All posts by Chief

China Watch

Shocking! ChiCom Censorship of Web?

China to censor Internet during Games: official

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

I mean, did anyone REALLY expect otherwise? One supposes that there are libmoonbats that think everything is warm and fuzzy over there, but hey – the ChiComs are doing what the ChiComs do, in spite of what any moonbats think about them.

It’s always worth noting that Google, etc. are implicit and cooperative with the ChiComs in building and maintaining the “Great Firewall of China”, which is why the Chief recommends use of the new search engine Cuil. Besides, they don’t track your search patterns like Google does – a definite plus!

Culture Wars, SD Politics

Gov. Continues to Push for SD Pre-school

Witness skeptical about preschool

Gov. Mike Rounds continues to push for preschool standards in South Dakota, but a Stanford educator says studies so far don’t support a “full-scale” program.

Erik Hanushek, a Stanford professor who is among expert witnesses for the state in a school-aid lawsuit, seems lukewarm about the value of preschool, which he admits is “complicated.” “There are some good but very small-scale studies showing positive effects of preschool,” Hanushek said in an e-mail exchange. “Most of the positive effects, however, are not educational improvements but reductions in crime and incarceration. These might well be good investments for society, but they do not solve the education problem.”

Rounds, in an address to school superintendents in Pierre on Tuesday, said, “Preschool is something that is very, very important.”

EuroSocialists, Lenin, Hitler, and Plato would all be in agreement with the Governor on this one. How so?

Mrs. Chief recently received some correspondence from Norwegian cousins who related that their first child was starting the (government mandated) kindergarten – at one-year of age!!

Plato’s Republic advocated that the training of children was too important to leave to the parents, and that to obtain good citizens of the polis, systematic removal from parents for training was the ideal to be implemented.

The above noted 20th-century devotees of the superior wisdom and knowledge of their respective states (of totalitarianism) also advocated, and implemented programs to reduce the influence of parents in the early childhood education of children, again, in the interest of getting more reliable citizens of their versions of a “new world order”.

While Governor Rounds obviously is NOT in the category of these stark practitioners of the superiority of the state in all that matters, his trend on this issue is clearly in the same direction: that the early education of children is too important to leave to parents…this proposition being a (possibly unintended) keystone in the development of more TOTALitarian (get it? TOTAL – as in state control of all aspects of life, including for example, child-rearing) relationships between the state and the people.

This path is NOT a good direction to start down.

Uncategorized

Students the Same; Tests Get Stupider!

Girls = Boys at Math

Zip. Zilch. Nada. There’s no real difference between the scores of U.S. boys and girls on common math tests, according to a massive new study. Educators hope the finding will finally dispel lingering perceptions that girls don’t measure up to boys when it comes to crunching numbers.

“This shows there’s no issue of intellectual ability–and that’s a message we still need to get out to some of our parents and teachers,” says Henry “Hank” Kepner, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Reston, Virginia.

It won’t be a new message. Nearly 20 years ago, a large-scale study led by psychologist Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found a “trivial” gap in math test scores between boys and girls in elementary and middle school. But it did suggest that boys were better at solving more complex problems by the time they got to high school.

Now, even that small gap has disappeared, Hyde reports in tomorrow’s issue of Science. Her team sifted through scores from standardized tests taken in 2005, 2006, and 2007 by nearly 7 million students in 10 states. Overall, the researchers found “no gender difference” in scores among children in grades two through 11.

This all makes sense to the Chief, based on his 26 years in the science classroom. This piece goes on to point out that the REAL problem is in the testing.

The study’s most disturbing finding, the authors say, is that neither boys nor girls get many tough math questions on state tests now required to measure a school district’s progress under the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law. Using a four-level rating scale, with level one being easiest, the authors said that they found no challenging level-three or -four questions on most state tests. The authors worry that means that teachers may start dropping harder math from their curriculums, because “more teachers are gearing their instruction to the test.”

This is a real issue, and one of the major flaws in the NCLB approach. The Chief was involved in South Dakota’s efforts to bring the testing in line with the states science standards…which are pretty good, and which also include higher level type three and four items noted above.

In the assessment project, we were instructed NOT to attempt to address these levels of competence in NCLB-related testing, since THERE IS NO WAY TO PROPERLY EVALUATE THE ATTAINMENT OF THESE ON THE TYPE OF “OBJECTIVE” TESTING USED FOR ESTABLISHING NCLB COMPLIANCE.

The same thing applies in math as it did for science. While the Chief has no objection (quite the contrary!) to establishing and maintaining high educational standards, the NCLB approach is fatally flawed. Unfortunately, there is no easy, concise, quick fix that readily lends itself to a bureaucratic type of approach. IMHO not only is this the case, but it is the INEVITABLE outgrowth of the establishment and growth of the massive Federal education bureaucracy of the Dept. of Education, which in turn drives a similar growth in the administrative infrastructure at the state and local levels in order to “document” compliance with the Federal mandates.

Reagan was right – abolish the US Dept. of Education!

Uncategorized

Wikipedia Killer or Great Firewall of America?

Google Knol – Yup, it’s a Wikipedia killer

Google Knol, Mountain View’s answer to Wikipedia, launched last week and, while it can’t yet match the volume of articles on Wikipedia, its focus on accountability and ownership makes it a better choice for students and teachers.

Unfortunately, it gives the whole thing back to a supposedly more reliable “higher authority: to determine what is more accurate. In this case, whoever the GoG (Gods of Google) think is “reliable” gets heard.

Google wouldn’t weight things that way? Why not? Google people haven’t been bashful at expressing their own particular political opinions. Nor have they been hesitant at cooperating in erecting the “Great Firewall of China”, to help the ChiCom regime censor web content.

There is NO guarantee that these two things couldn’t be combined to give a bias to the coverage of Google Knol.

To give one possible (probable?) example; something like Glowbull Warming, where according to the major media and Al Gore there is no longer any debate POSSIBLE…except that the American Physical Society had recently stated that this is NOT the case, and that there is still a lot of SCIENTIFIC debate going on.

In short, I would rather have a no-holds barred mud-wrestle between various points of view from whatever source under a “caveat emptor” regime, than trust a corporate entity to “sanitize” and present what THEY determine to be the acceptable, orthodox view on possibly controversial topics.

Space Patrol

Another Step Toward Commercial Space

White Knight Two space rocket in Mojave Desert for testing

The Chief continues to relish anything that gives us a greater presence in space.

Sir Richard Branson’s dreams of operating the world’s first commercial spaceline will move a step closer today when he unveils his new space rocket.

ixknight.jpg

The billionaire will present White Knight Two to the world in the searing heat of the Mojave Desert – ahead of the first proper flight which is expected as early as next year.

White Knight Two will be the mothership, on which a much smaller spaceship will sit until it is projected into sub-orbital space flight at a certain altitude.

Designs for both White Knight Two, which is the world’s largest aircraft made entirely from carbon composite, and the smaller SpaceShip Two were unveiled in New York in January.

What’s the point? It’s like anything else…the more you use something (in this case space flight), the better you get at it. As far as the broader national strategic security view is concerned, there’s NOTHING like being present on the higher ground!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Cold War II?

US general warns Russia on nuclear bombers in Cuba

The Chief has been on the road for about the last 10 days for a summer teachers’ institute for a program called Teaching American History. As part of the program, the group had the chance to visit a number of SD historic sites. One of these was a Minuteman Missile site in western South Dakota, which is preserved (without a live missile, of course) as a site and artifact of historical significance in the context of the Cold War.

Very interesting to see, and contemplate the destructive energy that was (and still is to a lesser degree) ready to be unleased if required by the US and USSR if there was a REALLY bad day.

Now comes this little reminder that those sorts of concerns are, or certainly should be, still part of the international landscape.

Russia would cross “a red line for the United States of America” if it were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba, a top US air force officer warned on Tuesday. “If they did I think we should stand strong and indicate that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America,” said General Norton Schwartz, nominated to be the air force’s chief of staff.

He was referring to a Russian news report that said the military is thinking of flying long-range bombers to Cuba on a regular basis. It was unclear from the report whether that would involve permanent basing of nuclear bombers in Cuba, or just use of the island as a refueling stop. In his confirmation hearing to become the air force’s chief of staff, Schwartz was asked what he would recommend if Russia were to base nuclear capable bombers in Cuba.

“I would certainly offer the best military advice that we engage the Russians not to pursue that approach,” he said.

The newspaper Iszvestia on Monday cited an unnamed senior Russian air force official in Moscow as saying that Russia may start regular flights by long-range bombers to Cuba in response to US plans to install a missile defense system in eastern Europe.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the Russian report because there had been no “official response from the Russian government.”

National Insecurity

How Our Ally Thinks…er…Ally? Come again?

The Saudi Guide To Piety

Because they are so clearly designed for the convenience of large testing companies, I had always assumed that multiple-choice exams, the bane of any fourth-grader’s existence, were a quintessentially American phenomenon. But apparently I was wrong. According to a report last week by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, it seems that the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education finds them useful, too.

Here, for example, is a multiple-choice question from a recent edition of a Saudi fourth-grade textbook, “Monotheism and Jurisprudence,” in a section that attempts to teach children to distinguish between “true” and “false” belief in God:
Q. “Is belief true in the following instances:
(a) A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.
(b) A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the unbelievers.
(c) A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the unbelievers.”

The correct answer, of course, is (c): According to the Wahhabi imams who wrote this textbook, it isn’t enough to simply worship God or just to love other believers; it is important to hate unbelievers, too. By the same token, (b) is wrong as well: Even a man who worships God cannot be said to have “true belief” if he also loves unbelievers. “Unbelievers,” in this context, are Christians and Jews.

In fact, any child who attends Saudi schools until ninth grade will eventually be taught outright that “Jews and Christians are enemies of believers.” They will also be taught that Jews conspire to “gain sole control over the world,” that the Christian crusades never ended…

The way things are going, we should be so lucky that the Crusades never ended.

…and that on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill Jews.

If you go to the article, there’s unfortunately more. We’re supposed to be friends with these guys?

Uncategorized

A Clean Sweep

Caught on camera: The moment a fearless grandmother used a broom to fight off hammer-wielding robbers raiding her shop

This is a really good one!

Armed with claw hammers, two hooded youths walk brazenly into a convenience store for an early morning robbery. But as these astonishing CCTV images show, they hadn’t reckoned on bumping into shop assistant Ann Withers – who brushed away their violent crime using a broom. The brave 55-year-old grandmother grabbed her weapon of choice and battered the hooded duo into submission, forcing them to flee empty-handed.

Determination and righteous indignation trumps thuggery.

Uncategorized

Imported Peppers Not So Hot

Salmonella found in a Mexican-grown jalapeño

Government inspectors finally have a big clue in the nationwide salmonella outbreak: They found the same bacteria strain on a single Mexican-grown jalapeno pepper handled in Texas — and issued a stronger warning for consumers to avoid fresh jalapenos.

But Monday’s discovery, the equivalent of a fingerprint, doesn’t solve the mystery: Authorities still don’t know where the pepper became tainted — on the farm, or in the McAllen, Texas, plant, or at some stop in between, such as a packing house.

This is NOT a surprise.

Uncategorized

French Cooking, Again

SUMMER BARBECUE SEASON UNDERWAY!

…Sarko Had Better Bully France’s Thugs

In my previous post I mentioned that 297 cars had burned during the night of July 13-14. Now it seems that another 295 were torched the following night, making a total of 592 cars destroyed – 150 in Ile-de-France (the Parisian region) and 145 in the provinces. In addition, 98 persons were arrested and 58 were placed in custody in all of France. The figures just for Ile-de-France are 48 arrests and 29 in custody.

However the worst crime so far took place in Asnières, in the department of Hauts-de-Seine (Parisian suburbs). TF1 reports:

He may lose an eye. On the night of July 13-14, a police commissioner was injured by a pyrotechnical device during a confrontation between young persons and the police. “The wound is extremely serious,” according to a police source.

The commissioner, about 30, was visibly wounded by the ricochet of the pyrotechnical device while violent confrontations between about 50 young persons and the police were taking place in the northern neighborhoods, considered dangerous [“sensibles”], of Asnières. The commissioner received a visit on Monday from Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie.

The socialist mayor of Asnières, Sébastien Pietrasanta, called these confrontations “extremely serious”, and spoke of gangs of “well-prepared and hooded” young persons who attacked anyone and anything that represented order and institutions.” According to a source at the office of District Attorney [“parquet”] of Nanterre, these were” blatant acts of urban violence, an unprecedented violence, premeditated,” that pitted “from 30 to 60 persons” against the forces of order.

Thr Frogs are continuing to have some real problems. One wonders if/when they’ll find a bit of elan again, and start to take control of their own country.

Uncategorized

The Church of Glowbull Warming

This speaks for itself…and is well worth the read.

Global Warming as Mass Neurosis

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it’s time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

What, discredited? Thousands of scientists insist otherwise, none more noisily than NASA’s Jim Hansen, who first banged the gong with his June 23, 1988, congressional testimony (delivered with all the modesty of “99% confidence”).

But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world’s oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that “80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters,” according to a report by NPR’s Richard Harris.

The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest in decades.

After noting more discrepant and embarrassing (at least to AlGor and all) the point is made that…

The real place where discussions of global warming belong is in the realm of belief, and particularly the motives for belief. I see three mutually compatible explanations.

Hey, read the article…so you can see where this conclusion comes from:

In “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” William James distinguishes between healthy, life-affirming religion and the monastically inclined, “morbid-minded” religion of the sick-souled. Global warming is sick-souled religion.

Amen.

Uncategorized

“My DNA Made Me Do It!”

Study finds genetic link to violence, delinquency

Three genes may play a strong role in determining why some young men raised in rough neighborhoods or deprived families become violent criminals, while others do not, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

One gene called MAOA that played an especially strong role has been shown in other studies to affect antisocial behavior — and it was disturbingly common, the team at the University of North Carolina reported.

There’s more information on this in the article…but the whole thing gives the Chief two premonitions:
• You just KNOW that lawyers are going to use this to claim that perps are not really to blame for their crimes…after all, they can’t help their genes, can they?
• You also have to know that the shrinkologists will use assessments of “anti-social” behavior as an excuse for the development of massive screening and biochemical manipulation (attempts) to “cure” the problem.

Whether or not it is needed is the real question, or whether this starts ud down a path like that in the film Minority Report.

Uncategorized

Defending the Anne Coulter Niche

In Praise of Political Insults

The great American political insult is older than the nation itself. Ben Franklin, writing in 1771 before the States were even United, lamented “Libeling and Personal Abuse, which is of late Years become so disgraceful to our Country.” Not even George Washington was spared: Tom Paine raged about his “treachery” and “pusillanimity.”

Read the piece for some great historical examples of some hard-core zingers.

Uncategorized

Semi-Republicanism, at Best

McCain sees himself in Teddy Roosevelt mold

Senator John McCain, in a wide-ranging interview, called for a government that was frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change,…

NAH! This is a junk science issue

…regulating campaign finance…

Limiting political speech. Booooo!

…and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.”

MAY have something here…but as always, the devil’s in the details.

“I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy.

On his worst day at least he’s still better than B.O. at his best.

Defense Matters!

ZAP!

Star Wars-style laser technology to reach battlefield

Laser beam technology is being rushed into service to combat the threat of insurgent missiles and mortars raining down on British and American military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If you think that big R & D bucks are behind the project…er…not quite:

After decades of delay and billions of pounds spent, it will be simple commercial lasers rather than the hugely expensive US Department of Defence technology that could be used to save hundreds of troops’ lives.

ALL RIGHT! Off-the -shelf stuff!

In just 18 months the American defence firm Raytheon has turned a laser used in the car manufacturing industry into a weapon that can hit incoming rounds at the speed of light, melting the outer casing and detonating the explosive inside.

Yankee ingenuity lives!

Uncategorized

Dubya: Drill Away!

President Bush Lifts Executive Ban on Offshore Drilling

President Bush today lifted a presidential ban on offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf that was implemented by his father, escalating a confrontation with Democrats in Congress over how to cope with soaring gasoline prices.

Although it’s a gesture in the right direction, it doesn’t quite get anything going…yet.

Lifting the executive moratorium has no immediate practical effect, because Congress enacted its own prohibition on offshore drilling in 1981. It would have to be rescinded for exploration to proceed.

At least it turns the heat up on the do-nothing Donk Congresscritters.

Uncategorized

Every picture tells a story…

Magazine cover featuring Obamas draws criticism

B.O.’s unhappy about this one for some reason:

obama-mag-cover.jpg

Barack Obama’s campaign says a satirical New Yorker magazine cover showing the Democratic presidential candidate dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist is “tasteless and offensive.”

The illustration on the issue that hits newsstands Monday, titled “The Politics of Fear” and drawn by Barry Blitt, depicts Barack Obama wearing traditional Muslim garb—sandals, robe and turban—and his wife, Michelle—dressed in camouflage, combat boots and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder—standing in the Oval Office.

The couple is doing a fist tap in front of a fireplace in which an American flag is burning. Over the mantel hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden.

Yowch! What’s really interesting is that New Yorker is scarcely known as a right-wing journal.

Overall, the Chief likes it…although maybe it IS just a bit over the top…then again…NAH…they deserve it!

Uncategorized

Governator Shows His Colors: They’re not Republican!

Arnold may consider Obama energy post

Apparently the Governator swings both ways…since he earlier endorced John McCain.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an interview aired Sunday that he would be open to the idea of serving as energy czar in a Barack Obama administration.

Maybe he got his languages confused…he is mixing up “czar” with “fuhrer”…and just can’t resist the appeal of THAT!

Culture Wars

British Wisdom & Warning

Totalitarianism in the United States of America in 2009?

Paul Marks at Samizdata has a strongly cautionary note on how things have been developing here for some time. This is well worth the read.

…and his point is:

“But why should non-Americans care what happens in the United States?”

Because the brutal truth is that neither Britain or any other part of the West can stand if America falls – there is not, and can not be, any Plan B.

He has, as the saying goes, reason.

Uncategorized

…Another big DUH!

Higher CO2 levels may be good for plants: German scientists

The dangerous rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be troubling scientists and world leaders but it could prove to be a boon for plants, German researchers said Tuesday. Increasing exposure to carbon dioxide appears to boost crop yields, Hans-Joachim Weigel of the Johann Heinrich von Thuenen Institute for rural areas, forestry and fisheries in the central city of Brunswick told AFP.

The Chief has been teaching high school science for 25 years. Allow a BRIEF summary of some truly BASIC biochemistry:

Plants are CARBON-based life forms. They gain most of their CARBON out of the atmosphere in the form of CARBON dioxide, and then via photosynthesis assemble this CARBON into CARBOhydrate in the form of glucose sugar, which provides the energy basis for our life on Earth.

In other words, CARBON dioxide is the primary building material plants use for production of food and ultimately everything else they make like proteins, nucleic acids, starches, cellulose, and any other carbohydrates like fructose, sucrose, etc. all of which are once again (this IS the important point) CARBON BASED, with the CARBON coming from CARBON dioxide.

So exactly why these German scientists are announcing this as a significant scientific discovery, somewhat baffles the Chief.

No wonder we won the war!

Uncategorized

B.O. Flies Flags of Convenience

A couple of salient items concerning B.O.

New and Not Improved

Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush’s abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.

Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings.

The New York Times Slimes is concerned over B.O. moving many of his earlier positions towards center-right…the Chief wonders why they would be surprised?

If one favors a candidate that has no apparent bedrock of fundamental principles, what’s the surprise when positions and policies change with the wind. Isn’t that sort of relativism nothing more or less than what has been advocated by social-democratic liberalism for say, the last 100 years or so?

So what’s the surprise when this is put into practice. Maybe they will begin to finally learn a big lesson – that ultimately character (or it’s lack) DOES count.

Meanwhile, B.O.’s own words promise to privide a well-stocked magazine full of ammo to use to further discredit what passes through his fuzzy mind as alleged thought:

Obama’s own voice may haunt him

Barack Obama has proved to be a difficult target to hit — just ask Hillary Rodham Clinton. Opposition researchers, though, hope that they’ve found a weapon to wound Obama in his own voice as recorded for the Grammy Award-winning audio version of his 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father.”

While candidates often have their own words turned against them in attack ads, it’s one thing to see past statements in block text and something else entirely to hear the same words in the office-seeker’s own voice.

“I think the audio version makes a much more immediate impact” than the print version of his memoir, said conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt, who has played audio excerpts from the book on his syndicated radio show. “It turns out to be very jarring to many ears to hear Obama talking about his youthful adventures, his attitudes on race.”

The Chief is sure that we’ll all hear much more of this before November. HEH HEH HEH.

Culture Wars

Brit Food Kommisars Established to Monitor Kids Eating

Toddlers who dislike spicy food ‘racist’

The National Children’s Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. This could include a child of as young as three who says “yuk” in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

HUH? Do any of the Brit moonbats that cooked this one up have any kids? Kids ALWAYS express dislike for some foods…and guess what, cultural origins have nothing to do with it. They need to take some deep breaths, relax, and get a life started over there.

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.” It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: “blackie”, “Pakis”, “those people” or “they smell”. The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk'”.

Staff are told: “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.” Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children “reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes”.

This is such a degree of surveillance it can only be described as totalitarian.

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: “Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case.”

This reads almost exactly like stuff about the old Cheka/NKVD/KGB as described in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Based on that, can quotas for mimimum numbers of reports be far behind?

China Watch

Oil Price Crunches Globalist Trade Pattern

Oil price shock means China is at risk of blowing up

The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is one of the sharpest reporters around, and has been for some time. He describes a very interesting situation.

The great oil shock of 2008 is bad enough for us. It poses a mortal threat to the whole economic strategy of emerging Asia. The manufacturing revolution of China and her satellites has been built on cheap transport over the past decade. At a stroke, the trade model looks obsolete….

Can you say “schadenfreude“?

“The monumental energy price increases will be a ‘game-changer’ for Asia,” said Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley. The region’s trade model is about to be “stress-tested”.

Energy subsidies have disguised the damage. China has held down electricity prices, though global coal costs have tripled since early 2007. Loss-making industries are being propped up. This merely delays trouble. “The true impact of the shock will only be revealed over time, as subsidies are gradually rolled back,” he said. Last week, China raised internal rail freight rates by 17pc.

BP ‘s Statistical Review says China’s use of energy per unit of gross domestic product is three times that of the US, five times Japan’s, and eight times Britain’s. China’s factories “were not built with current energy levels in mind”, said Mr Jen. The outcome will be “non-linear”. My translation: China is at risk of blowing up.

Non-linear…as in jagged, or sharp and sudden, not smooth and gradual.

Any low-tech product shipped in bulk – furniture, say, or shoes – is facing the ever-rising tariff of high freight costs. The Asian outsourcing game is over, says CIBC World Markets. “It’s not just about labour costs any more: distance costs money,” says chief economist Jeff Rubin. Xinhua says that 2,331 shoe factories in Guangdong have shut down this year, half the total.

North Carolina’s furniture industry is coming back from the dead as companies shut plant in China. “We’re getting hit with increases up and down the system. It’s changing the whole equation of where we produce,” said Craftsmaster Furniture.

It’s an ill wind indeed that blows no good!

Evans-Pritchard concludes with a turn of phrase that is well worth some serious contemplation, as it cuts to the real heart of the matter IMHO:

Come what may, globalisation has passed its high-water mark. The pendulum will now swing back from China to America. The mercantilists will have to reinvent themselves.

Interesting times, indeed!

Uncategorized

Brit Religious Freedom? Not in school anymore.

Schoolboys punished with detention for refusing to kneel in class and pray to Allah

Yet more stomach-turning politically correct moonbattery from Britain.

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and ‘pray to Allah’ during a religious education lesson. Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped. They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent – which included wearing Muslim headgear – was a breach of their human rights.

D’ya think? FORCING participation in prayer…in someone ELSE’S religion? Of course this couldn’t happen here, could it?

(Oh, it already did? In California – of course – and with nary a squawk out of the ACLU.

One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: “This isn’t right, it’s taking things too far. “I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn’t join in Muslim prayer. Making them pray to Allah, who isn’t who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful.”

HUH? The kids were disrespectful?

What about the *$%@&*# teacher being respectful of the (non-Moslem) students own religious views?

The idiocy here boggles the mind.

Uncategorized

Auschwitz-Style “Research” by Donk Candidate

Democratic Congressional Candidate’s Ties to Bizarre AIDS Research

YIKES!

Injecting PEOPLE with MALARIA on the totally insane moonbat theory that this will “cure” AIDS?! Well, maybe, I mean death from malaria WOULD “eliminate” an AIDS case, wouldn’t it?

Not only this, but a Donk candidate doing this…a taste of “change” to come under a Donk health plan?

The Democratic congressional candidate in Ohio, Dr. Victoria Wulsin, is being attacked by her Republican opponent for her work looking into a widely debunked theory that AIDS can be cured with malaria. The controversial treatment, known as “malariotherapy”, has been denounced by leading AIDS researchers as dangerous, scientifically unfounded and unethical.

U.S. Representative Jean Schmidt (R-OH), locked in a tight race with Wulsin for an Ohio congressional seat, recently sent out a fund-raising letter sharply denouncing Wulsin for her work on a malariotherapy project. The letter states that “Wulsin’s contempt for the culture of life has even led her to participate in grotesque medical experiments. Wulsin was paid for her work in medical “studies” where victims of AIDS in Africa and China were…injected with the malaria virus, all in the name of “scientific inquiry.”

Dr. Mengele would have approved no doubt…using African untermenschen as human guinea pigs like this, while Dr. Wulsin would have qualified for a hot-seat at Nuremberg in 1946.

Wulsin was paid to review data from these studies conducted in China (of course!) and Africa. It’s worth noting, that previous use of data from Nazi sources has been widely criticized as being unethical…how much more so to be involved with projects generating MORE data under similarly unethical conditions?

And this is the party the Blacks overwhelmingly favor? Sheeesh!

Uncategorized

Columbian Narcoterrs Embarassed

Colombian rebels tricked into freeing hostage Ingrid Betancourt

Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held hostage by Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebels for six years, has been freed in a cunning military operation in the Colombian jungle.

Colombian security forces rescued the French-Colombian politician, 11 Colombian police and three US intelligence operatives in an operation in the eastern jungle province of Guaviare which saw the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) lose their negotiating trump cards.

Read the story…it sounds like an operation out of a Tom Clancy scenario…except this time for real!

Score this one for the good guys, for sure!

Uncategorized

D.I.Y. Security Response Stops Terr Dead in his Tracks

‘He cried Allah Akhbar and hit the gas’

This un-named (for obvious reasons) IDF troop definitely had his shit together & responded properly and iinstantly, preventing a horrific situation becoming even worse than it was.

He was a soldier home on leave, riding his bike down Jaffa Road on Wednesday when he spotted the overturned No. 13 bus and a massive bulldozer tearing through the streets of Jerusalem. Realizing that the Arab behind the wheel was in the midst of a terror rampage, “M” (his identity and unit are barred from publication by a court order) threw his bike to the side of the road and began to chase the bulldozer.

As he began running toward the bulldozer, M said, he shouted to onlookers, asking for a gun. Together with a civilian, M climbed aboard the bulldozer and began wrestling with the driver.

“At one point he yelled out, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and stepped on the gas pedal,” M recalled. “I drew the weapon of the civilian who was with me and shot the driver three times in the head. I think I did what is expected from every soldier and citizen.”

The account neatly defines (as if there was any doubt in this case!) what the motivation was, once again the expression of the translation of 7th Century Islam into 21st century Islamofascism.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, and mazeltov to the IDF trooper who was doing God’s work.

P.S. – 2nd Amendment Note: This was only possible due to the ready availability of privately held firearms when needed – not to say Israel has the same laws as we do…but the availability of arms when REALLY needed is just as valid for us as it was there.

National Insecurity, Space Patrol

Space Race with ChiComs?

Uh…not unless we start to run! Otherwise it’ll be a default loss for us, and we’ll be on a slide down towards Eurotrash style mediocrity.

Buzz Aldrin: Invest in Nasa to beat the Chinese to Mars

Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, has issued a stark warning that America must invest now in the space agency Nasa, or surrender leadership of space exploration to Russia and China. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Aldrin revealed that he intends to lobby Barack Obama and John McCain, the two US presidential candidates, in an effort to ensure they find sufficient funds for Nasa’s goal to establish a permanent base on the Moon and then send a manned mission to Mars.

This would be really BAD in so many ways…Russia and China literally holding the high ground?

Mr Aldrin, 78, said: “To me it’s abysmal that it has come to this: after 50 years of Nasa, and after putting about $100 billion into the space station, we can’t get our own astronauts to our space station without relying on the Russians.”

Really!

He said his message to the next president is this: “Retain the vision for space exploration. If we turn our backs on the vision again, we’re going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century.”

Any bets on this getting the attention of either of the major presidential candidates? No?

Didn’t think so. How sad.