Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Saudi Arabian government to require online news, blogs and forums to be licensed. Coming soon to American.

TAX AND SPEND:

Slovakia considers pulling out of the euro. The sooner the better. There's no need for anybody to go down with that ship.

HEALTH CARE:

Comparing government's death of our health care system to the death of Detroit. I don't like the passive voice here. It didn't happen passively. Government is killing Detroit like it's killing our health care system.

"When a city simply shuts down from the effects of government mismanagement, the media say nothing. Detroit has become the poster child of government regulation, welfare systems, and a population that has given up hope."

In other words, government looted Detroit to death, and the federal government is doing the same thing to our entire country. When the illusion of wealth collapses, the US will be exposed as a third world country because of all the looting. Here's what's going to happen under Obamacare:

"I know what is going to happen.

1. Cost overruns
2. Fraud
3. Additional coverage extended to groups
4. Rising deficits in the program
5. Lower payments to physicians
6. Lower payments to hospitals
7. Delays in payments
8. Rising taxes on the rich
9. Rationing by doctors, hospitals, government
10. Delays in treatment
11. More HMO care: assembly line medicine
12. A search for scapegoats

In 1977, I was involved in an early warning operation. Three teams of physicians and economists toured the country. We hit 30 cities in two weeks. We warned physicians in poorly attended meetings that something like Obamacare was coming. It has now arrived. The physicians we spoke to are mostly retired. They saw some of this happen on a minor scale, but they escaped.

I spoke about the percentage of the GDP (then GNP) devoted to heath care: about 7%. Today, it is 15%. Medicare and Medicaid have increased costs. The care is no better. Except for technology, it is arguably worse.

Obamacare will lead to an expansion of these forms of medicine:

1. Concierge
2. Wal-Mart
3. ER
4. HMO
5. Mexican

CONCIERGE. The rich and very rich hire their own physicians. They pay top dollar. The physicians do not take third-party payments, either from the government or insurance companies. They are independent practitioners. They make house calls. The houses they call on are very large.

For the upper middle class, there are fee-for-service physicians. They take no third-party payments. They do not make house calls.

WAL-MART. These are the walk-in clinics. They are price competitive. They treat minor ailments. They sell services on a one-time basis. They take credit cards. They may or may not cater to the Medicare crowd. They are assembly-line clinics. There are no major surgeries or other high-cost, high-risk services.

ER. Large hospital emergency rooms are mandated by law. The poor get treated there. In a life-and-death emergency, they work. People who would otherwise die in a couple of hours are saved. For walk-in patients, the ERs ration by time. Patients demonstrate their patience.

HMO. This style of medicine is efficient. It cuts costs by cutting services and cutting time. You see the physician on duty. You may not have seen him before. His job is to get you in and out as fast as possible. Time is monitored by the company. Computers make this easy.

MEXICAN. This is off-shore medicine. In Canada, when you can't get treated for months or years, you come to the United States and pay. This will not be possible for Canadians much longer, except for rich ones. Mexico will serve upper middle-class Americans as the USA has served Canadians."

No doubt about it. And advice?

"You had better start getting into shape. You can no longer afford to be vulnerable to the diseases and afflictions of a flabby lifestyle. ObamaCare has changed the risk-reward ratio. Risk has just gone up. It will continue to go up.

There will be no roll-back of this law. It is going to be enforced for as long as the U.S. government has money.

That may not be as long as Obama thinks."

Not long at all.

FDA arbitrary forces anti-cancer drug off the market at the point of the government's gun as if bureaucrats have some divine wisdom that's greater than the wisdom of doctors and patients.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Global warming frauds are upset about the lack of media coverage since their fraud was spectacularly exposed by Climategate. In response they plan even more emotional propaganda to try and gin up support for their fraud. Like the boy who cried wolf, this won't work forever. I think it's already too late. Any emotional propaganda bombs will likely backfire.

The British meteorological service (MET) claims it warned the government of a severely cold winter at the same time it publicly published a prediction of a warm winter. This is what happens when political activists posing as scientists are put in charge.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Study shows marijuana use reduces growth of lung cancer.

The many benefits from hemp and why big corporations demonize marijuana to keep hemp illegal. Apparently hemp oil can even be used to make gasoline and it was the first renewable fuel, so apparently even big oil profits from the marijuana ban. The USDA produced the film Hemp for Victory in 1942.

"William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst’s grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, DuPont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. DuPont’s Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of DuPont’s business.

Andrew Mellon became Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury and DuPont’s primary investor. He appointed his future nephew-in-law, Harry J.Anslinger, to head the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Secret meetings were held by these financial tycoons. Hemp was declared dangerous and a threat to their billion-dollar enterprises. For their dynasties to remain intact, hemp had to go. These men took an obscure Mexican slang word: ‘marijuana’ and pushed it into the consciousness of America."

What isn't said here is why these men tried to destroy hemp instead of investing in it if it was a superior product. Maybe the problem is hemp could be grown by anybody, so they couldn't corner the market on it, but that issue should at least be addressed by the essay. I'm not buying the over-exaggeration of the value of hemp in this article, but people should be free to grow it and make it into whatever products they choose.

"The liquor, tobacco and oil companies fund more than a million dollars a day to Partnership for a Drug-Free America and other similar agencies. We have all seen their commercials. Now, their motto is: ‘It’s more dangerous than we thought.’ Lies from the powerful corporations, that began with Hearst, are still alive and well today."

Don't forget the cotton companies.

"The pot plant is an alien plant. There is physical evidence that cannabis is not like any other plant on this planet. One could conclude that it was brought here for the benefit of humanity. Hemp is the only plant where the males appear one way and the females appear very different, physically!"

The aliens did it. How funny.

POLICE STATE:

Three police brutality videos. This is the new normal. It's amazing to me that one cop actually tries to justify tasing a 14 year old girl who hadn't harmed anybody and didn't threaten anybody. He tased because she refused to stop when he told her to. What's clear from all these videos is the cops fully expect to get away with their assaults, and they almost certainly are correct.

WAR:

This local agreement in Afghanistan doesn't sound like hope to me. It sounds like coercion, and it illustrates that NATO forces can't secure the country.

Government developing sophisticated, adaptive electronic jamming technology that it will use on Americans as soon as it's proven in Afghanistan.

POLITICS:

Robert Reich's wife tells it like it is in Washington:

"This is what Reich reports about his wife's take on Washington D.C.,  a few weeks before Reich accepted the Labor Secretary position:

"It's always the same thing. Who's up? Who's down? Who's in? Who's out? It's a one-company town, Bob. Everyone works for the same company in some way or another. Politicians, journalists, bureaucrats, lawyers, lobbyists. And all that really counts is your rank in the company. Power, power, power! No one cares about ideas or values, or even their families." She's crying. "It was bad enough when we didn't have kids. But now I'm not sure I could stand it."

They had lived in  D.C. for the first eight years of their married life."

It's got to be sickening. They say you have to have a certain mentality to be a politician. That mentalist is a psychopath or sociopath. Normal people need not apply.

In laying out his vision for a president who wants to return to government to its constitutional limits, Ron Paul claims:

"No matter what the president wants to do, most major changes in government programs would require legislation to be passed by Congress."

This is only half true. The President has no only the power but the duty to nullify every unconstitutional law on the books. That means it is his duty to shut down the Dept. of Education, FCC, FTC, EPA, etc., etc., etc. with the stroke of a pen. Obviously those organizations will still exist in the unconstitutional law on the books, but the President doesn't have to wait for Congress to repeal them. In fact, he would be derelict in his duty to uphold and defend the Constitution if he did so. He must nullify them and then pressure Congress to also abolish them. I think Paul is being too wimpy here.

MISC:

More birds drop dead from the sky.

Entire Animal Farm movie on YouTube.