Artful Dodger: Yes I saw.... but I also saw the paranoia still present in him having to say...

"but by saying completely off the wall, totally ignorant stuff like this, he reminds me of factory managers in the old Soviet Union"

hello...... soviet union .. communism.... USSR... socialism... all in that little sentance.

Have you ever thought Dan that due to the difference in how the cold war affected the UK and the USA...... us in the UK might have developed a different perspective when it comes to the likes of what that guy said.

Übergeek 바둑이: In Socialism, there's a heavy does of entitlements. When people don't develop a sense of personal responsibility, they tend to be lazy and think that they are owed something just for existing. People in America think they are entitled as well. The unions are a good example. Union members think that since they pay dues, they are entitled to protection in their jobs even to the point that they can't be fired for anything. That's entitlement. And in the unions, this sense of entitlment leads to violence on many occasions. They turn into thugs. All products of socialistic ideas.

(V): Complete rubbish. It's near impossible to sell the same things as the big stores sell and stay in business. Most new businesses fail. It's not just about brains (although that does help). You can't compete with a big business like America's Target or Walmart store if you're not already established and well grounded in the community.

You've got to make money at a business and lots of it. You have bills to pay and if you can't meet those bills each month, you're not going to make it. Do some small mom and pops thrive? Yes. Location is one reason. And the type of product being sold is another ingredient for success. But MANY small business have gone the way of the dinosaur because they could no longer compete.

And if you're so smart about it, how come you don't own your own small business if it's so easy? Easy to talk the talk but in reality, you'd fail like so many others. Most fail.

(V): The reason you saw paranoia is because you have your own paranoia about being paranoid.

Last year the Virginia legislature passed a law allowing those with gun permits to carry concealed weapons into bars and restaurants serving alcohol. Opponents predicted Wild West shootings and bloody mayhem from drunken patrons; instead



The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper's request.

August 17, 2011

Next Month During A Big Speech Obama Will Reveal A Secret Plan For What They Should Be Doing Now To Boost The Economy And Haven't Been Doing The Past 30 Months But Probably Won't Start Until Next Year

President Teleprompter prepares for a big job creation speech next month:

Seeking to jolt the economy, President Barack Obama will unveil new ideas to create jobs and help the struggling poor and middle class in a major speech after Labor Day. And then he will try to seize political advantage by spending the fall pressuring Congress to act on his plan.

I'm so excited! I can't wait for the big speech! I know the last eight 'boost-the-economy' speeches were just a warm-up for this one!

Taking bets now. Who/What will Obama blame this time for the failing economy?

A. Bush
B. The Tea Party (aka "terrorists")

C. Republican Congress

D. Arab Spring

E. Bad mojo/luck/karma

F. All of the above

G. None of the above (new excuse)


Winner(s) will receive gloating rights in comments.

Artful Dodger: The UK figures are a failure rate of about 1/3 regarding new businesses. I cannot be accurate on this due to the variations like we have now where small businesses are not getting the support they use to since the banks screwed up

"You've got to make money at a business and lots of it. You have bills to pay and if you can't meet those bills each month, you're not going to make it."

I know.. that's why before you start a business you need to carefully look at your costings. I learnt that years ago when I managed a shop for someone.. which, I nearly did buy, but backed out of once I looked into some of the shady deals that would have come back onto me via debts I was not willing to pick up... only time I've ever been interested in owning my own shop.

Unlike some banks I look into what I'm thinking of buying.

"You can't compete with a big business like America's Target or Walmart store if you're not already established and well grounded in the community."

As you pointed out... Location, product, cash flow, research, marketing. Many of those I see succeeding are not trying to compete with the big boys, they are not stupid.. Like one part of the one I nearly did own he was beating the big boys on certain crucial goods, but would not keep (despite me constantly telling him) stock levels up... That one item kept people flowing into the shop through that at the time being an essential product to computer users. The humble 3.5" floppy. Branded names cost, unbranded didn't.


.................... "The reason you saw paranoia is because you have your own paranoia about being paranoid."

you need to watch some Kenny Everett as yet again you've missed my point. Gotta love that cold war mentality

Artful Dodger: Phobophobia is a medically recognised phobia.. I don't believe that, I think it's all in his head, but science says otherwise.

Iamon lyme:

"he DOESN'T follow with the kooks that call Obama a Commie"

Who cares? The ones taking govm support are commies are the capitalists who benefit from their soundness. While one might not deserve his socialisation *today*, he still needs it for his chance tomorrow. If the capitalist comes along and tells: "eat credit now", it will be the commies prevail over capitalism. It's just a matter of deduction..

"When the world's two great propaganda systems agree on some doctrine, it requires some intellectual effort to escape its shackles. One such doctrine is that the society created by Lenin and Trotsky and molded further by Stalin and his successors has some relation to socialism in some meaningful or historically accurate sense of this concept. In fact, if there is a relation, it is the relation of contradiction.

It is clear enough why both major propaganda systems insist upon this fantasy. Since its origins, the Soviet State has attempted to harness the energies of its own population and oppressed people elsewhere in the service of the men who took advantage of the popular ferment in Russia in 1917 to seize State power. One major ideological weapon employed to this end has been the claim that the State managers are leading their own society and the world towards the socialist ideal; an impossibility, as any socialist -- surely any serious Marxist -- should have understood at once (many did), and a lie of mammoth proportions as history has revealed since the earliest days of the Bolshevik regime. The taskmasters have attempted to gain legitimacy and support by exploiting the aura of socialist ideals and the respect that is rightly accorded them, to conceal their own ritual practice as they destroyed every vestige of socialism.

As for the world's second major propaganda system, association of socialism with the Soviet Union and its clients serves as a powerful ideological weapon to enforce conformity and obedience to the State capitalist institutions, to ensure that the necessity to rent oneself to the owners and managers of these institutions will be regarded as virtually a natural law, the only alternative to the 'socialist' dungeon.

The Soviet leadership thus portrays itself as socialist to protect its right to wield the club, and Western ideologists adopt the same pretense in order to forestall the threat of a more free and just society. This joint attack on socialism has been highly effective in undermining it in the modern period. "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKIu-JjfIXE&feature=related

the loony left tried to tie the Tea Party to violence? But the opposite was proven true? Yeah.

Well, just recently, a LIBERAL UNION THUG SHOT a non union worker.

Just another violent incident brought to you by the left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWf9nYbm3ac&

The old saying of where there is muck there is brass still holds true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LuYQL6AoI

How will you charge you batteries??

(V): Lots of promising technologies in our future. We've barely scratched the surface.

I actually in preparing the book spent an immense amount of time listening to tapes of the Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh shows, and the most fascinating thing I found in the whole process was an exchange between Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, in which at some length they discussed weatherization programs. This is when the government helps people put better windows on their house so they can stay warmer in winter. And they were both ranting about how this was socialism, this was creeping dangerous socialism that was a threat to the Republic.

So you see this isn’t about big ideas, it is often about very minor objections which they then inflate, using the word socialism as some sort of ultimate demonization, some sort of ultimate threat – and yes it’s demagogic; it’s also unhistorical, or anti-historic, and very crude. I think that’s the most interesting part about it. It’s so crude that there is some good evidence that it has caused an awful lot of people to open up to socialism and consider socialism in a way they haven’t in the past.

PA: There are some prominent figures in American history you associate with the socialist tradition, if not socialist parties, people like Tom Paine and Abraham Lincoln, which counters everything we learned about them in school. How does that work, in your mind?

JOHN NICHOLS: Well, history is a fascinating thing. It’s always something that we can dig deeper into and learn a little more about. Now in our history classes in school, we are obviously given a sort of first level introduction. It tells you some dates and some prominent figures. By the nature of it, we don’t go as deep into that always as we should or as we might. One of the things I did with this book was to spend a lot of time looking at the original documents going back to the real history, the deeper history, which is one, I might add, that was known through much of our American experience, but has sort of been swept away in recent decades.

To give you an example, Eugene Victor Debs frequently referenced Paine and Lincoln as folks who had inspired him toward socialism. So it’s not that this is something that we have just discovered, but it is something that has been sort of lost in recent decades. With Paine the fascinating thing is that so much of the teaching about Paine focuses on a couple of pamphlets he wrote very early in his career, “Common Sense,” which of course was an inspiration to the American Revolution and “The Crisis,” which was an inspiration to the soldiers once the Revolution began. Those are both terrific pieces of writing, very inspirational and very inspired works. But what people don’t note is that Paine kept writing. He wrote for another 30 years, and as the years went on his writing focused more and more on economic inequality and economic injustice, such that his final essays outlined a social welfare state, and there’s no question of that, that’s not a debatable point. In fact, amazingly enough, if you go to the Social Security Administration’s web site today, they have quotes on there from Tom Paine back in the 1790s describing a social security system, a system of pensions and social welfare supports for the elderly, the infirm, children and others who might otherwise suffer in extreme poverty.

So again this is not hidden history – it’s there, it’s findable, but it’s not a history that has been emphasized. More significantly you bring up Lincoln, and the history on Lincoln is absolutely fascinating, because when you go back to the founding of the Republican Party, there is simply no question that that party was founded by a broad array of folks from many different ideological perspectives and backgrounds, but some of the founders of the Republican Party, in fact key founders, people who called the initial meetings, were socialists and communists. A friend of Karl Marx was one of the key players in the founding of the Republican Party. That is not a debatable point – the history is there – but it is something that has not been emphasized, it’s almost been pushed aside.

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/socialism-in-american-history-an-interview-with-john-nichols/

Artful Dodger: Not really. The mankind is running out of time on this plannet. We only have about 100 years left. :)

http://www.medkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/nutrition/12841/Humans-will-be-extinct-in-100-years-says-eminent-scientist

Pedro Martínez: Actually it's good news. His prediction won't affect anyone that's alive today.

http://www.wimp.com/manchesterriots/




Courtsey of
Pugnacious Pawn

Mousetrap: that tickled my funny bone!!! I was waiting for a car to blow up. I never expected "that!"

Artful Dodger:

Mousetrap:

I don't know how old the programme is but last night watched a show "Duchess on the Estate"....it was filmed in Manchester...it was the Duchess of York "Fergie" trying to help the underpriveledged...and my god what a pack of idiots she is trying to get into line. These thugs are out on the street 24hours a day and will bash, rob, and loot etc anything they can lay their idle hands on. I think the Suburb was called Northern Moor...the shops are closed everywhere and shopfronts have roll down fontages to stop the breaking of window etc.....I feel so sorry for those living in such poor conditions and poverty, but the thugs just don't seem to want to help themselves. They don't think they are under priveledged, they think this is the norm.

Wythenshawe estate in Manchester - one of the most deprived communities in the UK

This is Council owned.

"August 18, 2011
An Answer for Congresswoman Waters
Sara Goss




Congresswoman Maxine Waters is perplexed as to why President Obama has not been campaigning in any black neighborhoods. I'm not sure why she can't see it. The reason is extraordinarily obvious: he doesn't have to.

The President's schedule is packed. Between golf, fund raising and vacations, there isn't much time left over. So when he embarks on tours he wants to make sure he's addressing the independents that are going to be the difference between re-election and a pink slip. There are few, if any, independents in the black neighborhoods. He already has a 90% approval rating there so there's no one to persuade.

When will the President swing by her district? A prediction: when he needs campaign money or right before the election to make sure they get out and vote."


You see, most blacks will vote for Obama ONLY because he's a black man. No other reason. He's on of them. Never mind that he's an incompetent baffoon. He's black. That's all that matters.

Imagine if 90% of Whites voted AGAINST Obama ONLY because he's black. Big news. But it's not news that black vote for him only because he's black. How sad is that?

??? It's big news to whom that white folk might not vote for Obama as he is black, as black folk might only vote for Obama as he was the first (??) black presidential probability.

.... It's still within living memory that the USA was a segregated country... let alone having a slave trade.. And there are still those on both sides of the race divide who think the other is out to get them.

Maybe in a few more generations the race paranoia will fade.

The demonization of liberalism, for whatever reason, means that the values of compassion, egalitarianism, respect for education and experience that characterize liberalism are being lost. With that loss comes a desire to experiment with ideas that have been tried before, which have failed before, and which will inevitably cause America to stumble and lose the essential values that made it the successful nation that it is. And make no mistake -- when compassion is derided as "bleeding-heart liberalism" and egalitarianism is mistaken for an argument for economic, racial and ethnic quotas, and institutions of higher learning are dismissed as "bastions of liberalism," and respect for the differences of others is derided as "political correctness," America is in trouble. It is headed for the same conditions that exist in the nations where such selfishness and ignorance predominate and have for centuries -- the third world nations. Every day, as I look out on the America of my nativity, I can't but help be struck how it is increasingly coming to resemble the third world nations I have visited and in which I have lived.

Freedom or Orderliness, You Choose
Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest theoreticians of liberal democracy of all time, understood the dilemma well. He clearly saw what finally became obvious to me when I moved away from America and all its rhetoric about freedom and liberty, and experienced first hand a culture that at one and the same time, had both freedom and tyrany.

Jefferson clearly understood that you can have a nice, neat, tidy, orderly society, or you can have a free society. But it is very difficult to have a society that is both orderly and free. In a letter to James Madison, he wrote, "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserves neither."

Jefferson had clearly made his choice. It is the only choice a lover of freedom and liberty can make. But what choice is made by the theoreticians of the "new" conservatism?

"Law and order," cry the conservative theorists.

Indeed, we have a serious problem with law and order in the United States with the widespread use of narcotics, cocaine and its derivatives, methamphetamines and "designer" drugs, and Cannabis sativa and its extracts. The cost to American society is enormous. Just fighting the "drug war" costs us tens of billions of dollars each year. The crime that addicts commit costs conservatively more than a hundred billion. Each year, the toll gets worse, each year the enforcement measures become more and more stringent. The fastest growing industry in America is prison construction. Already, we incarcerate a larger percentage of our population than any other nation in the world, one person in thirty. Yet has that made us feel more secure?

Yet with each passing year, we surrender more of our freedom of movement, our right to be secure in our possessions, and more and more of our personal privacy. Has this led us to a more secure society? A lower crime rate? No.

The problem, as Jefferson so accurately predicted, doesn't get better, it gets worse......

.......European societies have little use for the right-wing ideologies that are so popular in the United States. They have had plenty of experience with unrestrained right-wing governments and have become innoculated against the fundamental errors in reasoning that drive right-wing ideologies. Similarly, after centuries of religious oppression by Roman Catholicism and other institutionalized religions, Europeans have generally become deeply skeptical of religious ideology and conservative politics.

The result is that in almost every measure, most Western Europeans enjoy a higher standard of living, more personal freedom, less repression and a higher quality of life than do Americans. Their economies enjoy a higher growth in productivity, and that fruits of those gains in productivity are more equitably distributed. This is why 200,000 Americans every year choose to move to Europe, while traffic in the opposite direction is only a tiny fraction of that level. American English is now commonly heard on the streets of most large European cities. When was the last time you heard Swedish or Polish being spoken by recent immigrants here? It is a fact that now Europe, no longer America, is the first destination of choice for Africans and Asians fleeing poverty and repression and seeking to better their lives.

Yet when a nation doesn't know it has a problem, it is hard to build consensus for a change.

That fact is probably the most grave problem America faces. Americans believe all the propaganda they've heard since World War II that America is by far the best place in the world in which to live. Most Americans still believe it. In their provincial ignorance, they haven't a clue at how far and how completely they've been left behind. As a place to live, the United Nations doesn't even rank the U.S. in the top ten anymore.

http://www.bidstrup.com/america.htm

The Gathering Darkness
America In The 21st. Century
An essay in hypertext by Scott Bidstrup

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvgbnVhtrts&

"Predicting Urban Crime? There's an Equation for That "

(V): Race parinoia? Where ever you are getting that it isn't from this planet.

It's a fact that 90% of blacks give Obama a favorable rating and this ONLY because he's black. Even though he's basically thrown blacks under his bus, they still support him because the alternative is a white guy.

Artful Dodger: ..... The KKK will vote for Obama at the next election?

(V): um, the KKK isn't black.

Artful Dodger: No... they are white and would only vote for a white guy... preferably a black hating, Jew hating white conservative. But a white guy nether the less... they would never vote for someone who's gay or otherwise disturbs them.... unless the only alternative is a black guy.... or not vote.

It's all the same and not big news.

3,805 atmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientists who have signed a petition stating:


There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

The 30,000 Global Warming Petition Is Easily-Debunked Propaganda

To say that the oft-touted "30,000 Global Warming Petition" project stinks would be the understatement of the year.
I thought it would be timely to once again break down this flawed piece of global warming denier propaganda after it was mentioned last night in Daily Show host Jon Stewart's interview with US Energy Secretary of Energy, Dr. Stephen Chu.
.1% of Signers Have a Background in Climatology
The Petition Project website offers a breakdown of the areas of expertise of those who have signed the petition.
In the realm of climate science it breaks it breaks down as such:
Atmospheric Science (113)
Climatology (39)
Meteorology (341)
Astronomy (59)
Astrophysics (26)
So only .1% of the individuals on the list of 30,000 signatures have a scientific background in Climatology. To be fair, we can add in those who claim to have a background in Atmospheric Science, which brings the total percentage of signatories with a background in climate change science to a whopping .5%.
The page does not break out the names of those who do claim to be experts in Climatology and Atmospheric Science, which makes even that .5% questionable [see my section on "unverifiable mess" below].
This makes an already questionable list seem completely insignificant given the nature of scientific endeavor.
When I think I'm having chest pains I don't go to the dermatologist, I go to a cardiologist because it would be absurd to go to skin doctor for a heart problem. It would be equally absurd to look to a scientist with a background in medicine (of which there are 3,046 on the petition) for an expert opinion on the science of climate change. With science broken down into very narrow specialties a scientific expert in one specialty does not make that person an automatic authority in all things science.
In this way the logic of the 30,000 petition is completely flawed, which isn't surprising given its questionable beginnings.

(V): You must mean the fact that around 60% of Whites voted for Obama over "the white guy"

(V): You need to smell the coffee. It was 3 thousand scientists who made that statement. Stop google mining and address the post instead of posting your usual

Artful Dodger: So? I said the KKK... can you find that 60% of them voted for Obama? Or are you doing what you accuse me of, and CHANGING the subject

Artful Dodger: What does a scientist who's speciality is dermatology know about climatology?

Please.. stop make irrelevant statements.

(V): the KKK was never part of anything I posted. You just like to pull out your favorite logical fallacy: the non sequitur

Artful Dodger:

(V): atmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientistsatmospheric, earth, or environmental Ph.D. scientists

The petition first emerged in April 1998 and was organized by Art Robinson of the self-proclaimed "Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine" (OISM) [their headquarters are the Photo Inset].
Along with the Exxon-backed George C. Marshall Institute, Robinson's group co-published the infamous "Oregon Petition" claiming to have collected 17,000 signatories to a document arguing against the realities of global warming.
The petition and the documents included were all made to look like official papers from the prestigious National Academy of Science. They weren't, and this attempt to mislead has been well-documented.
Along with the petition there was a cover letter from Dr. Fred Seitz (who has since died), a notorious climate change denier (and big tobacco scientist) who over 30 years ago was the president of the National Academy of Science.
Also attached to the petition was an apparent "research paper" titled Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. The paper was made to mimic what a research paper would look like in the National Academy's prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy journal. The authors of the paper were Robinson, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon (both oil-backed scientists) and Robinson's son Zachary. With the signature of a former NAS president and a research paper that appeared to be published in one of the most prestigious science journals in the world, many scientists were duped into signing a petition based on a false impression.

(V): typical nonsense from the left.

Artful Dodger: Anything is left to you

An Unverifiable Mess
Time and time again, I have had emails from researchers who have taken random samples of names from the list and Google searched them for more information. I urge others to do the same. What you'll quickly find is either no information, very little information or information substantiating the fact that the vast majority of signers are completely unqualified in the area of climate change science.
For example,
"Munawwar M. Akhtar" - no info other than the fact that he is a signatory on the petition.
"Fred A. Allehoff" - no info other than the fact that he is a signatory on the petition.
"Ernest J. Andberg" - no info other than the fact that he is a signatory on the petition.
"Joseph J. Arx" - no info other than the fact that he is a signatory on the petition.
"Adolph L. Amundson" - a paper by Amundson on the "London Tunnel Water Treatment System Acid Mine Drainage." [PDF]
"Henry W. Apfelbach" - an Orthopedic Surgeon
"Joe R. Arechavaleta" - runs an Architect and Engineering company.
And this is only names I picked in the "A's." I could go on, but you get my point. The list is very difficult to verify as a third-party, but this hasn't stopped the Petition from bouncing around the internet and showing up in mainstream media.
Given all this it seems to me that anyone touting this as proof that "global warming is a hoax" completely misunderstands the process of scientific endeavor or has completely exhausted any real argument that rightfully brings into to doubt the reality of climate change.
Or, then again, they could just be in it for the money.

(V): man made global warming has been debunked and the left is pulling out all the stops to keep their lie going.

It ain't a gonna work

Artful Dodger: Anything is left to you

Marching.. left right... left right..

Is it a communist conspiracy

(V): It's simple. If your not right (as in correct) then your left (as in out in the cold)

Artful Dodger: Milk keeps better in cold.. so does meat.