Did you know that just 16 large sea going cargo ships can produce as much pollution as all the world’s cars. Think about that! There are 100,000 of these ships on the sea! And none are restricted from burning dirty sulphur laden fuel oil that is not allowed as fuel by others. And that means they produce 6,250 times as much pollution as ALL the cars in the world! But I only hear about those Hummers being gas hogs. 
(Read more from riverjournal.com)
Category Archives: Misc
Merry Christmas from Lost Republic . us
Feeling the spirit of the holidays?
You know, there’s a “Donate” button off the right. ;)
Bribing the Taleban with Gold & Viagra
British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with “bags of gold”, according to a new army field manual published yesterday. ()
Also, from last year:
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. (Read more from washingtonpost.com)
The Daily Bell
I’ve found a new website, The Daily Bell, which I like enough to make part of my daily reading. I also link them in my blog roll (see below, and to the right).
Check them out.
It seems they scrape articles from all over, then offer free-market analysis for each. Well written & insightful.
Why is the government stockpiling coffins, body bags, preparing burial sites?
There’s been a buzz on the internet for a while now about government stockpiles of coffins and their construction of mass graves. You be the judge:
China eyes ban on rare metal exports
“Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons.
A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.
China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia.” (Read more from telegraph.co.uk)
Afghan opium profits going mostly to U.S. allies
“One of the most revealing things we learned this week about the war in Afghanistan came in a Los Angeles Times report headlined ‘Taliban Drug Proceeds Lower Than Thought.’
We’ve been told again and again for years on end that the Taliban were running their operations off the opium trade, clearing as much as $400 million per year. Now, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation says the proceeds are closer to $70 million.
But that’s not the real news. The real news is what’s missing: If our enemies aren’t taking as much money as we thought to provide protection to the source of raw material for 90% of the world’s heroin, then who is providing that protection?
Apparently, the answer is: our friends.
The Times goes on to say:
In one of its most disconcerting conclusions, the Senate report says the United States inadvertently contributed to the resurgent drug trade … by backing warlords who derived income from the flow of illegal drugs. … These warlords later traded on their stature as U.S. allies to take senior positions in the new Afghan government, laying the groundwork for the corrupt nexus between drugs and authority that pervades the power structure today.
The cost of this may well go beyond the effect on the heroin shipments.
When we sat down this week with Amin Tarzi, director of Middle East Studies at the Marine Corps University and a native Afghan, he said that the United States has lost credibility with the Afghan populace by allying itself with warlords who have been known across Afghanistan for many years as criminals.” (Read more from npr.org)
Twenty Five Disinformation Techniques
(from goldismoney.info)
by H. Michael Sweeney copyright (c) 1997, 2000, 2001 All rights reserved (Edited June 2001)
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil
2. Become incredulous and indignant
3. Create rumor mongers
4. Use a straw man
5. Sidetrack opponents w name calling, ridicule
6. Hit and Run
7. Question motives
8. Invoke authority
9. Play Dumb
10. Associate opponent charges with old news
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions
12. Enigmas have no solution
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic
14. Demand complete solutions
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions
16. Vanish evidence and witnesses
17. Change the subject
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad
19. Ignore facts, demand impossible proofs
20. False evidence
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor
22. Manufacture a new truth
23. Create bigger distractions
24. Silence critics
25. Vanish
Eight Traits of The Disinformationalist
1. Avoidance
2. Selectivity
3. Coincidental
4. Teamwork
5. Anti-conspiratorial
6. Artificial Emotions
7. Inconsistent
8. Newly Discovered: Time Constant
C4L @ Iowa’s Johnson County Fair
I know what you’re thinking – those are some good looking dudes.
We had a great response. Many people stopped by just to tell us they supported us. Many stopped by asking what we stood for. We raffled some silver coins, and had people fill out the World’s Smallest Political Quiz, then put a sticker on a poster-sized chart to show where they ended up.
SA on Ron Paul Republicanism
The Centrally-Planned Language: Esperanto
Scary. Esperanto enthusiasm has died down in recent decades, but who knows what may yet arise from the good-idea factory in Washington DC. Maybe some day, we’ll all be required by law to speak it. The central planners even had a movie made in Esperanto:
Federal Government Land % by State
A very humble, generous CEO (from Japan)
Auto Industry Headlines & Excerpts
– GM’s new propaganda video “GM (GM) says we still don’t get it. If we don’t save them, they’re gonna nuke the economy to all hell. In case dire warnings of billions and billions in losses aren’t enough to freak you out, the company has posted a scare-video on YouTube, complete with ominous music and the kind of overwrought imagery you might got during a preview for 60 Minutes.”
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– Chrysler leaders get millions “As Detroit’s crumbling auto industry asks Congress for a bailout, Chrysler is in the awkward position of paying about $30 million in retention bonuses to keep top executives while the company cuts thousands of jobs. Chrysler owes the bonuses under its contracts with about 50 executives, based on a retention incentive plan crafted early last year by former German parent DaimlerChrysler, when it was preparing to sell the Chrysler unit.”
– What Toyota knows that GM doesn’t “Do you know how many hourly jobs GM has laid off from 2006 to July 2008? . . . . 34,000 . . . And now, they’re talking about another 5,500 . . . . they’re asking you and your government for a bailout to end their troubled, outdated, low quality, wasteful production system. . . . OK, here’s a better question. How many hourly jobs has Toyota’s American production system laid off in the same time frame? Zero. That’s right. ZERO. . . . Toyota has halted production at its Texas and Indiana plants for the past 3 months. But the 4,500 people who work at those plants have not been laid off. . . . Toyota has a special culture, deep-rooted values, and respect for their workforce. Toyota’s tradition is to NOT lay off employees during hard times. This tradition hasn’t really been put to the test until now. And Toyota has stuck to its guns and its values.”
– Auto Workers Union Rules Out Concessions To Help Detroit Bailout “With the House of Representatives pledging an aid package for the auto industry, the United Auto Workers (UWA) union fanned the flames a bit by refusing to grant any concessions in a bailout of the big 3 Detroit automakers. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger adamantly stated that the auto industry’s woes could be laid at the feet of the stumbling U.S. economy overall: The US United Auto Workers (UAW) union has ruled out concessions – at least for the time being – to help rescue the ailing Detroit-based car industry.”
– GM and Ford To Get Rid of Some Private Planes They Don’t Like Totally Need…Maybe “Even though GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Ford CEO Alan Mulally are required by their companies to fly by private aircraft for security reasons, they think they may be able to part with their private jets. Of course this has nothing to do with their recent excursion to Washington to beg for money. Wilkinson said the decision to return the leased corporate jets was made before this week’s hearings and that the company in September returned two other of the seven jets it had at the beginning of the year.”
– Video: Fords Super-Advanced new assembly plant (in Brazil)
– America’s Other Auto Industry “There is such a thing as a profitable car maker in this country. . . . These are the 12 ‘foreign,’ or so-called transplant, producers making cars across America’s South and Midwest. Toyota, BMW, Kia and others now make 54% of the cars Americans buy. The internationals also employ some 113,000 Americans, compared with 239,000 at U.S.-owned carmakers, and several times that number indirectly.”
– U.S. Auto Sales down 30-50% from last year “U.S. auto makers continued to post sharp sales declines in November as General Motors Corp. reported a 41% plunge and lowered its fourth-quarter production forecast, underscoring why the struggling auto maker and its Detroit rivals are seeking federal assistance to help them through the current environment. . . . The dour numbers, coming on the back of October’s moribund results, also saw Ford Motor Co. post a 31% decline and Toyota Motor Corp. report a 34% decrease. Chrysler LLC, a private company controlled by private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management LP, saw its sales skid 47%.”
The War Prayer
“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved fire sides to smite the foe.
O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —
for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.”
— Mark Twain