The idea of an American bombing campaign has been floated before. And Iran clearly have no desire for another hawk in the Oval Office. In fact, just three months ago, Jewish sources made it abundantly clear that military strikes were increasingly likely.Tough beans, Mr Ahmadinejad, you had it coming from the moment you started spewing your anti-Semitic, anti-American horse manure. And if Bush doesn't stop you --- either Macca, Olmert, or even Netanyahu surely will.
We are facing an ever more precarious situation in the Middle East where we will have fewer and fewer options. Hemming and hawing over the process needlessly will produce greater risk, will perpetuate danger in the Middle East, and will place us in a number of terror threats.
Iran are clearly emboldened by our current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, wishing for us to get out of those areas because they have expressed a desire to fill a supposed power vacuum we would supposedly leave.
But this is NOT the time to remain soft. Consider this: We have a number of advanced methods of weaponry we are currently not using against the Taleban in Afghanistan or the likes of AlQaeda and other terror gangs in Iraq. We could easily use some of those methods to take out Iranian military, nuclear, and administrative centres, thus delivering serious neural injury to the Iranian regime promoting totalitarianism in the name of a perverted and radicalised form of Islam.
The Iranian people are yearning for freedom. And maybe it will be only one of the US or Israel...or maybe it will be both simultaneously. Though the idea of both might appear to alienate most Arab nations --- in reality a number of the neighbours of Iran and even Iraq when they were dictated by the late Hussein have had their suspicions and grievances. Some might call it just jealousy, but more enlightened minds see a potential for real peace if Iran are neutralised. Iraq are already on their way to developing into a full-fledged republic rooted in direct democracy like Israel, having held several elections. Hope for Iran still abounds.
But then again, we cannot be sure how this one turns out.
CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
Sweet Sensation
2-CD Set (Take it while it's hot, Love child)
I blew up in a fit of rage on Monday afternoon when I saw this outrageous article from some kook fringe nutcase deriding contemporary singer Jessica Simpson's culinary and dietary freedoms.
I understand perfectly clearly the need to pay attention to animal welfare. That said, everyone knows that it is common knowledge that bullying us into not eating meat is NOT the solution to the supposed "problems" of animal welfare --- to the contrary it is A WHOLE NEW PROBLEM altogether, an invasion of our right to eat whatever we want to eat.
And sadly, governments are starting to peck into those delicate areas of our lives, wanting to dictate what we can and cannot eat.
Case in point: New Jersey legislators are now targeting fast food restaurants with extra taxation. Come on, we just want to eat a halfway decent meal, one that tastes as good as we can get it in a short period of time, and get on our way, and government want to bully US with their inflammatory interference with OUR right to eat what we want to eat?
Maybe Jessica Simpson should slap a restraining order on the fringe leftist kooks at "PETA", though it might not do any good. And even if she did obtain a good scientist to help her with a defamation lawsuit, it would still be tough to prove --- this is even in a British court, where the loudmouthed anti-meat kook shot his mouth off at her, and also where the defendants have the burden of proof is on the defendants, instead of the plaintiffs as is the case here in the United States.
And then there is the outrageously unconstitutional calorie posting regulation in New York City. Someone at the Thomas More Law Centre and/or the Centre for Consumer Freedom should be able to craft a constitutional challenge --- and trash that new law* in a heartbeat. (*Adobe Acrobat required for this link --- it is a .PDF document.)
Down the shore in Maryland, Montgomery County officials, not content with imposing their ideas of proper education for children by forcing onesided sex education down the gullets of little kids, even want to force their residents onto their idea of a "diet".
On the Left Coast --- and in this case Left is CERTAINLY appropriate for the Pacific Coast states that propose this crap --- a new California law is basically strongarming schools and food companies into some sick twisted fringe leftist kook's dumbassed idea of "healthy food". (And that link even shows you a comment I left on that article too.)
In San Francisco, College Republicans took to the streets to protest a proposed beer tax.
Down in Los Angeles there is a push by fringe kooks opposed to your culinary and dietary freedom to force people into eating "slow food". Their proponents claim that it is "gaining popularity" but in reality it is mere propaganda by left-of-centre loudmouths who have an irrational animus against successful restaurants that serve food we the people actually want to eat.
And a New York newsanchorman-turned-state legislator has rallied to the aid of the lowly cupcake, threatened in the Boogie Down Bronx. (Read my response to that article, too.)
In Philadelphia, the City Council also addressed a possible calorie and salt content mandate on restaurant menus.
And the ever-opportunistic, grossly-misnamed "Physician's Committee on Responsible Medicine", merely a left-wing front group for trial lawyers hellbent on robbing innocent food companies, are always begging for new "plaintiffs" so they can harass our food companies with nuisance lawsuits.
More lawsuit mania from the food fascists: At the beginning of 2006 the Centre for Science in the Public Interest --- who as I pointed out in my blog last week deserve to be broken under the RICO Act --- decided to file an outrageous lawsuit against FritoLay over alleged issues in their advertising. They have also threatened lawsuits over sodium content in everyday foods.
Such ninny-nanny neocommunists are meeting increasing resistance from Americans, however...
But such blatantly idiotic disregard to culinary and dietary freedoms are not limited to the USA either: North of the border, the province of Ontario have pushed a new prohibition on so-called "trans fats" in food served in schools.
Across the pond, British community councils have started offering five-hole salt shakers in hopes of reducing salt intake, out of an irrational fear of health problems supposedly associated with a normal salt intake. Renfrewshire have decided to bar burger and ice cream vans from within 500m (1600ft) of schools even though a number of British students, as is the case with American students, disapprove of substandard school cafeteria food.
And young Britishers' culinary and dietary freedoms are under special attack: Now, school instructors are being encouraged to commit the criminal theft of a child's lunch simply because it doesn't jibe with what the schools feel is "appropriate" --- even to the point of locking in schoolchildren at lunch for the sake of healthier eating.
Then there are the concerns of Britishers who fear draconian warning labels on dairy foods as a few activists cry for cheese to be treated as "junk food". And of course there is an all-out assault on the bacon butty, a traditional British staple featuring bacon on brown bread, similar to the BL&T.
And the medical journal The Lancet have called for a 10 percent meat diet to fight the so-called ruse of so-called "global warming", even though it does not exist and mankind has NO ability to alter the climate of the Earth whatsoever.
And such idiocy has spread across Europe too: Last year, some nutcase wrote a blog demanding the taxing of snack foods and fast food. I remember such a tax being imposed in California in 1991, and it failed miserably after only 18 months due to its inherent consistencies. Fatty foods have been targeted with extra taxation in Holland. In Norway, an adult novelties store chain were targeted with food safety authorities harassing them about the labelling on certain edible products.
The European Commission have even bullied a number of food companies like Nestlé and CocaCola into "voluntary" advertising restrictions with regard to children.
In Japan, the government have taken to bullying their people into limits for waistlines and other body parts that have driven people into dangerous dietary behaviours such as fasting, even as companies are threatened with fines for overweight staff. Meanwhile, Taiji prefecture officials have branded dolphin meat as "toxic waste". (Come on!
Where ELSE do you get mahi mahi from?!)
Down under, a Queensland Labor member who operates nine McDonalds restaurants exploded in a fury when confronted with his party's push to eliminate certain food adverts. Maybe he should switch to the more conservative-leaning Liberal Party. (Which are COMPLETELY different from the American standard for liberalism!)
And how about this for a one-world government? An idea is floating with the "International Obesity Task Force" and "Consumers International" designed to outlaw advertising for fast food and snack food all over the world. Which when you consider the one-world order already being pushed by the United Nations,
href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=c0fbd593-17b7-485b-b0c5-f7cefdc7ade9" target="_blank">who have now blasted the world's overweight over their so-called "excess consumption", is rather disturbing in and of itself.
However, not all is lost: In one instance from last year, a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judicial panel dismissed two class action complaints targeted against Anheuser Busch and Advanced Brands and Importing regarding supposed claims of marketing alcohol to minors.
In the District of Columbia Circuit Court, the Court of Appeals decided last November to reject an appeal of the dismissal of a class action lawsuit against a number of milk sellers in the name of the lactose-intolerant.
In Georgia, a proposed shame-based approach toward children has been bravely questioned by a columnist at no less than the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
A Mississippi legislature bill that would have allowed restaurants to deny service to fat people has met its demise.
A Hawaii bill that would have outlawed aspartame bit the dust due to lack of coherent scientific evidence.
Here is a look at a brave nutritionist exposing the lack of integrity in certain school meal projects.
This California editorial exposed a fatal flaw in menu labelling legislation.
And then there is the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, which passed the US House in 2005 but has yet to reach the Senate.
In the UK, Tesco shareholders rejected a television cook's call for "improving chicken-rearing standards" for sale in the supermarket chain's stores.
And how about this brilliant Australian newspaper column demanding that the people take guard of their culinary and dietary freedoms and watch out for jackboots hellbent on destroying them?
These and many more stories abound in our quest to enjoy, exercise, and even protect our culinary and dietary freedoms --- and certain fringe minority neoliberals' efforts to sabotage them, thinking that you don't have any sense of self-responsibility when it comes to what you eat and drink.
And we the people have no choice but to start taking a stand.
Why?
You should remember how the National Socialists eradicated people in Germany. Let us recall the words of Pastor Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (1892-1984):
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten, habe ich nicht protestiert; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten, habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Now let's translate that from German to English:
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
And there you have it: The ninny-nannies have already targeted smoking, they have already targeted drinking, they have already targeted off-road vehicles, they have already targeted large families, and now they are targeting food and drink.
What this means is the likes of food fascists like Michael Jacobson, Kelly Brownell, Marion Nestlé, Margo Wootan, and now this PETA nutcase, Alistair Currie. What a waste of a perfectly good name on an absolutely irrational and totally spiteful jerk who cannot learn to coexist with meat-eaters.
I tried vegetarianism myself three times when I was in college and never lasted more than 10 days. I must admit, it CAN be a good way to lose weight, and I was able to keep the weight off for a few years.
But that was a decision I made of my own free will. And you know what? I didn't have any more problems with the vagaries of our own individual diets.
I figured that as a meateater I could easily get along with vegetarians and vegans, and generally that has been the case. I had a couple of very good friends who were vegans, and who also helped me to understand some of the other problems in our society, including urban pollution, which has been largely eliminated due to improvements in technology, with or without legislation.
A car built today will produce LESS pollution than a car built even 10 --- let alone 20, 30, 40, 50, or even 60 --- years ago. A farm tractor can produce even less pollution than their counterparts of previous years, and emissions controls on small engines, such as those on lawn mowers and weed choppers and brush hoggers, continue to advance.
And so it is with our foods. We have seen reformulations of a number of breakfast cereals and other grain products with whole-wheat and whole-grain sources in recent years, so that it is easily possible to enjoy even more whole-grain goodness at every meal. And in the old days, whole-grain was very common indeed.
Then with advances in refrigeration, flash freezing, food preservation, and even to some point some COMMON SENSE food regulations --- namely the establishment of food safety regulations --- we began seeing yet even safer and safer foods. And we even saw the growth of families fostering the increases in sizes of some packages, like hot dogs and hot dog buns.
And people appeared a lot happier back then.
Now I am not saying let's go back to the '50s when as Michael Savage says "the chrome was thick and the women were straight"; I am sure that even our homosexual neighbours could stand a lot less haranguing from the food fascists. Because guess what, Todd and Paul, Marion Nestlé and Michael Jacobson and Kelly Brownell ALSO want to crap all over your choices in the foods you eat, just like they want to crap all over the food choices of the typical Tim and Faith, the typical George and Laura, the typical Jermaine and Latasha, the typical Eduardo and Pilar, the typical Wolfgang and Heidi, the typical Sergio and Gioia, the typical Shlomo and Golda, and EVERYBODY ELSE THAT LIVES IN OUR GREAT REPUBLIC!
You want to see AMERICAN schools stealing snacks from children? IT'S ALREADY HERE.
And NOW is the time to start taking stock of the people whom we put into elected office.
That means find out where people stand on culinary and dietary freedoms --- and if they disfavour your right to eat whatever you want, then start removing them from office. Start electing politicians who truly care about our culinary and dietary freedoms, who will work to keep the likes of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest and all the animal rights jackboots (NOT TO BE confused with folks GENUINELY concerned about animal rights, who do NOT engage in violence). PETA members were known to throw blood on people who wear fur.
I myself accepted the notion that fur is unnecessary, in fact, in one instance in high school, I recall leaving a note for a girl wearing a rabbit skin coat that read, Cruelty Without Beauty, in the vein of Morrissey's video, Every day is like Sunday, I enjoyed Jane Wiedlin's album, Fur, and its title track, with its catchy chorus:
No I don't wear fur, I won't do it, fur is for fools, I'm too cool...
That said, I NEVER believed that wanton violence, like throwing blood or smashing fur shops, was EVER the answer.
God forbid that the ninny-nannies like Mr Brownell and Mr Jacobson and Ms Nestlé start encouraging people to smash out the front windows of their local Maccas and Burger Kings and Hardees and Braums and Arbys and Sonics and Jack In The Boxes and Del Tacos and White Castles and Lions Choices. Then the managers of those stores NEED to start keeping loaded shotguns on the premises. (They will ALSO come in handy when a prospective robber comes calling.)
Yeh. That's right.
If a restaurant manager has to shoot one of those ninny-nanny nutcases to the floor in defence of his business and paramedics cannot save the punk who was trying to bust out the front windows of the restaurant, so be it. It's all worth it to send a loud and clear message to those criminals and tyrants: We ARE going to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, wherever we want, and if you don't like it, get out of the United States of America and stay out.
The plain and simple is people are FED UP of being told what they can and cannot eat. We are under enough stress as it is, dieting and exercising ourselves to death, or at least to the point of obtaining unhealthy body images.
But I am NOT advocating we should firebomb the headquarters Centre for Science in the Public Interest. That is why we have a legal system. Let's get after Michael Mukasey or some other competent attorney general, and at least a few brave US Attorneys as well, to start investigating the likes of the CSPI, PETA, the patently anti-meat Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and even the Sierra Club under the Racketeer and Influence Corrupt Organisation (RICO) Act.
That is because every time the ninny-nannies bully another food company, they are committing a violation of Section 1951. Sad to say the RICO Act is a horribly underused yet very versatile and powerful tool that needs to be used.
Understandably John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales shied away from that if only to avert the abuses of Janet Reno under the Clinton anointistration. Fair enough. But this is getting to a fevered pitch. Would Ronald Reagan have tolerated such an attack on culinary and dietary freedoms?
HELL NO!
He would have shut the CSPI gang, the PCRM gang, and other anti-freedom outfits under the RICO Act --- and bust them hard. Edwin Meese would have had no problem with locking some asses behind bars.
Getting just one of those gangs shut down under RICO would discourage other likeminded gangs from tempting the law, knowing full well that they would be investigated.
Then maybe we would FINALLY get left the hell alone.
What animal rights advocates should do is be careful with your approach. Exalt the benefits of vegetarianism and even veganism if you must, but do it in a way that doesn't turn off your audience.
And as for Jessica Simpson, she has made significant contributions to pop culture, contemporary music, and society. What the hell have YOU contributed, BESIDES irrational hatred and propaganda?
And this is especially for YOU, Alistair Currie: Jessica Simpson has more than earned her right to eat whatever she damn well pleases, so for Christ's sakes, LEAVE JESSICA SIMPSON ALONE!
SOME WISDOM I LEARNT FROM OLD DRIVERS EDUCATION FILMS
Whilst I was away from MySpace during all of 2007 I had my experience with a number of videos online, both as a member of YouTube and in exploring some other sites, like SpikeTV and the Internet Archives.
And in particular, I would like to note some interesting classic drivers education films from the 1950s and 1960s.
Take for instance, the film that kickstarted the whole genre back in 1959, Signal 30, which was produced by the Highway Safety Foundation, started by a travelling Ohio accountant named Richard Wayman, who was also a law enforcement supporter and avid photographer, when he encountered a fatal collision during a 1954 business trip.
During the decade, Mr Wayman and a number of associates, starting with Phyllis Vaughan, crusaded with their photography of a number of motorcrashes appearing in regional media throughout northern Ohio, including a 27 May 1956 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine.
All eyes turned upon Mansfield --- Mr Wayman's hometown --- when on 16 October 1959 Mr Wayman and company presented a print of Signal 30, which took its name from an Ohio police code for a fatal accident, to the Ohio State Highway Patrol. This film, which for the purposes of this article appears in two parts, click here, and then click here, contained graphic footage of motorcrashes, most of them involving some sort of fatality, with a number of the still-living victims moaning and crying in pain. One vivid example shows a young woman forced to accept the fact that she by driving badly caused a motorcrash that killed her mother whose painful crying was heard in the film, with the dour voiceover of the male announcer advising, "The woman whose crying you are hearing died a few hours later from her injuries." The dreary tone of the music accompanied the dire consequences showcased in the collisions featured in the film, this on top of the soundtrack of the film beginning with tyres screeching, crashing metal and glass, and then the opening scenes of a fatal collision, mangled automobiles wrapped around trees, people thrust into steering columns and through windscreens and out of doors in horrifically askew positions.
One must-see feature is the interview an Ohio trooper had with a widow of a collision victim who had had to correct her late husband's speeding quite often and would then have to go to work soon to support their children.
Millions of young American drivers were educated with the stark consequences of irresponsible driving on display such that they resolved not to turn up like those corpse-like and injured (and in one case charred), though a number of them were driven to tears, sickness, vomiting, fainting, and shock. Call it a "Scared Straight" '50s/'60s style for teens wanting to become drivers.
Myself, I wish like hell I could have watched this film when I was taking drivers education in high school myself. As horrifying as it would appear, it would have motivated me to become a yet even better driver.
And that was just the beginning for Highway Safety Films. In 1961 another brutally honest drivers education film, Mechanised Death, started reaching the youth of America, with roughly the same results and techniques. The film opened with a woman practically spewing her own lung all over, and another scene from the film shows a baby bottle wedged in the door --- with a baby found under the car itself.
Then came the 1963 classic, Wheels Of Tragedy, which featured not only a number of the same collisions, but also a fatalistic driver disregarding his passenger's warnings about speed and tiredness. There is even a scene of an accident victim who is basically in a coma.
The films with rough content mixed with important message about personal responsibility continued into 1966 with the film The Third Killer, illustrating how motorcrashes had become one of the leading causes of death in American society, followed by a 1969 film, Highways of Agony.
And the truckers were not spared either: In 1965 the film Carrier Or Killer was released, and a Mansfield policeman who would later become chief of police even urged Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa to buy copies for the truckers in his labour union.
But not all of the Highway Safety Foundation's offerings were blood-and-gore hard knocks lessons about drivers safety, however. Some of them were otherwise helpful to law enforcement, like The Child Molester, a 1964 film that focused upon the 1962 kidnap-murders of two local girls. Then there was A Great And Honourable Duty (1965) which extolled the virtues of careers in law enforcement. The Paperhangers followed the next year to advise people about how to deal with con artists who write forged cheques. There was even a 1968 film about drivers education that did NOT feature blood and gore, A Matter Of Judgment.
Their work began to really pay off when in the early 1970s a number of celebrities, key amongst them Sammy Davis Jr, got involved in the efforts, even hosting a 24-hour highway safety telethon in 1973. Though their efforts would later collapse and then become a part of the State of Ohio, as a part of the Ohio public safety authority, the Highway Safety Foundation would leave a positive impact upon drivers --- and other members of society as well --- by bringing about better drivers, better policemen, better merchants, and higher levels of honesty and respectable behaviour.
And the Highway Safety Foundation were not alone with these films either: Witness the powerful impact of Anatomy of an Accident, a 1961 film depicting the horrific death of a father and slow painful death of a son in a head-on collision, leaving a grieving mother and daughter to deal with the aftermath.
In 1971 "The Suicide Club" released a rather gory but very useful film, Death On The Highway, in the same vein as that of the Highway Safety Foundation, with more still shots and more gruesome footage of mutilated, decapitated, charred, and otherwise mangled collision casualties. Of special note, some of those stills were painted with red paint for a garish accent on the bloodied condemned.
And then there is the classic Red Asphalt series from the California Highway Patrol. Starting in 1964 millions of California and other drivers education students got to see the same sorts of graphic images depicted in the Highway Safety Foundation films in Ohio.
The Bottle And The Throttle, vintage 1961, takes place in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City and features a reference to the driver who strikes a little girl and her mother crossing the street having a blood alcohol content of 0,08 percent, with a then-current legal limit of 0,15 percent. We all recall how the BAC under the law was 0,10 percent, but 0,15 percent?! Today, that driver would be arrested, and probably facing even more serious charges, like homicide or even murder.
In 1992 a San Luis Obispo County prosecutor successfully obtained a murder conviction for a drink driver who caused the death of four-year-old Ashley Harris --- yet the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers REJECTED her grieving mother!
Even the kids got in on the act: The film, One Got Fat (Interlude Films, 1963), showcases a number of children riding a short distance to the park displaying a number of faults regarding young bicyclists, lessons that definitely need to be learnt even today. The film features some macabre moments and grotesque monkey masks.
And yet the prevailing politically correct attitude today in a number of public schools, is, We don't want the children to be scared off from driving, so many changes have happened in so many cars between now and then.
Guess what folks? Right there is a sign of denial of the problem. Indeed, seatbelt usage is now mandatory in practically every state in the nation. Indeed, a number of metal components like unforgiving steel dashboards have given way to plastic and composite parts that collapse for the purpose of improved safety, along with airbags becoming increasingly commonplace, even in side panels.
That said, there is still a lot of wisdom in those old films, that we need to learn from. We need to understand the consequences of our irresponsible ways behind the wheel, because that is a two or three metric tonne weapon you are getting behind the wheel of, with the added force of a number of kilómetros per hour, leaving a Newton-metro force that can cripple or kill. And you stand to become a killer if you do not exercise due caution. That was the basic lesson of those old films.
But as with so many things that were once held as sacrosanct, personal responsibility appears to have left the milieu of academia. Nowadays we endure dangerous professors who want to kill White people, we endure hazardous secondary school instructors who seek to encourage terrorists to bomb the United States, we endure perilous intermediate school instructors who indoctrinate children with radical leftist propaganda, we even force horrific environazi lies upon primary school children, yet we won't teach budding drivers the necessary concepts behind responsible driving.
Why?
Because we are afraid we'll have to call in the custodian to clean up three gallons of vomit off the damn floor? Because four kids were left crying about that film when they had to watch it at an assembly over at Poly High in Manchester? Because we are afraid to scare them out of driving?
Telling the young drivers the plain and simple truth about the importance of responsible driving MEANS you show them the consequences of irresponsible driving. Who in the HELL wants to wind up getting his or her ass scraped off the bloody bitumen after sustaining 200 to 400 metric tonnes of impact in a collision on a motorway at 100 kilómetros an hour?!
These old drivers education films provided some older drivers (maybe including some of you folks reading this article) something that many young drivers-to-be are missing right now in drivers education if not in the rest of their education in general. It's called a healthy dose of wake-the-bloody-hell-up-and-smell-the-awful-reality.
Such films have become the subject of a documentary film called Hell's Highway which has been available for several years on DVD. And now you can find a number of these old films on specialty sites targeted toward drivers education.
Maybe your local public schools will consider them too. And don't let the prevalence of blood-and-guts video games and movies and TV shows fool you: You just might wake someone up to the real impact of seeing a dead body being prised out of a tree all night and make them think...What if it were to happen to me?
And then it hits them...How do I prevent this? It makes them pay better attention to their drivers education. It makes them pay better attention to their driving during drivers training. It makes them pay better attention behind the wheel on their own.
And I don't think that kids are learning these things soon enough. We could make drivers education a MANDATORY course in the EIGHTH grade, make drivers training MANDATORY for ALL high school freshmen (EXCEPT those without the vision to do so; but even 20/100 eyesight can be corrected with the correct lenses), and issue full licences to 15-year-olds, and have very few if any problems whatsoever.
The key is the technique, coupled with a constant reminder of what their 50-to-70kg bodies and young minds will have to understand when piloting a two-metric-tonne motor vehicle capable of 130 kilómetros an hour or more, and the lethal force it often contains, that will provide suitable education for the students who seek to drive.
No I am not suggesting turning back the clock to 1963. But I am suggesting that we can do better when it comes to drivers education. We can keep the tried and true lessons with the new updated lessons addressing the realities of modern technology.
But that technology gets one only so far. Personal responsibility is the MOST important thing to carry with oneself behind the wheel --- so the driver doesn't wind up just another "Signal 30."
THE LOOMING IRANIAN THREAT: A TICKING TIMEBOMB IN TEHRAN
Within the past three years we have learnt a lot about the vengefully irrational partisan and religious hatred that Iranian dictator Makhmud Ahmadinejad has exercised against Israel.
Mr Ahmadinejad has a major league problem with coexisting with a sovereign republic that treat their Muslims INFINITELY BETTER than his country treat THEIR Jews!
Let us examine some of the incriminating evidence against Mr Ahmadinejad:
In April 2006 Ahmadinejad announced plans to contribute US$50m to fund the terrorist-riddled Palestinian Authority after Western nations withdrew aid in the wake of the terror group Hamas winning elections held in that part of Israel three months earlier. His foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced Iran's determination to help the Israeli Arabs.
In December 2005 Ahmadinejad dismissed the reality of the Holocaust of Nazi Germany as a myth, suggesting the relocation of Israel to Canada, Alaska, the United States, or Europe.
In October 2005 Ahmadinejad claimed that all hurdles for Iranian nuclear development had been cleared --- and that no power could stop him.
In May 2007 Iran were reportedly within three years of a nuclear bomb.
And the crown jewels of the lot: Not only has Ahmadinejad called for "wiping Israel off the map" --- he has even made the same threat against the United States too!
Near the end of June 2007, National Intelligence Director Admiral Michael McConnell exposed a clear pattern of Iran supporting Iraqi terrorists attacking Coalition forces with roadside and other homicide bombs.
A January 2007 Karbala attack by Shia Muslims who as it turned out were trained by the Quds Forces.
In November 2007 it was discovered that Iranian chemical and biological weapons, under even greater secrecy than their nuclear programme, could deliver their dangerous toxic payloads to Iraq, Israel, and even the United States.
In February Iran announced the launch of a "research rocket" that was launched from what turns out to be a missile development site where missiles capable of striking targets 6000 kilómetros away were under development.
In April Iran announced the installation of 6000 nuclear centrifuges, thus trebling their uranium enrichment capacity.
A suspicious report about Iran's nuclear capabilities was found to have been crafted by former State Department officials instead of senior United States intelligence intelligentsia. And Iranian officials have condemned the independent media news website NewsMax and condemned Israel/Syria talks.
Ahmadinejad is not alone, either, as we will find. Take for instance Hashemi Rafsanjani, who served as president from 1989 to 1997, affirming that Hitler SAVED EUROPE!
And other nations have obviously noticed, too: On 17 September 2007 French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner advised that a nuclear Iran would be a grave danger to the world. In fact some of the American Embassy hostages held in captivity for more than 14 months even claimed Ahmadinejad was one of their captors!
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited France in October 2007 newly-elected president Nicholas Sarkozy concurred with Olmert about the need to stop Iranian nuclear aspirations.
Last fall, Bahranian Crown Prince Prince Salman BinHamad BinIsa AlKhalifa became the first Arab leader to lodge a claim about Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Israel in fact expressed a fact contrary to CIA sentiment, that Iran are still continuing their nuclear programme...though Iranian defectors have been known to provide crucial information about nuclear programmes.
Our own president, George Walker Bush, warned of war with Iran last October, citing the need to prevent Iran from having necessary knowledge for arms construction. At the same time, Iraqi Military Commander General David Petraeus lodged an accusation against the Iranian ambassador to Iraq being allied with the terrorist gang called the Quds force. Subsequently the United States Government levied new sanctions against Iran. Zogby would confirm growing American sentiment favouring strikes on Iran shortly afterward.
Even Dennis Ross, a Middle Eastern peace process developer, has warned of a nuclear Iran.
Is it any wonder the US State Department have called Iran the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism? Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned about Iran's dogged determination to get nuclear arms!
A treasonous university president in New York City refused to rescind the invitation for Ahmadinejad to speak --- and consequently a number of Jewish groups urged mass protests in New York but were subsequently disappointed at the low turnout for such protests.
One brave former Embassy hostage, however, questioned the logic in letting someone speak freely on American soil when he does not afford his own people that same freedom.
And Illinois Democrat Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama has called for talks with Iran even as he claims support for Israel, thus raising a number of doubts about where his true allegiances lie.
On the other hand, a number of pundits have assembled their own strategies against Iran --- such as this brave columnist from TownHall.com explaining how to defeat Ahmadinejad, or a great well-known married couple calling for New York's disinvestment from Iran.
And now reports have streamed in that as Iran prepare to attack Israel's nuclear heart, Israel are preparing a pre-emptive strike against Iran --- something that Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney had already considered asking for at the same time Ahmadinejad rejected talks about Iranian nuclear capabilities and millions of his countrymen rallied against Israel. A subsequent assessment by Iran's Judiciary Ayatollah claimed a global referendum against Israel's supposed "illegitimacy" as the capital Tehran's provisional "Prayers Leader" demanded "continued resistance against Israel and the United States". Yet Iranian emissaries have met with Iranian exiles in Europe and America to deliver a controversial message about the Iranian people supporting swift, decisive strikes to the Ahmadinejad regime.How close are we to seeing Iran facing war with Israel and/or the United States? The idea of an American bombing campaign has been floated before. And Iran clearly have no desire for another hawk in the Oval Office. In fact, just three months ago, Jewish sources made it abundantly clear that military strikes were increasingly likely.Tough beans, Mr Ahmadinejad, you had it coming from the moment you started spewing your anti-Semitic, anti-American horse manure. And if Bush doesn't stop you --- either Macca, Olmert, or even Netanyahu surely will.
We are facing an ever more precarious situation in the Middle East where we will have fewer and fewer options. Hemming and hawing over the process needlessly will produce greater risk, will perpetuate danger in the Middle East, and will place us in a number of terror threats.
Iran are clearly emboldened by our current efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, wishing for us to get out of those areas because they have expressed a desire to fill a supposed power vacuum we would supposedly leave.
But this is NOT the time to remain soft. Consider this: We have a number of advanced methods of weaponry we are currently not using against the Taleban in Afghanistan or the likes of AlQaeda and other terror gangs in Iraq. We could easily use some of those methods to take out Iranian military, nuclear, and administrative centres, thus delivering serious neural injury to the Iranian regime promoting totalitarianism in the name of a perverted and radicalised form of Islam.
The Iranian people are yearning for freedom. And maybe it will be only one of the US or Israel...or maybe it will be both simultaneously. Though the idea of both might appear to alienate most Arab nations --- in reality a number of the neighbours of Iran and even Iraq when they were dictated by the late Hussein have had their suspicions and grievances. Some might call it just jealousy, but more enlightened minds see a potential for real peace if Iran are neutralised. Iraq are already on their way to developing into a full-fledged republic rooted in direct democracy like Israel, having held several elections. Hope for Iran still abounds.
But then again, we cannot be sure how this one turns out.
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