Category : International, Media, Politics
A horrible story was reported last week by The Times in London.
A seven-year-old boy was murdered by the Taleban in an apparent act of retribution this week. Afghan officials said that the child was accused of spying for US and Nato forces and hanged from a tree in southern Afghanistan.
Category : Black Liquor, Media, Politics
Not often, but after some posts I regret being a little too aggressive. About an equal number of other posts are judged, retrospectively, to have been too soft. ”Soft” is how I felt about yesterdays two posts. We let the media and the President off too easily. It was convenient then that we received a comment from a reader. I will take the opportunity to respond to that comment here. Before going on you might want to read the two short posts dated May 11. Continue Reading
Just finished the previous post and noticed this story. This one is in the same vein, but even harder to believe. The President believes his poicies are unpopular because we are being confused by all the information available on the Internet. Oh, the horror that this could create! See passages below and the full story here. Continue Reading
Congressman Cleaver (MO) believes that support for climate change legislation is fading because we non-believers are just not very smart. See his comments here. Cleaver suggests that… Continue Reading
Category : Media, Politics, Why We Believe
When I lose patience with the liberal U.S. media, I go to the Prvada website, browse for a while, and feel better knowing that it could be worse. Russia is a strange country. Someday we will delve into that in more detail, but no time tonight. Let’s just say that the country is still somewhat isolated, and not fond of the U.S., or Canada either it seems. A Canadian friend sent this Pravda story on the Vancouver Olympics. It is hate filled and completely inaccurate. Just so you know what the Russian people are reading about Canada, you should go to Vancouver: Mutton Dressed as Lamb. I don’t know what that means either, but it is not good. Continue Reading
I am borrowing the “fat-cats” term from the president in show of support on the issue of excessive compensation. But it is not just “fat cat” bankers that are the problem; it is much more widespread than that.
The news came out today that Katie Couric is going to have to take a pay cut; which raises the question, “What took so long?” A veteran producer is quoted in the story as saying, “She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year! It’s complete insanity.” Continue Reading
The major U.S. networks refuse to cover Climategate so we go north of the border to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Centre) for the story. Liberal as the CBC is, it is less inclined to censor the news that ABC, CBS, and NBC. The attached video, Climate Change: Science or Politics , is less than four minutes long and is well worth the time.
Global warming is a fascinating subject, and one the greatest cons ever perpetrated. One of the reasons the con works so well is that much of western society (including academia, major media, and government bureaucracies) already believes that industrialization is the enemy. Since the theory of global warming reinforced a belief system already in place, it was welcomed with open arms. We will have much more later.
Category : Black Liquor, Health Care, Media, Paper, Politics, Subsidies
There is an expression, one of those “They say” pearls of wisdom, “you don’t want to know how laws and sausage are made.” But whether we wanted it or not, the events relating to the black liquor subsidy forced us to become more familiar with our legislative process. At the start of the black liquor issue, my confidence in the capabilities of governments in general, and this congress/president specifically, was at the bottom of my personal 1-10 scale. I expected so little, how could I be disappointed? It has now become clear, however, how naïve I was. I had no idea that corruption, mendacity, and selfish indifference to the well being of the country could be so pervasive and so in-your-face.
The U.S. Treasury Burns Cash While Baucus Fiddles….Around: Senator Baucus, what have you been doing all year? Baucus promised to introduce legislation to close the black liquor loophole for pulp companies in March and again in October, but nothing happened. It is too late now, an introduction at this time would only make him look worse – that is, if anyone in the media really cared that Senator Snowe traded her in-committee health care vote for $9 billion. It appears not.
The Republicans, meanwhile, don’t seem to care about the black liquor improprieties either. They ignore the primary corruption, but have called for an ethics probe of Baucus for nominating his staff-member girl friend, Melodee Hanes, as a U.S. attorney. It seems that all the ladies in Baucus’ life are rewarded in one manner or another.
Moving from the Senate to the House, HR2967 (introduced in June by Arizona Congresspeople Ann Kirkpatrick (D) and Jeff Flake (R)), was intended to close the black liquor loophole. It has gone nowhere.
“The Black Liquor Tax Credit Will Save Jobs”: That was Senator Snowe’s claim (and others who have supported the continuation of these subsidies) but that is simply not true. For one thing, jobs gained by companies benefiting from the subsidy were often lost by others. Fraser Paper in Maine was seriously harmed. The work that Boise DeRidder gained was lost by Snowflake. A comprehensive list of damaged companies would be a long one.
Then, there is that supply/demand thing that just won’t go away. If demand declines, supply must eventually be removed. (I am thinking of making this an official “absolute truth”, but it might be a little too basic). In order to keep pace with falling demand, IP announced in late October that it was permanently eliminating 2.1 million tons of various grades at four different mill locations. This will mean a loss of 1600 direct jobs, and a multiple of that number in supporting job functions. These closures occurred in spite of the fact that IP will receive over $2 billion in black liquor subsidies for 2008-2009 production. It is also important to consider that roughly $200 million of this black liquor subsidy money (out of the $2+ billion IP total) will be received by IP in 2009 for operating the four plants that it will now close in 2010.
This is not a criticism of IP for taking steps needed to keep supply and demand in balance. If it were possible, the company certainly would have continued operating this capacity. The point is simply that no IP jobs were saved as a result of that $2 billion government gift.
Media Culpability – Major media is no solution. With few exceptions, they contribute to the problem. They are no longer watchdogs for the public; they are now complicit in the deceit.
Climategate is a perfect example. On November 20th, we heard from impartial media that hackers had broken into computers in the Climate Research Unit at the prestigious University of East Anglia in Great Britain. These illegally obtained emails allowed us inside climate central and gave us access to what billions of dollars of taxpayer funds were actually paying for. Just to summarize, we learned that some of the most influential climate “scientists” in the world had destroyed raw data inconsistent with the warming of the planet, conspired with each other to distort the “adjusted” data, conspired to withhold other damaging information, and worked diligently and unethically to prevent evidence in opposition to global warming from being published in scientific journals. How did our trusted major TV networks respond to this bombshell? They pretended it did not happen. The Media Research Center reported on December the 2nd that, “An examination of the morning and evening news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC since November the 20th yielded zero mentions of the scandal…” but during that same period of time, the misadventures of Tiger Woods had been reported on 37 occasions. There was also a touching story of an orphan moose, and coverage of the foods selected for the president’s state dinner.
The network biases are just as obvious when covering health care and climate legislation. The corruption of major networks is complete.
I mentioned previously that a correspondent for CNN, Drew Griffin, had become interested in the black liquor subsidy. His producer, Kathleen Johnston, had read one of my black liquor stories, and arranged for me to be interviewed by Mr. Griffin. It seems that Drew has a point of view on this story similar to that being reported in Reel Time. Based on CNN’s liberal bias, I was pleasantly surprised. The story was delayed for weeks, but finally scheduled to run on November 30th. Unfortunately, it was preempted by the Tiger Woods fender bender that had occurred that week-end. It has not yet been re-scheduled. Although it is not his final decision, I know Drew really wants the story to run. He and Kathleen have worked hard on it, and CNN has spent a lot of money on the report, sending film crews to several locations around the U.S. It is a powerful story of government corruption. So why isn’t it running?
If the CNN story does run, I will post a notice in this Blog. If you are interested in being notified, but have not yet signed up on this Blog, be sure to do so. I will probably have less than a full day notice.
There are several other stories related to the black liquor subsidy that we will cover in a post next week.