Movies and Books, Inequality for All

A friend has mentioned recently how insidious and malicious is the work of progressives in this country who have one goal in mind, to destroy our culture. They should be called regressives since they are fond of shaping society in their warped view of reality, not building it up.

The Democracy for America opened Robert Reich’s film “Inequality for All” in theaters across the country, inviting interested Americans to organize movie nights with friends and “meet other progressives in your neighborhood, and build our national community.”

As the Campaign Manager for Democracy for America describes it, “This powerful and entertaining movie takes a closer look at the American economy and what we can do to make it work for everyone.”

How are we going to build the national community? Will it be on the ashes of the formerly successful capitalist economy brought to its knees by liberals who have destroyed every sector of the economy and every level of our education system?

I cannot think of a more successful economy than that of the United States, where even the poorest of the poor have cell phones with landlines (80.9%), computers (58.2%), televisions (96.1%), DVR (83%), refrigerators (97.8%), gas or electric stoves (96.6%), microwaves (93.2%), air conditioning (83%), washing machines (68.7%), dryers (65.3%), and dishwashers (65.3%). I personally did not own a dishwasher until 4 years ago and I certainly did not feel deprived. http://www.breibart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/Americans-in-Poverty-Have-TVs-VCRs-Cell-Phones-Air-Conditioning

And, according to the Democrats, come October 1, all Americans will have all the affordable healthcare in the world, free for the taking, available on demand, anytime, for any procedure possible, no rationing, and no wait. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-website-quietly-deletes-reference-free-health-care_757348.html

 If you want a better economic situation, luxury goods, work for them, nobody owes you anything, study hard, go to college, come up with novel ideas, invent something, take entrepreneurial risks, have talent, mortgage your house, spend all your savings to start a new business, don’t expect someone else to give it to you on a golden platter because some progressive group has told you that the United States is socially unjust. Have you traveled to the rest of the world to see the real poverty and social injustice of dictatorial regimes?

The American economy has been the envy of the world and the most prosperous in the history of mankind until five years ago when the decades-long work of progressivism is finally bearing fruit and the economy is in shambles.

There is nothing we can do at this point to make the economy work for everybody. The very people who have voted all this fundamental transformation, social justice and equity, are now finding themselves either unemployed, working part time, and without health insurance or a qualified physician available to provide medical care. How is that for progressive hope and change?

No matter what we do, no matter what economic model we follow or what form of government we adopt, it is impossible to have equality for all. There will always be someone smarter, better educated, more beautiful, more successful, more entrepreneurial, more determined, and luckier than you. Government cannot mandate economic equality. The propaganda of economic equality will ultimately entice gullible citizens en masse into equal misery called communism.

One of the goals of global governance was to destroy books published before 1979, starting with children’s books – an easy way to erase history from future generations and to feed them manufactured, revisionist history in line with the progressive agenda.

In the past, discarded library books were donated to various organizations or sold to the public to raise money for local libraries strapped for cash. The Washington Post reported that Fairfax County Public Library System in Virginia has “tossed” 250,000 books as a plan to “reduce costs and bring the county’s library system into the digital age.” Previously, books have been donated to a group called Friends of the Library but no such donations had been made in seven months. County Supervisor Lynda Smyth, who investigated the claim, found a dumpster full of books. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-13/opinions/42041321_1_library-books-library-staff-library-patrons

Was the dumpster disposal deliberate or just a mistake in the eagerness to digitize the system?

Ray Bradbury published a dystopian novel in 1953 called “Fahrenheit 451.” In this novel, the American society of the future prohibits ownership of books and “firemen” like Guy Montag have the power to burn outlawed books found hidden by citizens eager to preserve the printed word. Bradbury chose the title “Fahrenheit 451” because he thought this temperature to be the point when paper self-ignited. The story presents book burning as a way to prevent any dissenting ideas and goals.

Montag (Monday) is loyal to this dystopian society; he lacks real knowledge, believes everything he hears and all empty promises, experiences inner conflicts, and decides to free himself.  He survives nuclear annihilation with other men who have memorized books to preserve them for a time when printing would be allowed again.

Montag’s wife, Mildred, is a superficial and delusional woman, who watches soap operas on her salon walls (a type of flat-panel television), indifferent to the oppressive society around her.  She betrays her husband and notifies the “firemen” that her husband is hoarding forbidden books. Close family betrayal to the security police happened often under oppressive communist regimes like the “Stasi” police in East  Germany and “Securitatea” in communist Romania.

The book ends with the reassuring story of the phoenix rising from the ashes told by Granger who explains that humans are superior to the phoenix because they remember how the world was before it burned and can rebuild, making sure they never make the same mistake again.

Unfortunately humans are not that way as Bradbury’s character Granger portrayed them. They do forget mistakes quickly, never learn from them, and thus repeat history. Granger thinks that a large factory of mirrors should be built so that humanity can take a good look at itself and have a reality check from time to time.

In a radio interview in 1956, Ray Bradbury explained that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 at a time when he was concerned about censorship during the McCarthy era and the threat to freedom of expression. Later, however, Bradbury explained his motive for writing the book in “more general terms.” Interestingly, recent declassified documents reveal that McCarthy was right all along, there were quite a few communists in Hollywood.

It is a known fact that communists have banned all books that disagreed with and contradicted their basic Marxist ideology. But they were not alone. Hitler ordered many public and well-orchestrated burnings of books and paintings that he found unacceptable to his fascistic ideals and goals.

Leftists proclaim that they “stand for democracy, progress, human rights, and social justice.” History has shown, however, when they “seize power, they introduce slavery, terror, famine, concentration camps, and mass murder.” One of the reasons they want to ban books and replace them with liberal propaganda is that books become indelible testimony to the lies and crimes committed across the centuries. Making movies that distort economic reality is an easy way to dupe the masses who were asleep in class or never took a business/economics course.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Coal Miners and Mountaintop Strip Mining

I was in a terminal at Reagan National Airport recently and an electronic ad drew my attention. It was the beautiful face of a middle aged gentleman creased by time, worries, and hard work. He introduced himself as Sid. “I’m proud of my Appalachian roots,” he said. “And I won’t give up on our mountains.” In smaller letters, at the bottom of the ad sponsored by Earth Justice, earthjustice.org/MyStory, was one sentence, “Tell us your story to help stop mountaintop removal coal mining.”

I became intrigued and decided to check this story out. After all, I want to keep mountain tops intact and our environment as clean as possible. I love nature and marvel at God’s magnificent creation. I also realize that nature can unleash so many disasters on our planet that land formations are forever destroyed and areas no longer look the same.

The Congressional Research Service published a recent report, “Mountaintop Mining: Background on Current Controversies,” describing the practice of removing the top of a mountain in order to recover coal seams trapped in the rock within, currently done in six Appalachian states, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Ohio on 12 million acres. (Claudia Copeland, Specialist in Resources and Environmental Policy, April 29, 2013)

The issues she described involve both the critics and the proponents of this type of mining:

-          Critics want it stopped entirely because the mining fills the valleys with tons of broken rocks and dirt, affecting stream water quality and the habitat of aquatic life and wildlife

-          Proponents claim that it is not economically feasible to discharge the rock and dirt somewhere else and this type of low sulfur coal is needed

-          Environmental groups were able to stop mountaintop mining project permits at the federal district court level, sometimes overturned on appeal, and then reversed again

-          Environmental criticism caused “some regulatory changes” to reduce the harmful environmental impact from mountaintop mining in Appalachia

-          Environmental groups were critical that the EPA’s restrictions did not go far enough with the enhanced permit review process

-          The additional scrutiny has angered the coal industry; EPA has vetoed a mine permit in West Virginia, was overturned by a federal court, and that ruling was recently reversed on appeal

-          111^th Congress sought to restrict the practice of mountaintop mining but also issued legislation to block the Obama Administration’s regulatory actions

-          113^th Congress introduced bills to clarify or restrict EPA’s authority to veto Clean Water Act (CWA) permits issued by the Corps (H.R. 524 and S. 830)

According to federal law, the rock, broken with explosives and moved with massive draglines, a type of earth moving equipment, must be placed back in the mined areas, “returning the lands to their approximate original contour.” That is something hard to do since broken rocks take up more volume than the original intact boulders, and any pile of broken rock becomes unstable. Thus the excess rock is “typically placed in valley fills on the sides of the former mountain,” burying streams flowing through the valleys, stream chemistry is harmed, and  aquatic life is impaired  downstream.

Why is mountaintop mining then popular? According to the Congressional Research Service Report, there are three main reasons:

1.      “There is a demand for the relatively clean-burning, low-sulfur coal found in Appalachia.

2.      Coal supplies near the surface have been significantly depleted.

3.      The development of large surface mining equipment (draglines) can move 100 cubic yards of earth in a single scoop.” (p. 1)

In the case of mountaintop mining, regulatory valley fills fall under two federal statutes, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA, 30 U.S.C., par. 1201) and the Clean Water Act (CWA, 33 U.S.C. par. 1252).

Section 404 permits are issued by the “Corps for the discharge of dredged or fill material, using guidelines promulgated by EPA in conjunction with the Corps.” Permits are issued for a “particular site and nationwide (general) for categories of discharges that are similar and have a minimal impact on the waters of the United States.” Enforcing the Endangered Species Act (35 U.S.C. par. 1531) and the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act (16 U.S.C. par. 661) is the responsibility of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) which considers how fish and wildlife are impacted and ensures that endangered species are protected. (p. 3)

I have seen a mountaintop mine in Pennsylvania and I can attest that it was unsettling to see a barren and dark grey area which used to be covered by lush forests and mountainous landscape. It reminded me of a lunar landscape.

At the same time, everything we do in our modern life involves the use of electricity which is primarily obtained from fossil fuels, especially coal. I don’t want to reverse our daily life back to early middle ages – I prefer a carefully managed middle of the road approach to “stewardship” of the environment, to use a word highly over advertised by Agenda 21 proponents. If we are not willing good stewards of everything, we must be nudged and forced by the deciders of what is good and proper - liberals, environmental NGOs, and the EPA octopus.

I am not sure environmentalists are willing to give up all their electronic gadgets, homes, cars, and everything else that is based on fossil fuels and electricity generated with fossil fuels, and move into caves. Renewables, at the current state, do not provide enough energy to supply over six billion people with their daily power needs.

Erosion of mountain tops occurs naturally over time due to wind, rain, ice, snow, avalanche, and deforestation from tree disease, unusual droughts, fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions; it is not solely caused by man-made activity such as tree cutting and coal mining.

The Earth Justice website paints a bleak picture of strip mining which has “devastated Appalachia,” claiming that “in the past few decades, over 2,000 miles of streams and headwaters that provide drinking water to millions of Americans have been permanently buried and destroyed. An area the size of Delaware has been flattened. Local coal communities routinely face devastating floods and adverse health effects.”

If so many miles of streams that provide drinking water to millions had been buried, how do these millions get their drinking water? I also wonder if the cancer rate and lung-related illnesses are higher in these areas and if so, do we have factual evidence?

The 13,000 plus people who added their signatures on the Earth Justice website are demanding an end to mountaintop strip mining. Beautiful, young, and smiling faces, writing from various campuses around the nation, add their support to the cause of protecting “the people, communities and waters of Appalachia.”

According to the website, Earth Justice, Appalachian Mountain Advocate and Public Justice are “working in federal courts” on behalf of Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Sierra Club, Kentuckians for The Commonwealth, Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, and Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM).

I pondered how many real miners and those employed in mining-support jobs are members of these environmentalist organizations (NGOs) and if they are on board with losing their jobs and their livelihoods derived from mining activities.  I also wondered how many communities were actually relocated because of mountaintop mining.  Come to think of it, was re-settlement of mass populations not one of the goals of Agenda 21?

I checked the website for links that connected to medical studies, CDC illness data, cancer rates related to mountaintop strip mining, but I must have missed them.

Another group mentioned, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment (SOCM), located in Tennessee, is “working for social, economic, and environmental justice for all.” Their mission states, “We are committed to the journey of becoming an anti-racist organization. Recognizing our interdependence, SOCM is committed to overcoming social and institutional racism and embracing our diverse cultures.” I pondered what overcoming social and institutional racism and embracing our diverse cultures had to do with mountaintop strip mining.  http://www.socm.org/

Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards (SAMS) are “concerned community members and their allies who are working to stop the destruction of our communities by surface coal mining, to improve the quality of life in our area, and to help rebuild sustainable communities.”

The citizens are concerned about the new mountaintop coal removal project in Dickerson County, Virginia.  SAMS, the Sierra Club, and allies have asked the EPA to deny permit for this mine because it “would destroy local communities, pushing people out, property values down, and hope for a better tomorrow away. This mine would poison local streams that provide an economic lifeline through growing eco and adventure tourism in the area.” I am not trying to diminish these grievances, but what is eco and adventure tourism? Is that euphemism for hiking? http://www.samsva.org/

The alternative proposed is to build U.N. Agenda 21’s sustainable communities. Agenda 21 advocates for solar energy, wind energy, biking, no cars if possible, walking, commune type living that does not harm the environment at all and leaves as little human foot print as possible. Exempted, of course, are the Hollywood types, politicians, billionaires, and elites in general who can own as many jets, McMansions, and expensive cars as they can possibly afford. Their use of fossil fuels is perfectly excusable; they are the all-knowing elites who tell us what to do.

Kentuckians for The Commonwealth are an organization formed by a “community of people, inspired by a vision, building new power and a better future for all of us. Together, we organize for a fair economy, a healthy environment, new safe energy and an honest democracy.”  I’ve seen this word, vision, before, used in the “visioning committees” of ICLEI, the infiltrating agents among city planners who developed Green Growth/Smart City rezoning around the country in line with Agenda 21 goals, land owners be damned. If rezoning does not work, eminent domain is a powerful tool of land confiscation in the name of public good. Like the light purple rail being built in northern Virginia – a country club fought with developers and won some concessions because the rail was an ugly addition to their green grass golfing paradise. But 100 or so homeowners were not so lucky, they were bought out.

This particular organization’s vision involves “good jobs without damage to the water, air, and land,” “companies and the wealthy pay their share of taxes and can’t buy elections,” people have health care, shelter, food, education, and other basic needs,” “children are listened to and valued,” “discrimination is wiped out of our laws, habits, and hearts,” and “voices of ordinary people are heard and respected in our democracy.” I honestly don’t know what all the above community organizing/social justice/children belong to the community/election/progressive propaganda has to do with mountaintop strip mining and I am not sure that good jobs exist or any jobs without coal generated energy or jobs that don’t do any damage to water, air, and land. Even teaching, preaching, or indoctrination is not entirely environmentally damage free. They do exhale CO2 just for starters. http://www.kftc.org/about-us/mission-vision

At this point, I was tired of searching these propaganda websites. I did not see one miner who advocated for the loss of his job and of his livelihood in order to give these organizations and their supporters their pristine land back without any human footprint or coal exploration.

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), mining is the most highly concentrated industries in Appalachia (1.58 times the national share) and mining had the highest job growth in 2000-2008 (39.7%). http://www.arc.gov/images/appregion/Sept2011/EconomicOverviewSept2011.pdf

The Daily Caller wrote recently that the James River Coal company is closing several mines in eastern Kentucky and laying off 525 employees. The GOP blames the EPA regulations. Rep. Hal Rogers (Kentucky-R) told the Daily Caller, “Deliberate anti-coal energy policies are sending thousands of families in my region to the unemployment line.” Lower priced natural gas is the second culprit as it is fast replacing coal in generating electricity. Rogers blamed President Obama’s “War on Coal” for 6,200 unemployed eastern Kentucky miners and thousands more laboring in mining support businesses.

The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet (KEEC) reported that a total of 12,342 people are working in Kentucky coal mines, the lowest number on record since statistics were kept in 1927.

As the EPA bans the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless carbon capture and storage technology are used, an impossibility since capture and storage are not commercially available yet, more mines will be closed and miners will lose their jobs.

While denying that a “War on Coal” exists, the Obama administration provided $8 billion in loan guarantees to biofuels, carbon capture, and storage technology development.

The onerous EPA sent its Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force dressed in full body armor to check water quality in Chicken, Alaska, a gold mining town of 17 full-time residents and dozens of seasonal miners.  Sean Doogan reported that miners were surprised that such drastic measures were taken instead of just showing up and taking water samples. http://www.alaskadispatch.com/print/article/2013/gold-miners-near-chicken-cry-foul-over-heavy-handed-epa-raids

As I look back at the electronic ad in the airport, I wonder, what our green energy quota will be in this country, as utilities will struggle to meet the outrageous demands coming from the federal government, while more and more coal-generating power plants will be closed, and more miners will lose their jobs. Mining will become the elephant in the room relic while we will strain our eyes to read by an anemic CFL bulb mandated by the EPA, said bulb requiring a Hazmat suit to dispose of in case it breaks. Our nights will be very dark in the near future with less ambient light in the sky. What will happen to nightlife in Vegas? Will United States’ night view from space be like North Korea’s?

 

Obamacare, This Won't Hurt a Bit

Thousands of articles have been written and commentaries made since the Affordable Care Act nobody can afford had passed. In spite of the vociferous demands to defund it coming from the majority of the American people who work for a living instead of voting more welfare for themselves, the best health care in the world will gradually disappear, replaced by a radical form of socialized medicine that most Americans are not prepared to understand or accept.

Obamacare is now the law of the land for some, depending on which parts the president decides to implement and which to delay. The elected representatives have turned a deaf ear to all the calls, rallies, faxes, letters, op-eds, and direct visits to their offices. They were so sure this type of medical insurance/care that John Roberts termed a “tax” was right for Americans that they exempted themselves from its burden. Furthermore, when our Congressmen who make a six-figure salary complained that the exchange rates were so prohibitively expensive, they received a special 75% subsidy to defray the cost. Who is going to help Americans who make too much income to qualify for subsidies?

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas made a 21 hour valiant effort in the Senate to give a final voice to the unhappy Americans who wanted to keep their private medical insurance, their doctors, the affordable insurance rates and plans, their full-time jobs, and the ability to see a physician or have a test in a timely manner. Sen. Cruz was ridiculed and maligned not just by liberals. Supposed conservatives and RINOs were tripping over themselves on the way to the microphones in a chorus of criticism to attack Sen. Cruz’s character, credentials, experience, and his noble intentions.

The government computers were not properly working and interfacing yesterday to tell Americans exactly how much they would need to pay come October 1, 2013. And these bureaucrats are going to tell us whether we can or cannot have certain medical procedures and are going to be the repository of more than 307 million people’s medical records, including our sexual habits, and the most intimate details of our lives from birth to death.

A neurosurgeon called into a nationally syndicated show telling the host that the infamous death panel is already at work, advising him on whom he can operate and to whom he must refuse surgery. I wonder how that would square off with the Hippocratic Oath doctors have taken upon medical school graduation.

Even the Teamsters union, the main supporters of the Obamacare, have change their tune now and asked for another exemption from a law that will destroy their Cadillac insurance plans and medical care.  They were denied.

Since 85 percent of Americans had some form of medical insurance, The Affordable Care Act was supposedly designed and passed to help the 15 percent uninsured. At the end of the full implementation of Castro Care, there will still be 30 million uninsured and millions of workers relegated to part-time work to help employers avoid the penalties of the law. Employers could not continue to offer highly expensive private insurance plans whose cost have been driven into the stratosphere by the onerous demands of Obamacare.

Obamacare has turned our country’s labor market into a part-time work nation. It is debatable that it was an unintended consequence. If this law was about health care, wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just purchase insurance for the 15 percent uninsured through some federal program? After all, we waste billions and trillions on wars without end and purpose, and we have enough money to arm Al Qaeda terrorists and the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East.

Come January 1, 2014, people who chose not to buy insurance because they cannot afford the bare minimum $20,000 a year Bronze Plan for a family of four, they will have to pay a fine/tax of $95 or one percent of their incomes. Since taxes are paid for the previous year when the ACA was in force only three months (October-December), would the fine/tax for 2013 be prorated? I don’t think so.

We have been bombarded by doctors, including our cat’s vet, to create a portal into the electronic compliance that the doctors must submit to the federal government in order to make sure that all of our medical data is out there for the world to hack into. The emails keep coming with messages from family doctors to create these portals and I keep ignoring them.

Concierge medicine is more and more enticing to a lot of people until Congress will pass an amendment to the Obamacare that will ban medical services for cash. In northern Virginia many doctors already do not accept any form of government insurance and concierge medicine is quite popular. But some people cannot afford the upfront membership fee being that it is higher than the yearly premiums they used to pay for comprehensive insurance through their employer.

Trader Joe’s part-time employees and other companies’ employees had really good insurance for affordable monthly premiums. Not anymore, Obamacare made sure that it was destroyed. I hope that these very people who voted so enthusiastically for President Obama twice, and have now lost their health insurance, realize that this law was not about insuring the uninsured or improved health care delivery or fairness, it was about control. “Evil” capitalist choices who kept people alive and well, the envy of the rest of the world, have been eliminated with the stroke of a presidential pen. Americans have nobody else to blame but themselves.

My sweet Mother, who is 81 years old and way passed Castro Care’s cut off age for any meaningful medical care, visits, tests, or procedures, has become a “unit” and must already beg her physician for her arthritis medication refills. They are too expensive when computed into the death panel formula for her usefulness to society.

Mom helped raise three children and survived the oppressive communist regime in Romania. She immigrated to the United States, the land of abundance and freedom, to live the rest of her life in peace and free of worries.

My Mom is a lucky octogenarian who does not have any major health issues. If she did, she would be told by the IRS, our new doctors, to go home and take a pill, she had lived a long life already.  It angers me that Obamacare makes mom’s life irrelevant and inconvenient.

The worth of any society is dictated by how well they treat the sick and the elderly and how much they value life. It is shameful how low we have fallen since we’ve allowed a liberal minority to control who lives and who dies. As a society, we have lost our humanity.

National Blogtalk Radio with Silvio Canto 9-23-13

My weekly radio chat with Silvio Canto Jr. on Obamacare and the debt ceiling.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2013/09/24/the-us-economy-with-dr-ileana-johnson

Butler on Business, 9-25-13, Mountaintop mining

Butler on Business, my talk with Alan on mountaintop mining and high electricity rates from renewables, I come on at the 54 minute mark.
http://host1.cyberears.com//21464.mp3

Are Germany's High Electricity Rates Coming to the United States?

Environmentalists have told us that we must reduce the escalating levels of CO2 or we risk a complete meltdown of our entire global ice cap and massive planetary destruction. Not only is the ice cap 60 percent larger this year but we have been in a cooling period for the past 16 years. Even the United Nation’s expert on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), had to admit that their computer modeling predicting global warming Armageddon was wrong.

Based on this alarmist erroneous information, most countries have made and are making fundamental changes to the way they live and do business. Germany was one of the first European countries to jump on the wind and solar renewable energy bandwagon, abandoning nuclear power generation after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Consequently, according to Spiegel Online International, Germans were forced to pay the highest electricity rates in Europe. “Germany’s energy poverty” hit the underprivileged the hardest when “electricity became a luxury good.” Welfare and pension checks were not adjusted to accommodate for higher prices. Over 300,000 Germans a year have their electricity cut off because they cannot afford to pay their electric bills. “Two-thirds of the price increase is due to new government fees, surcharges and taxes.”

The renewable energy is generating so many tax surcharges, Germans can no longer keep up – there is a surcharge to finance the power grids, and collateral damage charges from energy surplus or deficit, depending on the weather and the time of the day.

In winter time, when the wind stops blowing, the coal and oil power plants are fired up to provide electricity, releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the maligned carbon dioxide that is so necessary for plant life to thrive.

Wind turbines are turned off if there is too much electricity coming from the grid. But consumers have to pay for the “phantom electricity” the turbines are theoretically generating.

On numerous occasions, Germany pays fees to dump already subsidized green energy. Experts call this "negative electricity prices."

Plants, like ArcelorMittal steel in Hamburg that use up a lot of energy, are asked to shut down production if there is an electricity shortage in order to protect the smart grid. Ordinary electricity customers “are expected to pay to compensate these businesses for lost profits.”

Wind turbines on the offshore wind farms on the island of Borkum in the North Sea are spinning but are not connected to the grid yet – the connection cable won’t be ready until next year. The turbines must be kept running with Diesel fuel in order to prevent rusting.

There are many other hidden costs:

-          the ocean cables – and they are not cheap;

-          a giant yellow electrical socket the size of a building that is supposed to store and transport electricity through the cables at a cost of one billion euros but has a lifespan of 20 years;

-          stopping the entire wind generation operation during high seas;

-          stopping the operation when porpoises and their young are spotted (their hearing might be affected but nobody seems to care if humans are affected by the annoying hum);

-          low demand for electricity in the sparsely populated coastal regions, necessitating the installation of high-voltage power lines which transport electricity to the center and southern regions of Germany with a high population concentration;

-          no incentive for electricity storage because it may cause the smart grid to become unstable.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

For Germany, it all adds up to a disaster in the making and an explosion of electricity prices per kWh, at least 40% or more. For those 300,000 or so Germans who cannot pay their bills annually, it is a cave dwelling existence in the dark.  If we consider Obama administration’s “War on Coal,” coal that generates 49% percent of our electricity, high prices are coming soon to our homes via the drone attached to our houses, the Smart Meter.

I recall my childhood with my grandparents who only lived 5 miles from town but did not have electricity until the mid-1970s. It was very hard reading by an oil lamp. We had to go to bed at sundown. No radio, no TV, no reading in the dark, no reading during the day, too many chores to do, nothing but a primitive lifestyle revolving around planting, weeding, and harvesting crops. We gathered in pitch darkness in the road sometimes and exchanged stories about daily happenings. Must must we go back to this lifestyle and why?

 

 

 

 

 

Too Late to Reverse Indoctrination?

Scanning the newspaper today, I was wondering what else would shock me in the education section, knowing that we are a few decades too late to do much about it even if we tried.

A teacher in Virginia has ordered a student to turn his shirt inside out because the message content was offensive. The t-shirt pictured Si Robertson, the jocular sage uncle of the Duck Dynasty clan, a tight-knit family with traditional American values, who believe in God, country, and hunting. The wonderful Robinson family members are the type of Americans who made this country great.  

Progressives have labeled and derided real patriotic Americans who are proud of our history, of our exceptionalism, of our way of life, the “cling to your guns, Bible beating, and fly over country” Americans.

Conservative Americans’ healthy values are being challenged by self-loathing, dumbed down indoctrinated progressives who hate their country and everything it stands for. Liberal teachers and administrators do not bat an eye when their students show up for class in Che Guevara, Karl Marx, and Fidel Castro t-shirts – those are enlightened garments and it would violate their freedom of speech to tell them to change into more appropriate clothing.

Does it surprise me that the whole country is now adopting Common Core educational standards that introduce revisionist history on purpose, praise wrong answers if the students feel good and justified in their incorrect calculations, and “educators” teach Ebonics instead of proper English? It does not surprise me because the decay and rot have been coming for years – it has accelerated since the introduction of the State Department of Education in 1979-1980. Carter was such a terrible president but his crowning achievement was the toxic Department of Education.

A Maryland school board meeting recently turned into bullying of parents when they tried to ask questions about the adoption of Common Core standards without community input. One father was assaulted by a man wearing a white t-shirt with the words “Security” written on it. This parent was later arrested after being physically forced out of the meeting while the superintendent droned on.  Why were the rest of the parents silent and not jumping to help him? Is this America anymore? You be the judge. http://michellemalkin.com/2013/09/20/parents-you-need-to-question-these-people-shock-video-of-dad-arrested-at-school-meeting-after-challenging-common-core/

Common Core standards do not represent just abject mediocrity; they indoctrinate students into community organizing and the collective mindset, the hallmarks of socialism/Marxism. Michelle Malkin said, “Stanford University professor James Milgram, a prominent dissenting member of the Common Core math standards committee, has exposed how the muddled standards would leave American students at least two years behind the rest of the planet.” http://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/james-milgram-testimony-to-the-indiana-senate-committee/

One particular English lesson in Common Core for beginning 9^th graders is clearly designed to corrupt human decency, presenting perversion as a norm and as an individual choice. The selfish, evil woman in Guy de Maupassant story, “The Mother of Monsters,” deliberately binds her body to give birth to 11 grotesquely deformed children, “monsters,” which she sells to carnivals. The first born is a mistake; she is just a shopkeeper girl who tries to hide her pregnancy by binding her body tightly. The subsequent ten babies are deliberately deformed for financial gain.  

Instead of presenting her evil side which most decent humans would revile, the Common Core standards present her as “bourgeois,” (alluding to making money), and “a woman who expressed her individuality in the face of outside pressure.” This story is not about individuality, this woman was pure evil, and she chose to deform her children for her own selfish financial gain and vanity. Yet the Common Core assignment asks students to write an essay on how this character demonstrates individuality in the face of outside pressure. http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/08/monstrous-story-monstrous-curriculum-ugly-heart-common-core/#cvZ4F6vwdybl7Mos.99

Back to stark reality, in a small town in the south, the single conservative teacher was denied a retirement party because of her politics. The local paper that held a tight liberal monopoly over all the mass media, refused to even print a student’s paid ad about the teacher’s retirement. At the same time, an entire page was dedicated to the retirement of the very liberal local principal who thought that the liberal guru, Thomas Friedman, was a great economist and his advice should be emulated and his writings studied in depth.

The darling of the school system, a young woman who taught science in the public schools, was a nut case who pretended to have cancer and walked around with a chemo pump, luxuriating in the attention and pity her colleagues lavished upon her daily. Several teachers took time off to drive her weekly to a town sixty miles away to get her infusion drugs. They would wait patiently for three hours in the waiting room, while the supposed cancer stricken teacher would walk out the back door and go shopping. After a few months of this deranged game, people caught on that she was not sick. It did not stop them from electing her teacher of the year for the entire state. She was transferred quietly to another town’s school system with glowing recommendations. Such is the liberal dementia in our public schools.

Is there any wonder that Common Core standards are taking over our school system in exchange for federal grants?  It starts with first grade textbooks such as “Voices, Literature and Writing.” The book is meant to be part of the English Language Arts curriculum but instead, it prompts students to “use their voices to advocate solutions to social problems that they care deeply about like social role models, social advocacy, and developing a Democracy Plan to help people in need.” The first graders I know only care about play and recess, they don’t understand social advocacy. First graders don’t think about ways to organize people in their communities to fix social problems, this is community organizing indoctrination, this is communist indoctrination 101, the brainchild of moneyed liberals with fundamental transformation goals for our society.

 

Are We Too Late To Stop U.N. Agenda 21?

The global cabal of U.N. Agenda 21 is behind global warming, regionalism, zoning, land and water use control, wealth redistribution, weakening and eventual replacement of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, global warming, cap and trade, Smart Grid, Smart Meters, carbon taxes, high gasoline prices, global citizens, IB World Schools, Common Core nationalized education standards, biofuels, Marxist advancement across the globe, food control, water access control via the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), gun control, health control, the Arab Spring/Winter, unchecked illegal immigration, and they are unstoppable. They’ve had 100 years of preparation ahead of us. Their effort is bearing fruit on every facet of our lives and around the globe.

I am certainly not advocating surrender, freedom is worth fighting for, and we are the last bastion of freedom in America. If America goes, so does the rest of the world. Other nations want us to fight because they’ve given up.

I was told by a very conservative ladies’ group that we must be careful not to use the word Agenda 21 lest we are labeled “loons.” In other words, let’s self-censor and enable the Agenda 21 to march on unrestrained because we have to appear that we are trusty team players.

Having survived communism and seeing all the elements of global governance, I am not going to mince works. I have already been labeled “aggender” because I have ample research evidence that Agenda 21 exists, a “denier” because I do not believe in global warming, it is a manufactured crisis by the Club of Rome, IPCC, and other like-minded environmentalist-based groups and NGOs, based on verbal agreement called “consensus,” and faulty and manipulated data. I was called “islamophobe” because I gave a speech on Agenda 21 on the same stage that another person used when speaking about Sharia Law – that makes me guilty by proximity. I am a “racist” and “bigot” because I am definitely against amnesty and illegal immigration.

Nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts have finally started speaking about Agenda 21 elements – they describe seemingly unrelated components of it and thus ordinary people, who do not have the time to do research, have difficulty connecting the dots into the larger picture. I connected many of the stories in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1379601599&sr=1-1&keywords=un+agenda+21%3A+Environmental+piracy

Survivors of communism know and are speaking out. A political refuge from Romania appealed to the St. Lucie County Commissioners in Florida at a recent meeting about the U.N. environmental regionalist Seven50 plans for Florida. “I do not come here to lose my freedom; I beg you – get out of the Seven/50. Do not destroy our Freedom.” www.westernjournalism.com/author/suzanne-eovaldi/

Citizens vociferously opposed such regionalism. “I am opposed to Seven50… to the loss of our property rights by U.N. Agenda 21, the new world order communist Marxist project.” According to Suzanne Eovaldi, a long line of speakers and refugees from former communist countries pleaded with “local elected officials to reject the takeover of Florida’s private property.” One speaker wondered, “Why am I arguing for what has always been my right… for all that made America great.”

Large grants from HUD and the Obama administration divides the country into 11 nationwide regions, including the east coast of Florida. The Seven50 Regionalism Plan has already been adopted in the Gore triangle counties south of St. Lucie and Indian River counties. Vero Beach, IRC rejected the plan based on a “vertical authority flow chart” controlled by unelected federal bureaucrats influenced by globalist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who plan to “stack-and-pack 200-foot dwelling spaces” and move citizens off their hard-earned private property. My family and I had experience with such social engineering and confiscation of property, forcibly being relocated off our land into tiny high rise apartments. Life in the 9-story concrete block apartments into which we were moved under protest and duress was very hard, especially since we did not have elevators to climb to our tiny cubicles. Sharing one bathroom and one kitchen with another family of four in a 600 square foot apartment was dehumanizing.

Suzanne Eovaldi describes the typical stack-and-pack living quarters in the 200 square foot aPodments building in Sammamish, Washington. Resident Judy Green “shares the kitchen with seven other tenants on the second floor.” To get to her loft cubicle, she must climb six flights of stairs in the absence of elevators. Cars are not allowed because of global warming. The micro-apartments are the size of a hotel room and rent for $600-900 per month.  The micro-housing units increase the population density of the area tremendously. http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020845443_apodmentscitycouncilxml.html

The Seven50 is the Southeast Florida Regional Partnership of non-elected bureaucrats who have a “vision” for the rest of us, a vision driven by ICLEI and our own government to control land and water use, plants and animals, energy, construction, humans. Local control is gone and the funding comes from federal agencies doling out taxpayer dollars. In other words, we are losing our own sovereignty to the U.N. with our own taxpayer dollars.

The government knows best what “Best Practices” counties must adopt and these practices are not defined, they will be developed on a bureaucratic whim later. There will be changes to the counties’ desired low density character and scale. The bureaucrats will impose “sustainable development” and “equitable communities.” Smart Growth is certainly the linchpin of Agenda 21. The American Coalition 4 Property Rights explains on its website why the Seven50 Regional plan must be stopped with its Sustainable Urbanism, and the Smart Code solution to urban sprawl. Regionalism will fundamentally alter the make-up of our society and of our property rights or lack thereof. http://nomoreunelectedbureaucrats.com/

Rush Limbaugh explained in his September 12, 2013 monologue, “The Unintended Consequences of Liberal Social Engineering,” what “equitable communities” and Smart Growth are.

Limbaugh described the failed bussing social engineering project in the 1970s when kids were forcibly bussed around the country to schools outside of their neighborhoods, as far away as 45 minutes. Liberals used the power of government to force people where to send their kids to school because liberals did not like where Americans chose to live – they were too racist.

Rush Limbaugh said, “Social engineering is on the verge of being imposed on entire neighborhoods, adults and children alike.” The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will dismantle local zoning and force people to move into certain areas in order to achieve what they consider “racial, economic, and ethnic diversity.” This is “nationalizing neighborhoods” on a grand scale. This is done for our “own good and to achieve utopia.”

If local governments do not comply with the HUD mandate, their federal funding will be cut. HUD has already told Westchester County, New York, that “local governments will have to take meaningful action to further the goals identified. If they fail to comply, HUD can cut federal funding. HUD has told Westchester County that any limits on the size, type, height, and density of buildings are ‘restrictive practices.’”

By obliterating zoning regulations, Rush Limbaugh said, we will have neighborhoods by government quota. The elites, of course, will be excluded from this social engineering scheme.

The Obama administration and liberals in general are fascinated by mass transit, buses, subways, trains and do not like suburbia, they wish to dismantle it. Incidentally, Agenda 21 wants to do away with suburbia and move people off their land into high rise, highly dense settlements in large cities, accessed by public transportation, five minute walk from work, school, and play, with no access to cars and parking.

Mass transit limits our mobility yet our country’s freedom, development, and achievement was defined by our unbounded mobility. If the government controls mass transit, they will control the routes, they will control where we can and cannot go, hence the off-limits lands to human access, lands given back to wilderness.

Rush Limbaugh pointed out that “HUD’s power grab is based on the mistaken belief that zoning and discrimination are the same, zoning is disguised discrimination.”

Milennials, the products of years of liberal education, “do not wish to own cars.” They’ve been brainwashed by environmentalist teachers into believing that cars are bad for the environment, causing pollution and thus global warming.

Rush Limbaugh explained in his September 17, 2013 monologue, “Global Warming Scientists: We Were Wrong,” the connection of all the chess pieces in this global game based on a climate hoax. He correctly identifies IPCC as the “repository for the hoax” and how the “University of East Anglia in Britain… and this guy at Penn State with his fake hockey stick graph, these guys all reported to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). All of these models that they constructed over the years predicted calamity by now, and the calamity never happened.”

By 2005 we should have been destroyed by global warming. Oppenheimer said in 1985 that we had 20 years if we didn’t reduce greenhouse gases.  We are still here. All these environmentalists and the IPCC use the global warming excuse to “justify increasing fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable energy.’”

Even though IPCC scientists admit that their “computers may have exaggerated the effect of increased carbon emissions on world temperatures – and not taken enough notice of natural variability,” it did not stop National Geographic from dedicating its entire September 2013 issue to global warming. A Statue of Liberty submerged half way into the ocean is superimposed by the large title in capital letters, “RISING SEAS, Mapping a World without Ice.”

Satellite photos of Arctic ice taken by NASA in August 26, 2012 and August 15, 2013 show a 60 percent increase in the polar ice sheet, even though environmental modelers warned us six years ago that the North Pole would have melted by now. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore had cited U.S. climate scientist Wieslaw Maslowski in his December 2007 acceptance speech, “Earth has a fever,” that the North Pole would be “ice-free by 2013.” He was wrong by 920,000 square miles. The polar ice cap is the largest since 2006. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/wrong-al-gore-predicted-arctic-summer-ice-could-disappear-2013#sthash.EQBSeKbY.RGnPeQoU.dpuf

Al Gore’s “planetary emergency and the threat to the survival of our civilization,” a.k.a. global warming hoax, has turned into billions of dollars lucrative schemes for many global warming alarmists.

The global warming crowd keeps crowing that we have the power to destroy the planet. Rush says, very wisely, “We don’t have any such power. We couldn’t do this if we wanted to.” Deniers like us are targeted for character assassination because we are interfering with the leftist effort to expand “the size and role of government” controlling the nanny state.

A wise caller explains that the models used to claim global warming utilize cloud cover as the biggest variable in determining what temperatures are going to be. Cloud cover is very unpredictable, clouds form and dissipate so quickly, and it can swing the models one way or the other. The computer models are also based on very large grids and inadequate to make the global warming predictions claimed.

When the data was fudged because it did not match existing models and the environmentalist agenda, a big scandal broke in Great Britain at the University of East Anglia. We are often denied access to documents, information, and data, we are supposed to trust these people because they are the only ones who can interpret the data, and we are too dumb to understand. We are not allowed to testify in Congress, and when we are, we are shouted down.

Rush Limbaugh said, “The political movement funds these people [global warming scientists] with donations if they produce the right outcome in their research. This movement converted a bunch of just every day, ordinary meteorologists into huge proselytizers for it.” All it takes is 105 degrees Fahrenheit in July and people are claiming global warming.

A local commercial ran for many years, featuring a very shady looking salesman who always ended his sales pitch with the words, “I wouldn’t lie to you!” That is how I see the manmade global warming claims manufactured by environmental alarmists whose interests of power and control are at stake. When we do diligent research and uncover the whole U.N. Agenda 21 cabal, we become right wing nut conspiracy theorists who wear tin foil hats to prevent Marxist progress from happening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Kid Hungry in America

The young lady, who took my order for a salad at my favorite café, was sporting a tag with an orange apple core and the words, No Kid Hungry, Share Our Strength. I became curious and started researching. Apparently, September is the No Kid Hungry orange month, “a pledge to dine out and end childhood hunger.”

Billy Shore, founder and CEO of Share Our Strength, explains that No Kid Hungry Campaign “connects kids in need with nutritious food and teaches their families how to cook healthy, affordable meals,” making “childhood hunger a national priority.”

Share Our Strength gives collaborative solutions in the form of “community grants to nonprofit organizations (NGOs), schools, and other eligible organizations who are involved in the following activities:

-          Increasing access to afterschool snack and meal programs, or meals in child care settings, supported through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)

-          Increasing access to summer meals programs supported through the Summer Food Service Program or the National  School Lunch “Seamless Summer” Program

-          Educating and enrolling more eligible families in SNAP/WIC

-          Increasing participation in the School Breakfast program through alternative models such as in-classroom breakfast and grab-n-go.

-          Advocacy around any of the above anti-hunger issues

-          Nutrition education programs provided by Share our Strength’s Cooking Matters partners.” https://www.nokidhungry.org/solution/working-together

“The No Kid Hungry campaign works to shine a national spotlight on the crisis of childhood hunger in America, creating a powerful movement of individuals committed to bold action. We build partnerships that enlist influential individuals in the cause and advocate policy changes needed to achieve our goals.” I did not realize hunger is a national crisis in our obese country but I stand corrected. It sounds like a wonderful and noble idea; nobody wants to see children starve in this land of plenty. Nobody wants to see starving children anywhere in the world.

As a former teacher I know that some parents have abdicated their parenting job to schools to educate, supervise, and feed their children three meals a day. It is no longer their responsibility to provide for their children, it is the government’s job and the government is happy to step in with more policies, bold action, influential individuals, and their goals. Seems like a great idea, right? As a parent, however, I would like to keep government out of my children’s lives as much as possible and that includes nutrition. Do I need a famous Hollywood government spokesperson telling me how to feed or raise my children?

The campaign wants to “ensure food at home, school breakfast, and meals all year long.” Access, education, and awareness are accomplished through “private citizens, government officials, nonprofit organizations, business leaders, and others providing innovative hunger solution in their communities.”

Who caused our nation’s children to suddenly go hungry? Could it be that the economic policies of the last 5 years of the current administration have reduced family budgets to a stretching limit, have caused massive part-time employment and unemployment with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, high gasoline prices, high utilities, out-of-control printing of money by the Federal Reserve that has devalued the purchasing power of dollars causing families to make painful personal budget choices? Of course, low information voters would never admit that they have voted themselves into the dire economic conditions that they must now suffer. Normally, Americans vote with their pocket books, but this time, they voted for a cult of personality.

I look around and I see a lot of overweight Americans with their children in tow dining in restaurants, fast food places, malls, and receiving free meals at school. I see SNAP and EBT signs everywhere in grocery stores, gas stations, convenience stores, and pretty much anywhere food can be purchased. I am more of the opinion that the whole country could stand to eat less - we could be much healthier. I modify that slightly – there are some skinny college students who eat a lot less, they are too proud to apply for government welfare, they work part-time jobs to pay for their food and other necessities.

I am confused because we have spent trillions of dollars on the war on poverty so far and we have lost the war; we have over 126 government welfare programs that feed, clothe, shelter, and medically care for our poor families and many overlap in mission; the First Lady’s anti childhood obesity campaign has changed the school menus around the country to healthy choices, prompting kids to throw hundreds of thousands of meals in the trash because they don’t like the food while others complain of hunger because the meals do not satiate their growing bodies’ nutritional needs or their athletic activities.

We used to have charities to address the needs of those less fortunate but they have been fast replaced by government stringent regulations with government grants and welfare programs. My initial suspicion was that this campaign is not about hunger, or donating “$10 to connect hungry children with 100 meals,” in spite of the many national partners, social media and blogger partners, state and community partners, national allies, core partners, Let’s Move, Head Start, famous chefs, famous restaurants, NEA Health Information Network, National Institute of Health’s We Can! Program, it is about government control of what our children eat and where they eat and who has ultimate parental rights over our children.