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December 2007
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Monday, December 31st

Timber thieves show how depleted our resources are



With the overseas demand for North American hardwoods growing, it's become a more costly issue for private landowners, whose tree farms and woodlands make up 55 percent of U.S. timber production, forestry officials say. The rest comes from lands owned by the state and federal governments, the logging industry and other investors.

Because timber theft often goes unreported or unprosecuted, few track cases nationwide. However, a 2003 Virginia Tech University study estimated that landowners lose in excess of $4 million to timber thieves each year in the otherwise poor but hardwood-rich Appalachian states.

Also, domestic prices for hardwoods, such as cherry, walnut and white oak, have increased about 10 percent over the past decade, according to analysts, but the demand overseas, especially in China and southeast Asia, has increased substantially over the past few years.

[ When everything's for sale, you use it all up and then go looking for more like a drug addict. Are you sure capitalism is a great system? ]
news on 12.31.07 @ 02:44 PM CST [more..]


Saturday, December 29th

Texas hate crime stats decline



Recently released FBI "hate crime" statistics suggest Texas and its largest city, Houston, could be growing more tolerant than many other parts of the country.

The FBI report identified 7,722 crimes in the United States last year, including 245 in Texas, that were motivated by prejudice against race, religion, sexual orientation or a disability.

The numbers represent nearly a 7 percent increase from the year before in the United States, but a 6 percent drop in Texas.

Anglos living in Harris County have declined to 37 percent today from 63 percent in 1982, while the Hispanic population has exploded to 38 percent from 20 percent.

The percent of Asian residents has grown to 7 percent from 2 percent, while the black population has dipped slightly to 18 percent from 20 percent.

[ The city is also more corrupt, and less friendly, than before, leading to less contact between neighbors. This is the inward curvature of a bell curve before its peak. ]
news on 12.29.07 @ 04:52 PM CST [more..]


Wednesday, December 26th

Sending racially "offensive" letters now a crime



Federal Judge James Moody handed down a sentence today in the case of Shawn Hardin, the Maumelle woman who pleaded guilty to sending a racially charged letter to her neighbors, the Terry family: six months prison and six months home confinement with electronic monitoring.

The case for maximum time was supported by strong testimony from the Terrys, who talked about how they felt threatened by the unprovoked letter.

[ "Free speech" always was an oxymoron, but in the past, we had more trust in those who administrate it. Now Stalinistic bureaucrats vie for pleasuring various powerful groups at the expense of normal people. When are you oblivious minivan-drivers going to wake up? It doesn't end until you end it. ]
news on 12.26.07 @ 11:32 PM CST [more..]


Monday, December 24th

Economy might be in bad shape



Lenders are hoarding the cash, shunning peers as if all were sub-prime lepers. Spreads on three-month Euribor and Libor - the interbank rates used to price contracts and Club Med mortgages - are stuck at 80 basis points even after the latest blitz. The monetary screw has tightened by default.

"The central banks are rapidly losing control. By not cutting interest rates nearly far enough or fast enough, they are allowing the money markets to dictate policy. We are long past worrying about moral hazard," he says.

"They still have another couple of months before this starts imploding. Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park," he adds.

[ Sounds like a great financial system there, folks. ]
news on 12.24.07 @ 07:19 PM CST [more..]


Economy might be in bad shape



Lenders are hoarding the cash, shunning peers as if all were sub-prime lepers. Spreads on three-month Euribor and Libor - the interbank rates used to price contracts and Club Med mortgages - are stuck at 80 basis points even after the latest blitz. The monetary screw has tightened by default.

"The central banks are rapidly losing control. By not cutting interest rates nearly far enough or fast enough, they are allowing the money markets to dictate policy. We are long past worrying about moral hazard," he says.

"They still have another couple of months before this starts imploding. Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park," he adds.

[ Sounds like a great financial system there, folks. ]
news on 12.24.07 @ 07:16 PM CST [more..]


Some deaf parents want deaf kids



DEAF parents should be allowed to screen their embryos so they can pick a deaf child over one that has all its senses intact, according to the chief executive of the Royal National Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID).

Jackie Ballard, a former Liberal Democrat MP, says that although the vast majority of deaf parents would want a child who has normal hearing, a small minority of couples would prefer to create a child who is effectively disabled, to fit in better with the family lifestyle.

[ Children are like iPods: you own them until they break, and then you send them in to the psychologist for repair. Who gives a damn what makes them fulfilled. ]
news on 12.24.07 @ 07:09 PM CST [more..]


White Britons to be a minority by 2037



White Britons will become a minority in a dozen towns and cities within 30 years, a study has revealed.

Record levels of immigration combined with higher birth rates among newcomers will tip the balance between whites and non-whites and create a string of "superdiverse" cities where no single group will form a majority.

[ And so this new gray race, what culture will they have? What they see on their TVs, of course. Excellent -- what perfect customers! ]
news on 12.24.07 @ 07:04 PM CST [more..]


Black actor calls Hitler "good person"



Will Smith has stunned the world by declaring that even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was essentially a "good" person.

The Men In Black star, 39, is determined to see the best in people, and is convinced the former German leader did not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering his actions would cause during his time in power in the 1930s and '40s.

[ He's right - Hitler was a good person, who did what was right, and was not nearly as vindictive or hateful as the Western propaganda attempted to make him out to be. ]
news on 12.24.07 @ 07:01 PM CST [more..]


Saturday, December 22nd

Immigrants leaving Arizona



Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states.

[ After all those talking heads in the media told us about how hard it would be to get immigrants to repatriate, this comes as a surprise to most, but not all. Illegal immigrants are here for the easy pickings of better jobs and free public care. Take that away, and they go back to life as before. The same applies to non-Europeans in European areas. ]
news on 12.22.07 @ 12:32 PM CST [more..]


Sunday, December 16th

Incontinence a byproduct of Western lifestyle



One in four U.S. adults will experience incontinence at some point, a surprisingly high toll, and the condition is so embarrassing that many suffer silently, a government panel said Wednesday.

Women are most prone to incontinence, which is the inability to control urination or bowel movements. But everyone's risk rises as they get older. Being overweight and a couch potato adds to the risk.

With the population rapidly graying and fattening, scientists convened by the National Institutes of Health issued an urgent call for research to find better ways to prevent incontinence and to remove the stigma so more people will seek help.

[ We have a problem, so let's talk it to death and make it seem acceptable, which means that in public we pretend it's normal but in private we roll our eyes, knowing the real problem is being fat and old and lazy. We can't fix old, but what about the other two? Maybe instead of blaming incontinence on the gods we should look toward our own failings. ]
news on 12.16.07 @ 11:49 AM CST [more..]


Saturday, December 15th

The 1960s destroyed America



He says what made the '60s distinctive -- as opposed to other pivotal decades such as the post-World War I 1920s, for example -- is "that unique generation of the boomers ... the most prosperous in the history of any organized society anywhere." The boomers weren't just a large cohort, he observes, it engaged in revolutionary actions: "a convulsive rejection of so many values of their parents ... they rejected parental authority, they rejected institutional authority."

And, perhaps most divisively, the decade "was the beginning of deep cynicism about the U.S. government and what it would do to you as much it would it would do for you," Brokaw says.

Indeed, Buchanan, asked by Brokaw if anything good came out of the '60s, had a stark answer: "I don't think much."

[ Buchanan is correct. The 1960s was a time when people inherited unprecedented wealth and, lacking the wisdom to apply it well, became selfish pigs who insisted on extreme rights for everyone so they themselves would not have to have accountability to common sense. It was a gigantic failure and proven Adolf Hitler right: selfishness/individualism, capitalism, communism, globalism and consumerism are the same thing -- the revenge of the masses upon nature through the mechanism of their own selfishness.
news on 12.15.07 @ 02:28 PM CST [more..]