Weekly radio commentary with Alan Butler, WAFS 1190, Atlanta's Premier Station, 2-27-13. I come on at the 9:30 minute mark. Topics: Obamacare and John Kerry's speech.
http://host1.cyberears.com//18646.mp3
My view of the world through personal experience, 30 years of teaching Economics and Foreign Languages, travel in Europe and North America, research, and living 20 years under communism.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
So Tolerant, We Are Stupid, or Vice Versa
John
Kerry said to a crowded internet café in Berlin, “In America you have the right
to be stupid, if you want to be... and we tolerate that.” Let me translate. Conservatives,
you have the right to be wrong, and we, liberals, tolerate your right to be
wrong. I would like to add that you also have the right to open your mouth and
eliminate any doubt of stupidity.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284792/John-Kerry-says-Americans-right-stupid-tells-lost-diplomatic-passport-age-12-sneaking-Soviet-controlled-East-Berlin-1950s.html#ixzz2M46DIy6N
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284792/John-Kerry-says-Americans-right-stupid-tells-lost-diplomatic-passport-age-12-sneaking-Soviet-controlled-East-Berlin-1950s.html#ixzz2M46DIy6N
How
contrasting these words are to John F. Kennedy’s, in his famous speech in
Berlin, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” in which he told Germans indirectly that he
understood their plight of living with a country separated by the Wall of
Shame, the Berlin Wall, erected by the Russians. Families living on opposite
sides of the same street had found themselves separated overnight by a tall
concrete wall and barbed wire, guarded by East German soldiers who shot for
keeps from looming towers.
President
John F. Kennedy had told the roaring crowd that he was a jelly doughnut, yet
the world and the Germans applauding him knew what he meant even though the
German phrase he had spoken had one too many words, “ein.” Ich bin Berliner, I
am German like you.
John Kerry is no JFK. On a nine-country tour of Europe and the Middle East,
the newly-minted Secretary of State is promoting religious and political
tolerance by showcasing the tolerant America and its multiculturalism.
Tolerance is 'something worth fighting for,' he said.
John Kerry continued, “We live and breathe the idea of religious freedom
and religious tolerance, whatever the religion - and political freedom and
political tolerance, whatever the point of view.” He forgot to mention that
this tolerance is one-sided, as long as conservatives agree with the liberal and
Democrat points of view. If conservatives disagree with their talking points, they
are racists and hate mongers.
“As a 12-year-old, I saw the difference between the east and the west. I
saw people were in darker clothing and there were fewer people in the street.
There were fewer cars. I didn’t feel the movement and the energy that existed
elsewhere.”
Kerry had lived in Berlin in the 1950s with his American diplomat father
and his family. He had snuck out one day to the other side, to East Berlin,
part of the German Democratic Republic, a totalitarian state established by the
Soviet Union with the communist party in power and a socialist collectivist
economy.
Kerry first speech as Secretary of State promoted global warming fear
mongering and population changes in a speech at the University of Virginia. “We as a nation must have the foresight and
courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we
keep for our children and grandchildren: an environment not ravaged by rising
seas, deadly super storms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a
dramatically changing climate." It does not matter how many times the
non-existent global warming is de-bunked. Arrogant liberals, who think they can
control nature and weather-related disasters that have occurred since the
beginning of time, continue to promote their manufactured global
warming/climate change crisis because there is too much money to be made from
carbon swaps and carbon taxes. Well-informed Americans are getting weary of
misinformation and propaganda. “Americans are tired of being tired.” http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-gives-first-foreign-policy-speech-climate-change_703024.html#sthash.zZ9n9Np3.dpuf
Global warming and population change/manipulation are enshrined in the U.N.
Agenda 21, a form of global communism control operating on the premise that the
environment must be protected from faux man-made global warming and destruction.
Carbon-taxing citizens from developed
nations, redistributing their property to third world countries with the help
of the United Nations, and social engineering, moving people from the land into
high-rise, congested living/walking/areas into the city would somehow restore
the planet to its “pristine” condition. When the definition of “pristine” is
evaluated carefully, a scary picture emerges in which man can no longer occupy
the land it owns or desires to own, capitalism is a dirty word, and man becomes
“persona-non-grata,” an unwanted person.
That is exactly what communists did to people in East Germany and behind
the Iron Curtain when they moved people off the land. Yes, we had fewer cars,
wore dark, drab clothing, hid in our dirty grey concrete multi-story apartments
without heat, water, or electricity for endless weeks and months, and standing
in long lines to get our daily rations of food if we could get to the front of
the line before they ran out. It is hard to be energetic when you are hungry
and beaten down psychologically. Yet liberals promote U.N. Agenda 21, the
return to the very same type of existence. To “protect” the environment that
renews itself, they demand fewer cars on the road, public transportation, buses,
trains, biking, and walking to work/school, dependent on government for all our
needs, a government that cannot run anything right except the military.
We are so tolerant in America that we accept the killing of millions of innocent
unborn who want to live as “choice,” we tolerate and reward financially millions
of illegal aliens trespassing our borders as “undocumented Americans,” we accept
political gridlock, we allow government intrusion into our lives, health care, we
endure political correctness, we accept Sharia Law which is incompatible with
our Constitution, and permit the deliberate incompetence and corruption of
politicians. Yes, we have the right to be stupid in America and, unfortunately,
we are fully exercising that right, to the shock and delight of the rest of the
world.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Green Growth Sustainability of Washington, D.C.
The Green Growth Sustainability of U.N. Agenda 21
has finally arrived in our nation’s capital. Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced
last week his “Sustainability D.C.” plan to make the District of Columbia “the
healthiest, greenest, and most livable city in the United States” by 2032.
He plans “zero-net buildings that generate at least as much energy as they produce,” reducing the amount of salt spread on the roads, and charging residents per bag of trash pickup. (Washington Post, Mike DeBonis, February 20, 2013)
The environmentalists are dancing with joy at the prospect of reducing the city’s potential impact on the manufactured global warming/climate change they’ve been pushing for decades. Reasonable minds wish that the D.C. Mayor would address instead the high crime and poverty rates, real problems in the District.
The capital will have “250,000 more residents, use 50 percent less energy, emit 50 percent fewer greenhouse gases and produce 15 percent less waste.” D.C. will plant 150,000 trees, citizens will have more rooftop greenery, and CFL bulbs will light miles of bike paths.
Regulations will be lessened to allow residents to build more high-rises in transit corridors, convert basements and over-garage space into living quarters, all with the intention of moving people together as compactly as possible.
Building codes will become more stringent in order to reduce carbon footprint, and a percentage of the city’s electricity will have to come from renewables, as well as demanding more investment in public transit. The idea is that over time, cars should become obsolete, moving everybody into public transportation or bike riding.
Mayor Gray plans to use city funds to finance a nearby wind farm and invest in orchards for local food. Even the liberal Washington Post questions why the mayor is not addressing “the true costs and trade-offs” of the ambitious plan.
The op-ed asks, what is more pressing, “quintupling the number of green jobs, or meeting low greenhouse-emissions targets cheaply and on time?” I say, there is no such thing as a green job; it is a fabrication of the Green Growth, Sustainability schemes of U.N. Agenda 21, the plan to confiscate and redistribute wealth to third world nations. (Washington Post, The Green City, February 24, 2013)
The global warming/climate change is a hoax. Environmentalist fibbers conveniently leave out the role of the sun and solar flares on our planet and of the oceanic currents. Environmentalists are nothing more than opportunists making billions and trillions over carbon swaps, taxes, EPA regulations, and carbon footprint regulations. They are using lower-wrung activists who have been brainwashed to promote the man-made global warming/climate change agenda to the low information voters.
The suspect science of human-caused global warming was highlighted on Douglas Carswell’s blog and mea culpa. “My biggest regret as an MP is that I failed to oppose the 2008 Climate Change Act. It was a mistake. I am sorry.” Britain’s Climate Change Act of 2008 has had serious damaging effects on the economy. (Principia Scientific International, February 25, 2013)
(Dr. Klaus Kaiser)
He plans “zero-net buildings that generate at least as much energy as they produce,” reducing the amount of salt spread on the roads, and charging residents per bag of trash pickup. (Washington Post, Mike DeBonis, February 20, 2013)
The environmentalists are dancing with joy at the prospect of reducing the city’s potential impact on the manufactured global warming/climate change they’ve been pushing for decades. Reasonable minds wish that the D.C. Mayor would address instead the high crime and poverty rates, real problems in the District.
The capital will have “250,000 more residents, use 50 percent less energy, emit 50 percent fewer greenhouse gases and produce 15 percent less waste.” D.C. will plant 150,000 trees, citizens will have more rooftop greenery, and CFL bulbs will light miles of bike paths.
Regulations will be lessened to allow residents to build more high-rises in transit corridors, convert basements and over-garage space into living quarters, all with the intention of moving people together as compactly as possible.
Building codes will become more stringent in order to reduce carbon footprint, and a percentage of the city’s electricity will have to come from renewables, as well as demanding more investment in public transit. The idea is that over time, cars should become obsolete, moving everybody into public transportation or bike riding.
Mayor Gray plans to use city funds to finance a nearby wind farm and invest in orchards for local food. Even the liberal Washington Post questions why the mayor is not addressing “the true costs and trade-offs” of the ambitious plan.
The op-ed asks, what is more pressing, “quintupling the number of green jobs, or meeting low greenhouse-emissions targets cheaply and on time?” I say, there is no such thing as a green job; it is a fabrication of the Green Growth, Sustainability schemes of U.N. Agenda 21, the plan to confiscate and redistribute wealth to third world nations. (Washington Post, The Green City, February 24, 2013)
The global warming/climate change is a hoax. Environmentalist fibbers conveniently leave out the role of the sun and solar flares on our planet and of the oceanic currents. Environmentalists are nothing more than opportunists making billions and trillions over carbon swaps, taxes, EPA regulations, and carbon footprint regulations. They are using lower-wrung activists who have been brainwashed to promote the man-made global warming/climate change agenda to the low information voters.
The suspect science of human-caused global warming was highlighted on Douglas Carswell’s blog and mea culpa. “My biggest regret as an MP is that I failed to oppose the 2008 Climate Change Act. It was a mistake. I am sorry.” Britain’s Climate Change Act of 2008 has had serious damaging effects on the economy. (Principia Scientific International, February 25, 2013)
Rajenda Pachuri, the United Nation’s chief of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), acknowledged that
temperatures have not risen in the last 17 years. Britain’s Met Office
confirmed the data. (www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/11014-nothing-off-limits-in-climate-debate)
Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s most prominent and vocal
global warming/climate change doomsayer, also acknowledged that “The 5-year
mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”(www.columbia.edu/-jeh1/mailings/2013/20130115_Temperature2012.pdf)
Dr. Klaus L. E. Kaiser translated a new German study
by Professor Heinz Hug. Citing peer reviewed sources, Dr. Hug states, “IPCC
assertion that increased greenhouse gas water vapor causes global warming, is wrong.”
(http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/hug-barrett.htm)
Dr. Kaiser said, “The reality also is that all the
models used by the IPCC and their followers make untenable assumptions, contain
internal inconsistencies and totally disregard the physical basis necessary.”
(http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/53345)
Science
is exact, it does not work by “consensus” as declared by United Nations or activist
environmentalists. “Consensus is a
societal or judicial term which has no place in science.” (Dr. Klaus Kaiser)
In
the same article, Dr. Klaus Kaiser gives a very good explanation why the tropospheric
CO2 causes a net cooling effect on our planet, not a greenhouse “blanket.”
“Look at planet Mars. Its atmosphere contains
950,000 parts per million (ppm) CO2 versus 400 ppm on Earth. Yet, on the side
of Mars facing the sun, the temperature is about 30 °C like on Earth, but on
the opposite (night) side it is well below MINUS-100 °C (approximately
MINUS-200 °F). The thick layer of CO2 on Mars does not at all provide a “warm
blanket” on its night side – au contraire – all that CO2 in the Martian
atmosphere produces a cooling effect through outward radiation of IR energy its
molecules.”
Al Gore’s global warming predictions that the sea
levels will rise, flood, and swallow islands and lands opening to the ocean are
also wrong. Nils-Axel Mörner,
sea level expert, has recently criticized main stream media alarmists,
including the United Nations IPCC, for claiming that Bangladeshi floods are
caused by man-made global warming. Independent scientists have proven that
floods in Bangladesh are caused by rain over the Himalayas and cyclones that
push water inland. “This has nothing to do with the sea,” said Mörner.
Here we are, transforming our way of life
fundamentally, our cities, District of Columbia included, at great expense and
pain to all, based on environmental lies, scientific misinterpretation of data,
and U.N. Agenda 21’s schemes to redistribute wealth and to control every facet
of life. Would it not be easier if the U.N. and its ardent supporters just came
in and confiscated our “ill-gotten wealth” (as they indoctrinate our children
in schools) overnight instead of stealthily stealing from us in the name of
saving the planet?
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
The
hilltop estate of Monticello is not easy to reach. The current owners allow
foot traffic but most visitors prefer buses. When clouds cover the sky, access
is denied for fear of lightning strikes. The lush vegetation and old majestic trees
seclude the manor, making it invisible from the bottom of the mountain.
Monticello’s
storied existence was advertised in 1921 as a “dignified country home”
overlooking Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1923 the Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Foundation purchased the estate from Jefferson Levy for $100,000 in cash and a
note of $400,000. http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/jefferson-monroe-levy
The
winding roads and highways to Charlottesville are flanked by beautifully-manicured
farms that appear to grow nothing other than luscious green grass on which riding
horses graze lazily. The occasional vineyard bears witness to the rich soil
soaked with the blood and sweat of thousands of Americans encamped in Virginia or
crisscrossing the land during the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. Several
battlefields are clearly marked but far away from the road unless a die-hard amateur
historian does not mind stepping in knee-high grasses and muddy ditches.
Thomas
Jefferson, the builder of Monticello, was a remarkable Renaissance man with a
resume that nobody can match today. The principal author of the Declaration of
Independence (1776), first Secretary of State (1790-1793) under President
George Washington, second Governor of Virginia (1779-1781), third President of
the United States (1801-1809), diplomat (U.S. Minister to France, 1785-1789),
Continental Congress delegate representing Virginia, second Vice President
(1797-1801) under President John Adams, Thomas Jefferson oversaw the purchase
of Louisiana from France (1803) and sent the Lewis and Clark expedition
(1804-1806) to explore the new west.
Although President Jefferson signed into law a bill in
1807 that prohibited the importation of slaves into the United States, he owned
hundreds of slaves at Monticello, Shadwell, and Poplar Forest. None is more
famous than
Sally
Hemmings (1773-1835) who, at the age of 14, was daughter Mary’s maid and accompanied
her to Paris. Sally’s duties were to care for Jefferson’s chamber and wardrobe,
his children, and to do light work such as sewing. A newspaper reported in 1802
that Jefferson had a “concubine” named Sally. Based on “documentary,
scientific, statistical studies and oral history,” many historians believe that
Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings’ children, years after his
wife’s death. Sally lived as a free person in Charlottesville after Jefferson’s
death.
Thomas
Mann Randolph, Jr. (1768-1828), married Jefferson’s daughter Martha. He loved
botany and agriculture as much as his father-in-law. He helped Jefferson run the
plantation business and the often-mismanaged Shadwell mill.
On
the Shadwell side of the Rivanna River, Jefferson had built two mills beginning
in 1796, in the transition from farming tobacco to growing wheat. The project
took ten years and $20,000 for a canal, a dam, and the two mills. One ground
grain for home use and the other one was rented out to millers to grind wheat
for the market. The commercial mill had the most modern machines in existence
at the time for automated milling. The Rivanna River traversed the plantation
and transported agricultural products to market and brought other necessary
goods to the plantation.
Jefferson
had a life-long friend, Adrienne-Catherine de Noailles, countess of Tesse
(1741-1814) and aunt to marquis de Lafayette, with whom he shared his love of
botany. They exchanged letters long after he left France. Packages containing
magnolias, tulip poplars, mountain laurels, red cedars, sassafras, persimmons,
and dogwood were sent to her estate in France. She reciprocated with a
golden-rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) for Monticello.
Thomas
Jefferson thought agriculture to be “the most useful of the occupations of
man.” He said in 1787,”Agriculture… is our wisest pursuit, because it will in
the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.”
Jefferson
owned four farms, Shadwell, Lego, Tufton, and the Monticello home farm.
Overseers supervised 30-40 enslaved men and women who lived near and worked in
the fields, at first cultivating tobacco and then switching to wheat.
Tobacco
was the staple of farming in the 18th century Virginia. It began to
shift to wheat towards the end of the century due to soil depletion and changes
in European markets.
Wheat
cultivation was more difficult than tobacco; it required crop rotation,
machinery such as threshers, fertilizers, draft animals, mills, and plowing. The
change did not deter Jefferson who was an innovator and enjoyed a challenge.
Thomas
Jefferson was determined to have an American wine production and struggled over
many years to plant and replant imported and native vines. He started two
vineyards on the south-facing slope below the garden terrace in order to have a
Monticello wine. In 1807 he planted 287 rooted vines of 24 of the European
table grapes (Vitis vinifera). His incursion into viticulture is evidenced by
his desire to have an American winemaking industry. “I am making a collection
of vines for wine and for the table.” (1786)
To
succeed, Jefferson brought Philip Mazzei (1730-1816), an Italian merchant and
horticulturist, and laborers to Virginia in 1773 to help with the cultivation
of grapes, olives, and other Mediterranean fruits. The venture failed and
Mazzei returned to Europe after a stint in the Revolutionary War effort. They
remained lifelong friends.
The
daily fresh vegetables came not just from the Monticello’s experimental
gardens. Jefferson, but especially the women in his household, his wife,
daughter, and granddaughters, often paid cash to slaves for “garden produce,
poultry, and eggs” raised by slaves on their own time. Monticello account books
show that “Enslaved gardeners sold cucumbers, potatoes, melons, cabbages,
simlins (patty-pan squash), apples, tomatoes, and salad greens.” Slaves used
underground pits to store hardy produce which they later sold to the main house.
The
longest overseer at Monticello was Edmund Bacon (1785-1866) who was responsible
for leveling of the beautiful garden terrace, bursting with vegetables, delicate
flowers, and aromatic spices. “No occupation is so delightful to me as the
culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” (Thomas
Jefferson, 1811)
Through
his 82nd year, Jefferson attempted to grow plants from around the
world. He stayed in touch with botanists, nurserymen, and fellow gardeners,
farmers in Virginia and abroad. “The greatest service which can be rendered any
country is to add a useful plant to its culture.”
Wormley
Hughes (1781-1858) was the trusted gardener who planted seeds, bulbs, and
trees. He cared for both the flower and vegetable gardens. Martha Jefferson
Randolph freed him upon her father’s death but his wife and eight children were
sold at the 1827 dispersal sale.
Even
though Jefferson applied the latest knowledge and technology to all his ideas
and business efforts, allowing slaves to acquire a variety of skills, to have a
self-sufficient farm, the plantation was never profitable. He accumulated so
much debt throughout his life that the family was forced to sell the land, the
house, the household contents, and the enslaved families upon his death.
The
5,000 acres Monticello plantation, covering the big house on top of the little
mountain to Mulberry Row and other outlaying farms, necessitated the labor of
enslaved field workers, craftsmen, domestics, free overseers, and members of
the Jefferson family who had specific daily duties.
Jefferson
supplied food, clothing, blankets, and occasional cash payments to enslaved
tradesmen. Enslaved people purchased other belongings from local merchants with
earnings from growing and selling garden produce, craft items, cash from additional
tasks, and gratuities from visitors.
When
he married Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-1782), she brought with her wealth,
slaves, and possessions. She was in charge of all domestic activities at
Monticello. During her marriage to Jefferson, she gave birth to six children,
but only two survived to adulthood. Thomas Jefferson described their marriage
as “ten years of unchequered happiness.”
One
of Martha’s most valued house help was Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings (1735-1807)
who came to Monticello after the death of Martha’s father, John Wayles. Wayles
was thought to be the father of one of Betty’s six children. The daughter of an
English sea captain and an enslaved African woman, Hemings was the head of the
largest enslaved family at Monticello. Hemings’ 70 descendants lived in bondage
at Monticello as servants and craftsmen.
Jefferson
inherited 3,000 acres at Shadwell from his father Peter, a surveyor, county
justice, and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Shadwell was located
across the Rivanna River from Monticello, the mountain in the sky. Growing up at
Shadwell afforded Thomas Jefferson an educated childhood surrounded by wealth,
books, scientific and drafting instruments, time for curiosity and exploration,
travel, and contact with the elite society of those times. His mother, Jane
Randolph Jefferson was the daughter of one of Virginia’s most prominent
families.
During
his five year diplomatic mission to France (1784-1789), Jefferson paid careful
attention to technology, commerce, agriculture, and the arts. “I am constantly
roving about, to see what I have never seen before and shall never see again.”
He would take a month long “botanizing excursion” in 1791 through New England
with James Madison and other trips with his 12 year old daughter Martha to
visit the northeastern communities that he would be representing in France.
Jefferson
studied classical architecture for inspiration to build and remodel his
Monticello home. Each room is an example of the five orders of symmetry as written
by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). Andrea Palladio published his treatise on the
history of architecture, I Quattro Libri
dell’Architettura (The Four Books of
Architecture), in 1570, with beautiful illustrations of the Tuscan, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite styles, including his own versions of Italian
country homes and estates. Jefferson studied them and used them as inspiration
for Monticello.
“…It
may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine
Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.” (Francois-Jean de
Beauvoir, Marquis de Chastellux, 1782)
Jefferson
rented a townhouse in Paris, the Hotel de Langeac, with a main floor for
entertainment and separate private spaces for his family’s bedrooms. Infatuated
with the elegance of Parisian homes, he built Monticello in that style, adding
Palladio’s Corinthian order. Chastelleux noted that the ground floor at
Monticello was “chiefly a large and lofty salon,” decorated entirely in the
antique style.
Monticello
was initially a six-room home with a parlor, dining room, and chamber on the
main floor and a study and two bedrooms on the second. In 1775 Jefferson
changed the plan, adding “bow” rooms to the north and south and an octagonal
bay to the parlor. Ever the innovator and inventor, Jefferson designed a roof
that would improve “water shedding.” Benjamin Henry, an architect, credited
Jefferson with the innovation called the “zigzag” roof.
Jefferson
became the architect and builder of his home. He made the drawings, the
detailed list of materials, the quantities needed, and hired 69 brick makers, brick
masons, carpenters, joiners, painters, blacksmiths, and other skilled
craftsmen. Nine months of the year he served his country and then he tended to
his labor of love, his beloved Monticello.
Many
letters record the construction process entrusted to James Dinsmore, the
principal joiner, an Irishman from Philadelphia whom he hired in 1798. Dinsmore
taught his trade to enslaved joiner John Hemmings who created much of
Monticello’s fine woodwork. Dinsmore and John Neilson (1805-1809) worked on
James Madison’s Montpelier and the University of Virginia after Monticello was
completed in 1809.
John
Hemmings (1776-1833), the son of Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings, became such an
accomplished craftsman, he replaced Dinsmore as head joiner and trained other
slaves. Hemmings “could make anything that was wanted in woodwork,” fine
furniture, a landau carriage, and much of the interior woodwork at Poplar
Forest. John Hemmings was freed in Jefferson’s will and received all the tools
of his shop but he continued to “live and work for Jefferson’s family for
several more years at Monticello with his wife, Priscilla.”
Monticello
was hard labor for many people, including the enslaved workers who harvested
raw materials from the surrounding plantation and fashioned them into building
materials. “They dug red clay for making bricks and quarried limestone to make
lime for mortar and plaster. They also felled trees, oak, pine, tulip poplar,
black locust, cherry, beech, and walnut, that were hewn and sawn into lumber
for framing and woodwork.” The names of the workers, freed or enslaved, were
found in documents, letters, and account books.
We
will never know the true cost in planning, preparing, time, money, materials,
hard labor, sweat and tears that built Monticello, a witness to our past. We
are grateful that this important piece of history still exists today to teach valuable
lessons in perseverance, dedication, love of the land, botany, agriculture, viticulture,
American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, success, failure, bondage, and of
human foibles.
Source:
Visit to the Monticello Plantation and Museum
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The Affordable Care Act Nobody Can Afford
I
was just handed the Phreesia computer tablet by the receptionist under the
guise of updating my medical and insurance information. I had seen this orange notebook
in another doctor’s office and I became suspicious. Is this really meant to
verify, as the website claims, my insurance eligibility automatically and help
doctors collect on their insurance while easing the load of paperwork? Or is it
forced electronic data compliance to Obamacare?
As
soon as I started reading each screen, I realized that it was asking me to
consent to third parties to obtain my medication prescription history from my
pharmacy and to my entire medical history.
I
had the right to request and restrict as to how my protected health information
was used or disclosed. However, when I declined to sign, the computer stopped,
and prompted me to talk to the receptionist. She informed me that diagnosis
and/or treatment “may be conditioned upon my consent.”
The
electronic screen and the paper copy the receptionist gave me said, “The [name
withheld] is not required to agree to the restrictions that I may request and
may refuse treatment based on my restriction as permitted by Section 164.506 of
the Code of Federal Regulations.”
Suddenly,
because I refused the IRS and HHS meddling in my personal health affairs, I had
become persona-non-grata (unwanted person) to my doctor who had sworn a
Hippocratic Oath to care for me and any patient who comes across his/her path.
In
other words, I would not be treated if I did not sign yes. I had the right to
say no, don’t’ give my medical information and history to anyone else but the
doctor is not required to honor my request and may refuse treatment to me as
permitted by Section 164.506 of the Code of Federal Regulations. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-title45-vol1/pdf/CFR-2011-title45-vol1-sec164-506.pdf
What
if I said no, do not release my medical history to a third unapproved party and
I paid cash? The doctor would not see me. Welcome to the destruction of our
stellar healthcare and patient/doctor confidentiality, compliments of Obamacare.
How
affordable is this Obamacare, the unfortunately named, the Affordable Care Act?
The Democrats and the President said that costs would be so much lower; it
would save the typical family $2,500 per year.
The
cheapest category of Obamacare is the Bronze Plan which costs $20,000 per year
for a family of two adults and three children and it pays only 60% of medical
costs after the deductibles for the year have been met. And the deductibles are
high per person and per family. The following tiers are Silver (70%), Gold
(80%), and Platinum (90%).
During
my 30 year teaching career, I seldom had to pay more than $3,600 a year premium
for private insurance for my family. Even a retirement private plan did not
cost more than $8,000 per year with 80% reimbursement as opposed to only 60%
reimbursement under the Obamacare Bronze Plan. Is Obamacare really affordable?
The answer is a resounding no.
According
to the IRS, the penalty for not buying insurance is capped for now at either
the annual Bronze premium, 2.5% of taxable income, or $2,085 per family in
2016.
President
Obama said, “If you are one of the more than 250 million Americans who already
have health insurance, you will keep your insurance.” Heritage’s Amy Payne
estimated that “more than 11 million people will no longer have their
employer-sponsored health coverage once Obamacare is fully implemented.”
(Businesses Cutting Hours, Bracing for Costs of Obamcare, December 6, 2012)
Obamacare
employer mandate is killing jobs. An employer with 50 employees must provide
coverage or pay $2,000 penalty for each employee after the first 30 workers. It
is easy to see how an employer would have to cut back employees to 30,
replacing full-time employees with part-time ones, in order to avoid the
penalty or the skyrocketing premiums for private coverage. These private insurance premiums rose significantly
because Obamacare mandates insurance for all children up to 26 years old and for
those insured with pre-existing conditions whose treatment can be costly.
Breitbart
News reported that Pennsylvania Community College of Allegheny County had
already cut the hours of 400 adjunct professors, staff, and part-time teachers,
saving $6 million in potential Obamacare fees. (Wynton Hall, Obamacare Layoffs,
Hiring Freezes Begin, January 5, 2013)
Because
of the Obamacare medical device 2.3 percent excise tax, Stryker medical supply
cut 1,170 employees (5%). Boston Scientific, Welch Allyn, Medtronic, Kinetic
Concepts, and Smith & Nephew are also contemplating cuts in their work
force. Zimmer Holdings, makers of hip replacement implants, laid off 450
workers in expectation of a $60 million tax bill in 2013. (Bob Unruh, Democrats
in Congress ‘want out’ of Obamacare)
Everybody’s
private insurance has been disrupted and private premiums have escalated, in
addition to adding the “Cadillac tax” to plans that are judged too generous. According
to Jonathan Gruber of MIT and the actuarial firm Milliman, non-group premiums
rose 19-30% in some states and 55-85% in others.
The
federal government has built a data hub to be used only for Obamacare without saying
how it will be run. The HHS has released 13,000 pages of regulations with only
30 days for public comment while attempting to re-engineer 17% of the economy.
(WSJ, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Obamacare, December 13, 2012)
On
the deadline of December 14, 2012 states had to declare health insurance
exchanges. At that time, only six states (Colorado, Massachusetts, Maryland,
Oregon, and Washington) received conditional approval from the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) to operate their own exchanges. Twenty-six
states stated that they will not set up exchanges.
If
a state operates its own exchange, it must come up in 2015 with its own source
of revenue to run the exchange, making a state a vendor to HHS. The state running
an exchange must also expand Medicaid to “able-bodied, low-income, childless
adults” in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court ruled the Medicaid
expansion voluntary. The federal government was not planning on covering
the full cost of such Medicaid expansion. “Half of the reduction in the number
of uninsured promised under Obamacare was based on mandating that states expand
Medicaid.” (Heritage’s Morning Bell, December 13, 2012)
Several
states asked Sibelius, the HHS Secretary, if they could expand Medicaid less.
The answer was that only full compliance with the law will garner 90%
reimbursement from the federal government. Nine states have refused to expand Medicaid
to cover new populations. The feds will set up their own exchanges in those
states but final regulations and specifics for the federal exchanges are not made
public yet. Oklahoma and Maine have sued over Medicaid expansion and over
statutory language and Medicaid expansion, respectively.
Three
deadline extensions of implementing health exchanges have passed. Most states
will share responsibilities with the federal government or default to a
federal-run exchange. Only a minority of states have agreed to run their own
exchanges.
A
3.5 percent administrative fee on coverage sold through federally-run exchanges
will be levied. An additional $63 fee per employee must be paid in federal fees
to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
Government
funds will be set aside to promote/advertise [on primetime] Obamacare. Critics
of the unaffordable health care law call such advertising “political advocacy.”
Practicing
medicine will become more and less a government-run monopoly instead of the
current monopolistic competition where patients are free to choose what doctors
they go to, based on preference, doctor qualifications, specialty, reputation, insurance
types, and premiums they choose to pay.
Doctors
will either merge with hospitals, insurance companies, and specialty management
firms or become “concierge” doctors, serving a reduced number of patients for a
set fee. Consolidation will have a negative effect on patient access, price,
and competition. Mergers in the 1980s and 1990s had negative effects in terms
of patients being restricted or blocked from access to specialists and
procedures.
More
than $719 billion will be taken from Medicare over the next ten years to pay
for Obamacare. According to Rep. Wally Herger, Chairman of the House Ways and
Means Subcommittee on Health, the Independent Payment Advisory Board
established by Obamacare is authorized to unilaterally impose price controls
and de facto rationing of medical care.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/11/medicare-reform-crucial-for-economic-health/
Medicare
is already in trouble. Taking $719 billion over ten years from Medicare to fund
Obamcare will exacerbate financial problems. Medicare benefits are not a return
on taxes paid into the system over time because Medicare is run as “pay as you
go” - today’s wage earners pay taxes to fund benefits for today’s retirees. Since
people live longer, “Medicare payroll taxes cover only 38 percent of current
benefits.” (Rep. Wally Herger)
Obamacare
depends on bringing young, healthy people into insurance markets to help offset
the costs of insuring the old and the sick. If young people do not participate in
the program and elect to pay the fine instead, Obamacare will not be able to
make coverage affordable for the uninsured.
Most
young Americans do not have insurance. Young people who do have insurance
purchase less coverage. Under Obamcare, young Americans must get more coverage
and pay more whether they want the added coverage or not. Private insurers have
increased their premiums because the law prohibits them from rejecting the
sick, and are no longer allowed to charge higher premiums to older customers.
Premiums for a young, healthy male could go up as much as three times. Young
adults could then opt out of private coverage, causing the market to implode.
(Washington Post, Insurers Warn of Health Law ‘Rate Shock,’ N.C. Aizenman,
February 16, 2013)
To
make matters worse, government officials announced on February 15, 2013 that
state-based “high-risk pools” under Obamacare will be closed to new applicants
on February 16 through March 2, depending on the state, because funding is
running low. The existing 100,000 enrollees will not be affected. If the
funding is running low now, what will happen by the time Obamacare is fully in
force?
There
is a glitch in Obamacare that could leave more than 500,000 children uninsured.
Congress defined “affordable” in the Affordable Care Act as coverage not
exceeding 9.5 % of family income. If people have coverage that fall under this
9.5% affordable, they cannot get subsidies to go into new insurance markets.
This restriction was put into place to prevent people from switching from
employer coverage to exchanges in droves. “Affordable” was calculated based on
self-only, individual worker, with an average market cost of $5,600. But the current
market family coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, is $15,700
per year. IRS announced on January 30, 2013, that employers are not required to
pay for dependents, leaving the employee to pay the family premium since he/she
will be locked out of subsidies in the federal exchanges.
Betsey
McCaughey wrote that Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prediction that
Obamacare would leave only 30 million people uninsured in 2016 was predicated on
the assumption that kids would be covered by employees. If a parent is covered
at work, no subsidies will be provided for the child in the health exchange.
Millions
of people will remain uninsured because their states are choosing [wisely] not
to expand Medicaid. The states do not have the money to expand Medicaid.
By
the time the uninsured will be counted, almost as many Americans (40 million
plus) will be left without insurance as the number of uninsured before the Democrats
passed their signature monstrosity, the Affordable Care Act. Having sat in a
drawer for decades, the bill was dusted off, repackaged, and polished. Nobody took
the time to publicly debate or read the bill that passed after some arm-twisting.
The Democrats, who had promised free
health care for all, feverishly proceeded to spend trillions of dollars we did
not have to re-engineer our health care system in the name of social justice.
The
states that refuse to set up health exchanges are expected to sell the
government-mandated plans and to give out taxpayer-funded subsidies to those
who enroll. Betsey McCaughey identifies the glitch:
“The
law says that in states that refuse, the federal government can set up an
exchange. But the law empowers only state exchanges, not federal ones, to hand out subsidies. The Obama administration
says it will disregard the law and offer subsidies in all 50 states anyway, but
the case will likely go to the Supreme Court.” http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/wheels_coming_off_QPojjZX0Bd8BU80hDpcKZP
To
safeguard from disaster, take care of your body, eat right, exercise if you
can, and pray very hard that you will not get sick. There is a good chance that
there will not be enough highly qualified doctors to deliver care when needed even
if you do have insurance. Should you need specialists, expensive drugs or
surgery, you are out of luck. Rationing will tell you, “no, you can’t have it.”
The emergency rooms will be filled to capacity with confused, desperate, sick
people, and new illegal alien arrivals.
The Irony of Green Propaganda
The
supporters of global warming met in Washington, D.C. on February 17, 2013 to
pressure President Obama to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. The irony was
evident to the rest of us. The green environmentalists were bundled up to their
eyeballs since it was the coldest day this winter, 16 degrees Fahrenheit if you
factored in the wind chill.
“The natural gas boom in America will also lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, since natural gas-fired power plants produce around half as much carbon emissions as coal-fired plants, and just 1 percent as much sulfur oxide.” (Newsmax, February 3, 2013)
Protesters
claim that tar sands, fracking, fossil fuels, and especially “dirty” coal are
the enemy of ordinary Americans while the same Americans are fed up with paying
unnecessary high prices for gasoline and electricity when our country has such
vast resources of oil and natural gas that are not being tapped.
I
wonder if Europeans knew in 1300-1850 that their Little Ice Age was caused by
human activity since global warming alarmists were not around to inform them
and force them to change their planet-altering life-style.
In
the Blitzkrieg of constant manufactured crises, the media machine is deflecting
people’s attention from the real issues affecting our country. Everyone is
overwhelmed by a never-ending string of real and imagined catastrophic
occurrences. Citizens seem to have lost the ability to judge for themselves and
discern truth from fiction.
Bombarded
by a deluge of MSM propaganda, low information Americans believed that the
passengers suffering inconveniences caused by a disabled cruise ship that had lost
its power for five days was akin to hurricane Katrina suffering. Can we have a
reality check?
If
power outage disabled such a large ship, have irrational lefties asked
themselves what would happen to a major city if a massive electricity shortage
caused the power to go out for days, weeks, and months? Would solar panels and
wind mills restore electricity, clean water, sanitation, sewage disposal, heat,
A/C, and normalcy to the city? How many people would die from pestilence alone?
The
environmentalists demand that the “evil” coal-powered plants be shut down, and
many have been shut down, because coal destroys the planet. A large portion of
our electricity does come from “dirty” coal. Beloved hybrids and electric cars need
fossil fuels and electricity generated by coal, hydro, and nuclear power
plants, another industry that progressives want shut down.
Then
there is the filthy little secret of solar-generated energy. It may be cleaner
than coal-generated energy, however, in the production process, solar panel
manufacturers create millions of pounds of contaminated water and toxic sludge
which must be transported and disposed of hundreds of miles away.
The
hazardous waste disposal costs (transportation via rail or trucks which burn fossil
fuels) is not included or calculated in the solar panels carbon footprint. The polluted
sludge is shipped because new solar panel manufacturers have not built
facilities to recycle part of the sludge and to dispose of the carcinogenic
cadmium properly.
Dustin
Mulvaney, an “environmental studies
professor who conducts carbon footprint analyses of solar, biofuel and natural
gas production,” calculated that shipping 6.2 million pounds of waste by
eighteen wheelers from California to a site 1,800 miles away would add 5
percent in carbon footprint.
Jason
Dearen of the Associated Press compiled a list of 41 California manufacturers
of solar panels and reported that no such data exists at the federal level.
“The state records show the 17 companies, which had
44 manufacturing facilities in California, produced 46.5 million pounds of
sludge and contaminated water from 2007 through the first half of 2011. Roughly
97 percent of it was taken to hazardous waste facilities throughout the state,
but more than 1.4 million pounds were transported to nine other states:
Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Nevada, Washington, Utah, New
Mexico and Arizona.” (Jason Dearen)
Does
creating 100 Megawatt of energy to power 100,000 homes (as the now bankrupt
Solyndra did) balance out the 12.5 million pounds of hazardous waste that could
seep into our drinking water? Yet Mulvaney said that coal-fired plants and
natural gas plants create more than ten times the hazardous waste created by a
solar panel. (http://news.yahoo.com/solar-industry-grapples-hazardous-wastes-184714679.html)
One
problem not addressed in calculations is the fact that solar panels need
thousands of acres of land to display them, land that cannot be used for
agriculture. Wind energy generation is problematic because huge wind mills kill
a lot of birds and the noise pollution created is unbearable and unacceptable in
populated areas when the wind exceeds 30 mph. Wind mills do not create electricity
when idle and need back up from conventional power just like solar panels.
This
brings me back to the war on coal waged by environmentalists and their powerful
lobby. In 2012, the electricity generated from coal was 36% compared to the
previous year of 44.6%, a considerable drop caused by the unprecedented regulatory
assault on coal.
PJM
Interconnection, which operates power for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,
Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,
West Virginia and the District of Columbia), held its 2015 capacity auction.
President Obama’s promise that “electricity
prices will necessarily skyrocket” is coming to fruition. According to A.J.
Cameron, “The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural
gas – was $136 per megawatt,” eight times higher than the 2012 price of $16 per
megawatt. New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and D.C. price is $167 per
megawatt. First Energy’s price in northern Ohio is $357 per megawatt. Ohio has
more forced coal-fired plants shutdowns thus the higher price.
Why are prices so much higher? Andy Ott of
PJM explains, “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of
retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from
environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.”
The Environmental Protection Agency regulators
are winning the war on coal and most Americans are going to suffer, including
the clueless greens.
“The PJM auction forecasts a dim future
where Americans will be paying more to keep the lights on. We are seeing more
and more coal plants fall victim to EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda, and as
a result, we are seeing more job losses and higher electricity prices.” (Ed
Whitfield, House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman)
British Petroleum published a report with
projection of long-term energy trends, “Energy Outlook 2030,” in which it predicted
that United States will be 99 percent energy self-sufficient by 2030 due to
shale gas and oil produced by hydraulic fracturing. “It could result
in a re-industrialization of the U.S.” Being more skeptical, I believe that it could
happen if the EPA would lessen its onerous regulatory stronghold on economic
development. http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9048887&contentId=7082549
“The natural gas boom in America will also lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, since natural gas-fired power plants produce around half as much carbon emissions as coal-fired plants, and just 1 percent as much sulfur oxide.” (Newsmax, February 3, 2013)
As
long as the President is in brilliant campaign mode, he can divorce himself
from reality and pretend he is trying to solve the very problems he has created
by blaming President Bush and the rich and greedy people. He has not solved any
problems but has been quite successful in convincing a majority of Americans
that he has. In the meantime, progressives push renewables and the misery and costly
war on coal continues.
Friday, February 15, 2013
The Starving Goose
My
friend sent me a story that explains quite succinctly what happens to people who
are so eager to become enslaved to more government and to communist utopia.
A
famous communist leader, having been aided by western powers to amass a sizable
portion of a continent, gave his underlings a valuable lesson in power and
control. He asked them to convene at his palace. His lecture was going to be
taught just once – his time was too valuable to waste. The apparatchiks were
directed to bring a goose to the seminar.
Each
acquired a bird, built a sizable cage to house it, and proceeded to feed it
well. On a given day, all gathered in the grand ballroom of the palace,
carrying various cages.
Arriving
fifteen minutes late for good measure, the leader entered the grand ballroom
followed by a very thin goose. With each step he took, the goose reached in his
pocket, begging for grain. Magnanimously, and with studied aplomb, he fed it one
single grain from time to time.
The
underlings stood up and congratulated each other for being there, applauding
the presence of the great one. The dear leader asked them to open the cages and
to release the geese. As soon as the geese sensed that the cage had been unbolted
and they were free to go, the birds took off, ignoring their masters.
The
only bird left was the dear leader’s starving goose. Ever so attentive, she
looked up to him with a sad face, waiting for her master to dispense one single
grain of food.
“Do
you see what happened if you fed them too much? They forgot who you were and no
longer recognized you as their master. My faithful goose, fed just a few grains
a day, enough to keep her from starving to death, is the most loyal bird.”
The
abject lesson of near starvation and meager dependency was the dear leader’s recipe
to lead a nation of blind followers.
National Blog Talk Radio 2-15-13
Radio dialog with Silvio Canto Jr. of Dallas on economy, Obamacare, and eurozone.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2013/02/15/the-us-economy-in-review-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2013/02/15/the-us-economy-in-review-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh
An Army of One and Fiscal Uncertainty
In
a January 24, 2013 breakfast speech, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno warned his
audience that “Today, the greatest threat of our national security is fiscal
uncertainty.” (www.army.mil/article/95007/Jan242013CSAremarkstoAUSAILWBreakfast/)
Our
volunteer army has over 88,000 soldiers deployed, 56,000 in Afghanistan alone,
thousands in Kuwait, Qatar, Kosovo, Sinai, Horn of Africa and 91,000 soldiers
stationed in 150 countries. In the last twelve years, 1.5 million men and women
have deployed overseas and half a million of these soldiers served on multiple
tours, some 2-5 times. My friend’s daughter Bonnie served four tours. It is a
strong, well-trained, remarkable, and honorable army. But no army and
exceptional training in the world can protect and serve our country’s needs
without proper funding.
The
Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote a letter on January 14, 2013 to Congress leaders
expressing angst over the future readiness of our Armed Forces in light of the
current budget conditions.
The
Senate has not passed a budget in four years. Operating on continuing
resolutions and the specter of more continuing resolutions for 2013 has already
cost the Army a deficit of more than $6 billion in operation and maintenance
accounts because money cannot be moved from one budget that is “overprescribed”
to another budget that is “undersubscribed.”
The
sequestration threat of 9 percent across the board cuts and the Department of
Defense cuts will cause an additional shortfall of $6 billion in operations and
maintenance for the FY 2013 for a total of $12 billion.
The
funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Overseas Contingency Operations)
is also uncertain, potentially experiencing a $5-7 billion gap in financial
needs for operations and maintenance. By March 1, when the debt ceiling is
reached again, the Army will face a drastic total shortfall of $17-19 billion.
According
to Gen. Odierno, prioritizing will guarantee that soldiers in Afghanistan or
going to Afghanistan will be prepared, soldiers going to Korea will be properly
equipped, but the readiness of the Division-Ready Brigade at Fort Bragg may
suffer, as well as the training and maintenance across the Army.
Immediate
effects in the next six months will include “extremely low levels of
readiness,” cancellation of rotations, delay in equipment coming out of Iraq
and Afghanistan, and maintenance on current fleets. Afghanistan is a
land-locked country and moving equipment out is very expensive. Delays due to
lack of funding in 2013 will definitely snowball into FY 2014 and FY 2015.
To
mitigate the fiscal uncertainty, the Secretary of the Army and Gen. Odierno
have prepared to:
-
Freeze
immediately all civilian hiring
-
Terminate
temporary employees
-
Furlough
the civilian workforce
-
Curtail
temporary duties and missions that are not critical
-
Reduce
thirty percent in installation operation costs
-
Cancel
and reset of orders for 2013 of units that have not deployed or were set to
deploy
Decisions
have not been made yet for contracts, studies, facilities management, community
services, and research and development programs.
Gen.
Odierno described the situation as serious in the “highly uncertain global
security environment.” He surmised, “This is a time that I would say is not a
time of peace and stability around the world.” There is great instability
around the globe, in Algeria, Libya, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and the Middle
East. “The Arab Spring has not sprung yet.” The Sinai is the biggest concern [we’ve
had] in the last 30 years in terms of stability, particularly at a time of
fiscal problems.
In
the next five years, the Active Duty force will be reduced to 490,000 in an
environment where the Budget Control Act has already cut $500 billion. Plans
were made before sequestration for the removal of soldiers from 21
installations in the United States. Modernization efforts were reduced; this
begs the question, how ready and strong are we? And what will happen to
veterans’ services, medical care, military families, Wounded Warrior program,
and transitioning back to civilian life program?
Can
we afford to become too weak militarily? Can we really ensure that we don’t
have to go to war, that we can prevent conflict when the world is a basket case
of uncertainty and renewed aggression from many directions? Are we so naïve to
believe that we can hit a reset button that will make everything peaceful, new,
and friendly? We should always remember that “The strength of our Nation is our
Army” and the ability to defend ourselves in the face of evil.
The Insidious Globalist Control
The
State of the Union address, however disingenuous, contained two interesting
seeds of truth. I had mentioned them in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental
Piracy.” The two seeds of truth are universal child care and equal pay for
women, contained in Section III, Chapter 24:3.
Another interesting section of the Davos report deals with Digital Wildfire in a Hyperconnected World - Benefits and Risks of the Social Media as part of the Internet. Three examples illustrated a response from a disgruntled customer incident, a defamation of character incident, and “an affront to religious sensitivities” story.
“The existence on YouTube of a video entitled “Innocence of Muslims”, uploaded by a private individual in the United States, sparked riots across the Middle East. These riots are estimated to have claimed more than 50 lives.” (http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2013/risk-case-1/digital-wildfires-in-a-hyperconnected-world/#/view/fn-12)
Although it has been documented that the riots in the Middle East were not sparked by a video, the Davos report included this fallacy.
The experts seem to have misgivings about the fact that millions of individuals have the freedom to broadcast widely across the globe when prior to the Internet age only a handful of elite organizations had the capacity to broadcast extensively, and this “reality has challenging implications.”
The Davos report also mentions the concepts of “Astroturfing”, Satire, “Trolling,” and Attribution Difficulties. Nancy Pelosi did use the term “astroturfing” when referring to the Tea Party rallies.
Because the report considers social media as one of the greatest risks, a “global digital ethos” is recommended in light of the fact that governments are debating how “existing laws which limit freedom of speech, for reasons such as incitement of violence or panic, might also be applied to online activities.” The globalist experts are not worried that the freedom of speech would be curtailed, they are worried how it would be enforced and who would be trusted to enforce it. Additionally, low education users are “much less knowledgeable than editors of traditional media outlets about laws relating to issues such as libel and defamation,” posing further problems.
It will be a very sad day when the Internet will be controlled to the point that all information will come from the alphabet soup networks that are now a self-appointed propaganda arm of the perennial presidential campaign. In a hyper connected world, the globalists want to shape the information culture to their desired designs, and to govern the digital media.
(d) Programmes
to promote the reduction of the heavy workload of women and girl
children at home and outside through the establishment of more and affordable
nurseries and kindergartens by Governments, local authorities, employers and
other relevant organizations and the sharing of household tasks by men and women
on an equal basis, and to promote the provision of environmentally sound
technologies which have been designed, developed and improved in consultation
with women, accessible and clean water, an efficient fuel supply and adequate
sanitation facilities;
(f) Programmes to support and strengthen equal employment opportunities and
equitable remuneration for women in the formal and informal sectors with
adequate economic, political and social support systems and services, including
child care, particularly day-care facilities and parental leave, and equal
access to credit, land and other natural resources;
children at home and outside through the establishment of more and affordable
nurseries and kindergartens by Governments, local authorities, employers and
other relevant organizations and the sharing of household tasks by men and women
on an equal basis, and to promote the provision of environmentally sound
technologies which have been designed, developed and improved in consultation
with women, accessible and clean water, an efficient fuel supply and adequate
sanitation facilities;
(f) Programmes to support and strengthen equal employment opportunities and
equitable remuneration for women in the formal and informal sectors with
adequate economic, political and social support systems and services, including
child care, particularly day-care facilities and parental leave, and equal
access to credit, land and other natural resources;
The
excerpt is found in Agenda 21, signed in 1992 by 178 countries; the document
describes in 40 chapters the eventual regulation of every aspect of human
behavior and economic activity once Agenda 21 is completely implemented around
the globe, making the United Nations and its global governance cabal the
ultimate authority.
The
two directives may be necessary in third world countries and nations ruled by
totalitarian regimes that discriminate and abuse women, but are definitely not necessary
in developed countries where women and children are protected by laws and the government’s
welfare system.
It
is not necessary to have further government intrusion in child care and equal
pay for women. The government already controls Head Start, k-12 education, with
not so stellar results in many states, while liberal professors complete the
socialist indoctrination at the university level. We already have laws that
prohibit employment discrimination based on gender.
Just
how much control do we need or want, and how much are the global governors
willing to inject into the various societies around the planet?
Jack
Doyle revealed that a new health service program in the U.K. called Everyone
Counts will force general practitioners to disclose confidential records to NHS
(National Health Service) involving weight, cholesterol, BMI (body mass index),
family health history, pulse rate, alcohol consumption, and smoking status. The
biggest data grab so far, the invasion of privacy will become permanent even
though officials have insisted that it will be deleted after analysis. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272166/Big-brother-log-drinking-habits-waist-size.html)
Once
Obamacare is fully implemented in the U.S., previous confidential data between
patient and doctor will become part of the government’s data base to be used as
they see fit.
But
the control does not stop here. When we shop in grocery stores, our buying habits
have been compiled and sold to the Department of Agriculture and other third
parties. The data can be stored and synchronized with the new health care cards
issued by the health care exchanges of Obamacare.
How
far of a stretch will it be to have special food purchase cards that must be
used anytime groceries are purchased? Could such cards prevent you from buying
alcohol or certain fattening foods, based on your specific health care
information? If you don’t comply, you may have to consult a doctor in order to change
your eating, drinking, smoking, or whatever unhealthy habits you may have.
The
New York City government is already meddling in the people’s sodium intake and the
size of beverages purchased. Portion size and food offerings have already been changed
in schools across the country and in some restaurants. That is not to say that
we should not be eating healthy food and drinking in moderation, however, why
should the government be the nanny that dictates what we eat or drink?
If
you think the idea far-fetched, consider this. The World Economic Forum 2013 in
Davos, Switzerland, recognized obesity as a danger to human health and discussed
how to deal with or tax those who are obese.
Fifty
global risks were assessed by 1,000 omniscient experts from industry,
government and academia, who were “polled on how they expect 50 global risks to
play out over the next ten years. The results were compiled into an analysis of
three major risk areas, Testing Economic and Environmental Resilience, Digital
Wildfires in a Hyperconnected World, and the Dangers of Hubris on Human
Health.” The Davos report also included a chapter on “X Factors,” concerns
identified by experts with unknown consequences. Although these consequences
are not known, it did not stop experts from speculating and scaring low
information humans into preventive compliance. (http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-risks)
Our
consumption of meds may be affected as international efforts are underway to
curtail use of antibiotics through government regulatory control. Global
monitoring of antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread is recommended. “Significant
reduction in antibiotic use can be achieved in human medicine.”
Davos
experts recommended the use of public-private partnerships, partnerships
promoted by U.N. Agenda 21, to incentivize the development of new antibiotics. Knowledge
must be shared freely between academia, private companies, and government regulators.
GlaxoSmithKline
(GSK) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation developed the “open-lab” research
concept in which patented monopolies and secrecy would no longer exist if
innovation is to be achieved. This flies in the face of capitalist beliefs that
ideas, entrepreneurship, and individual hard work are rewarded. Instead, the
Foundation advocates that ideas and research should be given away from
inception for the public good. It is easier to promote such generosity when you
already have amassed so many billions, you cannot possibly spend them in a
lifetime.
Davos
conference also reported that humans do not understand the risks from
satellites. Disruptions can be catastrophic in telephone service, financial
markets, Internet, banking, data centers, energy delivery via Smart Grid, TV
industry, weather predictions, emergency rescue, peacekeeping, and military
operations. The risks are identified as the three main “black swan” events:
-
Satellites
targeted in a conflict between states
-
Strong
geomagnetic storms
-
Collisions
with space debris
The
solution offered by the experts is more control – the “critical space-based
infrastructure” (satellites et al) must be managed sustainably – sustainability
is bedrock mantra of U.N. Agenda 21 control.
The
top five global risks by likelihood identified by Davos experts were:
-
Severe
income disparity
-
Chronic
fiscal imbalances
-
Rising
greenhouse gas emissions
-
Water
supply crises
-
Mismanagement
of population ageing
The
top five global risks by impact identified by Davos experts were:
-
Major
systemic financial failure
-
Water
supply crises
-
Chronic
fiscal imbalances
-
Food
shortage crises
-
Diffusion
of weapons of mass destruction (p. 10)
The
most interesting part of the Davos report is the chapter on “X Factors”
developed with the editors of Nature, the leading science journal, which
analyzes five “emerging game-changers:”
(p.
12)
-
Runaway
climate change (postulating that we have possibly passed the point of no
return, causing the planet’s atmosphere to go into the “inhospitable state” (I
know global warming/climate change has been debunked voluminously by science,
it appears that it does not matter to these people’s agenda)
-
Significant
cognitive enhancement (if athletes take drugs to enhance their abilities, why
not in daily life and particularly in “neural enhancement of combat troops”)
-
Rogue
deployment of geo-engineering (technology that manipulates the climate is
acceptable as long as a state or private individuals do not use it
unilaterally)
-
Costs
of living longer (prolonging life through palliative care is expensive and
“could be a struggle;” the report does not propose the alternative but it is
easy to read between the lines)
-
Discovery
of alien life (proof of life in the universe might profoundly affect the human
belief system psychologically)
Another interesting section of the Davos report deals with Digital Wildfire in a Hyperconnected World - Benefits and Risks of the Social Media as part of the Internet. Three examples illustrated a response from a disgruntled customer incident, a defamation of character incident, and “an affront to religious sensitivities” story.
“The existence on YouTube of a video entitled “Innocence of Muslims”, uploaded by a private individual in the United States, sparked riots across the Middle East. These riots are estimated to have claimed more than 50 lives.” (http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2013/risk-case-1/digital-wildfires-in-a-hyperconnected-world/#/view/fn-12)
Although it has been documented that the riots in the Middle East were not sparked by a video, the Davos report included this fallacy.
The experts seem to have misgivings about the fact that millions of individuals have the freedom to broadcast widely across the globe when prior to the Internet age only a handful of elite organizations had the capacity to broadcast extensively, and this “reality has challenging implications.”
The Davos report also mentions the concepts of “Astroturfing”, Satire, “Trolling,” and Attribution Difficulties. Nancy Pelosi did use the term “astroturfing” when referring to the Tea Party rallies.
Because the report considers social media as one of the greatest risks, a “global digital ethos” is recommended in light of the fact that governments are debating how “existing laws which limit freedom of speech, for reasons such as incitement of violence or panic, might also be applied to online activities.” The globalist experts are not worried that the freedom of speech would be curtailed, they are worried how it would be enforced and who would be trusted to enforce it. Additionally, low education users are “much less knowledgeable than editors of traditional media outlets about laws relating to issues such as libel and defamation,” posing further problems.
It will be a very sad day when the Internet will be controlled to the point that all information will come from the alphabet soup networks that are now a self-appointed propaganda arm of the perennial presidential campaign. In a hyper connected world, the globalists want to shape the information culture to their desired designs, and to govern the digital media.
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