Friday, August 13, 2010
How we got here. Long but worth it.
http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5955/
Thursday, August 12, 2010
In the year 2017....If man is still alive
Counterpunch. Paul Craig Roberts (h/t/ Jesse)
It was 2017. Clans were governing America.
The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.
As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and
the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.
The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.
With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.
The government was forced to print money in order to pay its bills, causing domestic prices to rise rapidly. Faced with hyperinflation, Washington took recourse in terminating Social Security and Medicare and followed up by confiscating the remnants of private pensions. This provided a one-year respite, but with no more resources to confiscate, money creation and hyperinflation resumed.
Organized food deliveries broke down when the government fought hyperinflation with fixed prices and the mandate that all purchases and sales had to be in US paper currency. Unwilling to trade appreciating goods for depreciating paper, goods disappeared from stores.
Washington responded as Lenin had done during the “war communism” period of Soviet history. The government sent troops to confiscate goods for distribution in kind
to the population. This was a temporary stop-gap until existing stocks were depleted, as future production was discouraged. Much of the confiscated stocks became the property of the troops who seized the goods.
Goods reappeared in markets under the protection of local warlords. Transactions were conducted in barter and in gold, silver, and copper coins.
Other clans organized around families and individuals who possessed stocks of food, bullion, guns and ammunition. Uneasy alliances formed to balance differences in clan strengths. Betrayals quickly made loyalty a necessary trait for survival.
Large scale food and other production broke down as local militias taxed distribution as goods moved across local territories. Washington seized domestic oil production and refineries, but much of the government’s gasoline was paid for safe passage across clan territories.
Most of the troops in Washington’s overseas bases were abandoned. As their resource stocks were drawn down, the abandoned soldiers were forced into alliances with those with whom they had been fighting.
Washington found it increasingly difficult to maintain itself. As it lost control over the country, Washington was less able to secure supplies from abroad as tribute from those Washington threatened with nuclear attack. Gradually other nuclear powers realized that the only target in America was Washington. The more astute saw the writing on the wall and slipped away from the former capital city.
When Rome began her empire, Rome’s currency consisted of gold and silver coinage. Rome was well organized with efficient institutions and the ability to supply troops in the field so that campaigns could continue indefinitely, a monopoly in the world of Rome’s time.
When hubris sent America in pursuit of overseas empire, the venture coincided with the offshoring of American manufacturing, industrial, and professional service jobs and the corresponding erosion of the government’s tax base, with the advent of massive budget and trade deficits, with the erosion of the fiat paper currency’s value, and with America’s dependence on foreign creditors and puppet rulers.
The Roman Empire lasted for centuries. The American one collapsed overnight.
Rome’s corruption became the strength of her enemies, and the Western Empire was overrun.
America’s collapse occurred when government ceased to represent the people and became the instrument of a private oligarchy. Decisions were made in behalf of short-term profits for the few at the expense of unmanageable liabilities for the many.
Overwhelmed by liabilities, the government collapsed.
Globalism had run its course. Life reformed on a local basis.
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Friday, August 6, 2010
A Word About Glenn Beck

Lately I have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck on Fox News. Not to try and debunk him, though if he is wrong, and at times he is, I will be the first to shout out that he is wrong. It is because I am a person who is a freethinker and I like nothing more than to research stuff.
What I love is that Glenn Beck uses history as a learning tool. Why? Because history repeats itself and it is right now as we speak. One can deny and one can make excuses, but if one has known someone and met people who lived through the previous incarnation they would know.
As I have stated in my earlier posts about Grandma Rose, Mr. Wojtyla and others I have known who were residents of Dachau and Auschwitz. I only wish I could bring up their images and have others hear their stories. I am incapable of vocalizing those stories and warnings like Grandma Rose, Vlad Petrolay and Mr. Huddego. I cannot show them the tattoos, the scars and the marks that these people had upon their bodies. I wish to God I could. I have the pictures my father took when he was a liberator of Dachau with the 3rd Army under General Patton, but to see the pictures and hear the stories is so very different.
It is well known that the Nazi's were empowered by what was accomplished by President Wilson and his cabinet in the field of sterilization and eugenics. To hear Science czar John Holdren talk of "breeding a better human" and praise given to the great Propaganda Machine of Freud's favorite nephew Edouard Bernaise, the designer of those great sayings and propaganda used during WWI.
In the first half of the 20th century, Edward Bernaise became the most sought-after spinmeister of his generation. But when his book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, fell into Nazi hands, Bernaise's groundbreaking ideas became the inspiration for one of the world's most sinister campaigns: Joseph Goebbels' push to sell the Holocaust. The "management of opinion and the 'manufacture of consent," which was a phrase of Bernaise' coinage and soon became one of Goebbels' favorites.
Tonight Glenn Beck brought back Grandma Rose, Vlad and the others when he brought up Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer;
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.
God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
Ignore at your own risk. I choose not to.Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Hello Allen
Hope you got here after looking at all the other places I gave you.
Now, start your own blog and go for it.
Igor
Monday, July 26, 2010
Your Taxes in 2010 and 2011
LEARN what is happening.
All this is Pre-Cap and Tax and Pre-VAT (Value Added Tax) figures. If those pass IT WILL GO UP MORE!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2558744/posts
Directions for Misguided Democrats
by: Larry Walker, Jr.
In my last blog post, 2011 Tax Increase: A Reality Check, I attempted to point out how the Bush tax cuts applied to all Americans at every level of income, and that with their expiration at the end of 2010, income taxes will rise across the board. Although valid enough to ignite renewed interest, I now want to expand on this in a more technical manner with examples.
The following table compares the pending change in tax rates (assuming no change for inflation).
As evident with a quick glance, those in lower income levels will see their taxes increase the most with taxes increasing by 50% (from 10% to 15%), but this doesn’t tell the whole story. Only by looking at effective tax rates, can we see the impact of the pending tax increase on hard working Americans, and small business decision makers. [Note: The effective tax rate is calculated by dividing the amount of taxes paid, by the amount of gross income.]
When it comes to taxes, there are many variables that will effect the calculation of ones effective tax rate, such as filing status, number of children, whether or not one itemizes deductions, and whether one has income from pass-throughs (i.e. Partnerships, and S-Corporations), or from capital gains. So in an effort keep this somewhat simple, the examples that follow assume a married couple without children, without capital gains, who does not itemize deductions, and whose income is limited to $500,000.
[Note: The following tables place income on the cusp of each tax bracket, and thus were prepared on a ‘give or take a dollar or two’ basis. (You may click on each table to enlarge.)]
Example 1 - 10% Bracket: Joe and Jane are married and have combined wages of $35,450.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $1,675 with an effective tax rate of 4.7%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $33,775. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $2,512.50 with an effective tax rate of 7.1% which represents a tax increase of 50%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $837.50.
Example 2 – 15% Bracket: Lance and Lori are married and have combined income of $86,700.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $9,362.50 with an effective tax rate of 10.8%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $77,337.50. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $10,200 with an effective tax rate of 11.8% which represents a tax increase of 8.9%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $837.50.
Example 3 – 25% Bracket: Nick and Nancy are married and have combined income of $156,000.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $26,687.50 with an effective tax rate of 17.1%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $129,312.50. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $29,604.00 with an effective tax rate of 19.0% which represents a tax increase of 10.9%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $2,916.50.
Example 4 – 28% Bracket: Paul and Penny are married and have combined income of $227,950.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $46,833.50 with an effective tax rate of 20.5%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $181,116.50. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $51,908.50 with an effective tax rate of 22.8% which represents a tax increase of 10.8%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $5,075.00.
Example 5 - 33% Bracket: Ronald and Rhonda are married and have combined wages $392,350.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $101,085.50 with an effective tax rate of 25.8%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $291,264.50. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $111,092.50 with an effective tax rate of 28.3% which represents a tax increase of 9.9%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $10,007.00.
Example 6 – 35% Bracket: Tom and Tammy are married and have combined income of $518,700.00. In 2010 they will pay income taxes of $145,308.00 with an effective tax rate of 28.0%. Their 2010 after-tax income is $373,392.00. In 2011 they will pay income taxes of $161,127.10 with an effective tax rate of 31.1% which represents a tax increase of 10.9%. Their after tax income in 2011 will fall by $15,819.10.
Does the government deserve 30-40% of your money? From the examples provided, those making over $392,350 will pay between 31.1% up to 39.6% of every additional dollar earned in taxes. This particularly impacts small business owners whose income is taxed at the personal level. It’s hardly worth the effort to expand operations and provide jobs when the government will get 30% to 40% of the paper profits.
All income is not created equal. The federal government should understand that just because a small business has taxable income of $400,000 doesn’t mean that its owner has $400,000 in the bank. Some of that money was used to pay non-deductible principal payments on loans, and some of it is necessary for working capital in order to continue operations. Although the interest paid on loans is deductible for tax purposes, principal repayments are not, so the government really shouldn’t assume that taxable income is the same thing as disposable income.
A tax increase is a tax increase. Those making under $36,000 per year will see the highest tax rate increase of 50%. Although those making between $36,000 and $87,000 will see the smallest increase at potentially 8.9%, a tax increase is a tax increase. For those in the remaining brackets, taxes will increase by approximately 10% to 11%. This is a far cry from Obama’s bold declaration that we would not see our taxes increase by ‘one dime’. Technically it will be more like a dime to fifty cents on the dollar. Yes, income taxes will increase for all who pay taxes, without quick action.
Taxes will rise by a lot more than a dime. When the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year, couples making over a nickel and under $500,000 per year, will see their effective income tax rates rise, from between 8.9% to 50.0%. Lower income wage earners face the largest increase. Couples with income above $392,350 will be effectively handing the government 30% - 40% of their income.
Unusual uncertainty is unusually uncertain. The longer Congress delays in giving the public clarity, the more prolonged this period of ‘unusual uncertainty’. Individuals and small businesses are already in process of making plans for the remainder of 2010 and forward, and without knowing for certain whether or not the Bush tax cuts will be extended, planning has come to a halt. Under the assumption that taxes will rise in 2011, plans for further spending in 2010 have been shelved, because those deductions will be of better use next year. Delaying a decision until year-end would not be wise.
What's your total tax bill? Now when you add to the above effective tax rates: State and Local taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes; and possibly new health care and carbon taxes, the situation is not only unusually uncertain, but unbearable and unsustainable. Politicians should listen when taxpayers holler the acronym, T.E.A., which stands for taxed enough already. Congress should not only re-instate the Bush tax cuts, but should consider further cuts in both income taxes and its own out-of-control spending (which leads to higher and higher taxes). Failure to take the public seriously will result in the death of the American economy. Yes, Misguided One, when it comes to taxes and spending, we wish to go backwards, not further into the abyss.
A Potential Solution - One solution would be to extend the Bush tax cuts for another three years with one minor change. There should be an additional standard deduction granted to small business owners. Job creators who own Partnerships and S-Corporations should specifically be granted an additional deduction based on the level of business income reported on their personal tax returns. This incentive would encourage small business owners to expand, will create more jobs, and will improve the overall economy. Let's start putting the incentive where it matters and stop punishing those who drive the American economy.Sunday, July 18, 2010
Falling In A Trap
I always thought of the NAACP as being a group that helped black people get up and out of poverty, helped them get educated and rise up to be someone who should be admired, like Mrs. Hill. But that, I suppose is a pipe dream.
When MSNBC showed the video of a man at a Tea Party rally with a rifle and pistol strapped to him, the lady who was a commentator cried out about how it was an evil white racist. The video cut short showing the mans face because the man was black. That's right, a black man at a Tea Party rally. A willing participant. Why did the commentator lady jump to such a conclusion? Where was the NAACP, who, in my opinion should have embraced the Tea Party and it's love of freedom and equality for all?
Nowhere to be seen.
Now they come out and show that they are for the "New Plantationism" of Socialism and racial separation.
This man puts it better than I ever could:
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/15/a-statement-on-the-naacp-tea-party-resolution-from-one-of-the-black-tea-party-patriots/
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Death toll in Afghanistan skyrockets under President Obama
A Majority of U.S. Combat Casualties in Nine-Year-Long Afghanistan War Have Occurred in Less Than Year-and-a-Half of Obama Presidency
Friday, July 02, 2010
By Edwin Mora
President Barack Obama reviews the honor guard with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, March 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Between Jan. 20, 2009 and July 2, 2010, according to CNSNews.com's database of Afghanistan war casualties, U.S. military personnel suffered 452 combat-related deaths in Afghanistan. That amounts to more than half of the total of 900 combat-related fatalities suffered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the entire nine years of the war.
To see a month-by-month chart of U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan since October 2001 click here.
There have also been 40 non-combat related U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since Obama's inauguration, bringing the total U.S. casualties in the country to 492 during Obama's presidency. Non-combat fatalities include soldiers who have drowned or died from vehicle or other accidents.
Each of the top five deadliest months of the war, accounting for both combat and non-combat deaths, have taken place during Obama's term. Those five months were:
1. June 2010 (59 casualties).
2. October 2009 (58 casualties).
3. August 2009 (51 deaths)
4. July 2009 (43 deaths)
5. September 2009 (37 deaths)
In all of 2009, there were 303 U.S. casualties (combat and non-combat) in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest year of the war, which started in October 2001. However, there were 199 U.S. casualties reported in Afghanistan in the first half of 2010 (January through June). That is more than double the 84 U.S. casualties that occurred in Afghanistan during the first half of 2009.
Last year, President Obama ordered an escalation in the U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. As a candidate, he had vowed to shift the focus of U.S. military operations in the Middle East from Iraq to Afghanistan. The president's current policy is to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan one year from now, in July 2011.
President Barack Obama salutes the casket of a fallen soldier during a middle-of-the-night visit to Dover Air Force Base, Del., on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009.
Speaking at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Dec. 2, 2009, Obama announced the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and said that in July 2011 he would begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan “taking into account conditions on the ground.”
Since then, the president has maintained his policy that a drawdown will begin in July 2011, emphasizing that the date will mark the beginning of a transition “process” where tasks will be transferred to the Afghan government and its security forces.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, testified before Congress that the July 2011 drawdown date had not been recommended by him or any other military commander that he was aware of but that he agreed with it.
CNSNews.com’s casualty count is derived primarily from U.S. Defense Department casualty reports, but it also includes information gleaned from the news media
The count includes all U.S. military personnel who died or received fatal wounds in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It does not include U.S. soldiers who died outside of those two countries while supporting military efforts against terrorism under Operation Enduring Freedom, which includes multiple countries.
The Biggest Killer Of All Part 1
This article from Wayne Allen Root makes many great points.
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Barack Obama: The great jobs killer
As former President Ronald Reagan might have said, "Obama, there you go again."
The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 -- a blowout.
Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This "community organizer" knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics.
It's time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes -- rewarding big government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners -- Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones. With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List.
Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts mislabeled as "tax cuts" even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).
As far as the taxpayers -- the people who actually take risks with our own money to create small businesses and jobs and pay most of the taxes -- we require protection under the Endangered Species Act.
You won't find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He's drowning in debt. He won't last much longer. His wealth is gone.
I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won't be building any more homes. The hair salon where I've had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here's the clincher -- ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can't make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.
I've polled all my friends who own small businesses -- many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.
The days of jobs in the private sector with big salaries, full benefits, and pensions are over. We've all seen where those kinds of jobs get you as a business owner -- in Bankruptcy Court or surviving on government welfare like GM and Chrysler. Or in the case of government itself -- completely insolvent, but surviving by ripping off taxpayers and fraudulently running printing presses at the Fed all day and night to print money by the trillions.
Unfortunately, small businesses don't have the power to impose taxes or print money. So unlike government, we'll just have to cut employees and run lean and mean.
It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson's first movie "Mad Max." Without a printing press in Obama's world, you're just plain out of luck.
The days of believing the Obama propaganda about a jobs recovery are over. The trillion-dollar corporate handouts (neatly named "stimulus") may have kept big business in the money for the past 18 months, and artificially propped up the stock market, but small business is the real canary in the coal mine.
My small business-owning friends aren't creating one job. Not one. They are shedding jobs. They are learning to do more with fewer employees. They are creating high-tech businesses that don't need employees. And many business owners are making plans to leave the country. In a high-tech world where businesses can be run from anywhere, Obama has a problem. His one-trick pony -- raise taxes, raise taxes, raising taxes -- is chasing away the business owners he desperately needs to pay his bills.
So who is going to pay Obama's taxes? Not his voters. They want government to pay them. Who is going to create Obama's jobs? Not his voters -- they've never created a job in their lives.
So what is Obama going to do? Maybe he can get Pamela Anderson on the line.
Wayne Allyn Root, a former vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, writes from Henderson.Postscript;
I also know many small business owners in both Missouri and Colorado. Almost every one is about to close up shop because of the taxes and regulations of the Kenyan Obama. Add to that the added taxes coming on January 1, 2011 and many families I know will be almost bankrupt, even if they have jobs. THEN you add the Cap & Tax or whatever it is called now with the triple sized electric bills and $7 a gallon gas PLUS the Value Added (VAT) Tax and what will you get?
Think about it this November when you vote.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Too good and oh so true
People who remember the old comic strip "Peanuts" will recall an often repeated situation where Lucy offers to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Then, as Charlie coming running up to kick it, Lucy snatches away the ball and Charlie Brown loses his balance and goes crashing on his backside.
The reason this same scene remained funny, despite how often it was repeated, is that in the later repetitions Charlie Brown would express suspicion at Lucy, recalling how she had tricked him before. She would then come up with some claim that she wasn't going to do that any more— and of course she did.
There is a similar routine that has been repeated many times in Washington, over the years, with the Democrats playing Lucy and Republicans playing Charlie Brown.
It goes like this: Democrats start spending money wildly, handing out goodies to a wide range of people who they want to vote for them, while Republicans complain about deficits and the national debt. Then, when the public becomes alarmed about the debts that are piling up, the Democrats get the Republicans to vote for higher taxes to deal with the debt crisis, in the name of "fiscal responsibility."
Sometimes the deal is sweetened by the Democrats promising to make spending cuts if the Republicans vote for higher taxes, so that there can be one of those "bipartisan" solutions so beloved by the media. But, after the Republicans vote for the tax increases, and come running up to find the spending cuts, the Democrats snatch away the spending cuts and the Republicans fall right on their backsides, just like Charlie Brown.
This old trick is now being unveiled by the Obama administration, like so many other old political tricks used in this "change" administration.
In one of President Obama's many prissy little sermonettes, complete with finger wagging, he has declared: "Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I'm calling their bluff."
There is already a bipartisan commission set to provide political cover for the Democrats' wild spending that has increased the national debt from 63 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2004 to 83 percent in 2009— and official estimates of more than 90 percent this year, with more increases in sight.
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Why Republicans join such transparent attempts to rescue the Democrats from the political consequences of their own actions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of human nature in general and the Republican Party in particular.
What this political game boils down to is that Democrats get all the political benefits of playing Santa Claus to all sorts of groups and special interests, while Republicans who vote to raise taxes to pay for all this are cast in the role of Frank Nitti, the enforcer for the mob.
Many elections have confirmed that Santa Claus is more popular than Frank Nitti, surprising as that may be to some people.
Republicans are not the only suckers in this game. The voting public's willingness to believe fancy rhetoric and ignore hard facts is a crucial part of this scam.
When the Obama administration said that it could provide health insurance to millions of additional people without increasing the national debt, shouldn't common sense have told you that somebody was just insulting your intelligence?
When the two thousand page bill was rushed through Congress too fast for anybody to read it, shouldn't that have made you realize that you were being played for a sucker?
When this bill that was passed with lightning speed was scheduled to take effect only after the 2012 election, didn't that suggest that they didn't want you to find out how it works in practice in time to turn against Obama when he is up for reelection?
Recent polls show that a lot of people are against ObamaCare. But there are still a lot of other people, though not as many, who are for it.
Even more amazingly, there are still Republicans lured by the siren song of "bipartisanship" and apparently unaware of the difference in popularity between Santa Claus and Frank Nitti.
Yes, Sowell is the greatest. Read his books, they're excellent.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
American Roots of Eugenics (Or, How We Created Khan Noonien Singh)
http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html
The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics
By Edwin Black
Mr. Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust and the just released War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, from which the following article is drawn.
Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."
But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.
Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.
California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.
Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.
Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.
In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.
The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.
The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.
Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations--which functioned as part of a closely-knit network--published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.
Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.
In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.
The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.
How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior--the so-called "unfit." The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.
Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point eight was euthanasia.
The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a "lethal chamber" or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution… Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."
Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.
Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.
In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.
Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense.
Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German official and scientists.
Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.
During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."
Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."
Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."
Hitler's struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.
During the Reich's early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler's plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.
In 1934, as Germany's sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe upon returning from Germany ebulliently bragged to a key colleague, "You will be interested to know, that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.…I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."
That same year, ten years, after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."
More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany's eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in 21st-Century money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 to the German Psychiatric Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, later to become the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression.
Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's eugenic complex of institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.
Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.
Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing around…the Germans were calling a spade a spade."
A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.
At the time of Rockefeller's endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer's early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor's journal he edited, that Germany's war would yield a "total solution to the Jewish problem."
Verschuer had a long-time assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, "My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmführer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsführer [Himmler]."
Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer's institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin's eugenic institutes.
Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenic studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the institutions they helped found, and the science it helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.
After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity--an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense. To no avail. They were found guilty.
However, Mengele's boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re-established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade "human genetics." Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946 when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, "It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany…. I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?" Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenic luminaries and then sent various eugenic publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.
Verschuer wrote back, "Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation."
Soon, Verschuer once again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.
In the fall of 1950, the University of Münster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.
Human genetics' genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.
Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late twentieth century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.
There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On October 14, America's first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation's law can stop the threats.
This had to be copy and pasted. This is too important since our Science Czar John Holdren and Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein are hinting at population control and how we can "breed a better human".
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
How History Repeats
For this quick lesson in repeating history I take you to Henry Morgenthau, JR. Mr. Morgenthau was the Treasury Secretary to FDR and one of the main designers of "The New Deal" that FDR instituted.
""We have tried spending money, we are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started….and an enormous debt to boot."
How many times have we heard Ben Bernanke or Tim Geithner tell us, the great lower class, peasantry, unwashed, uneducated citizenry, they are not going to make the same mistakes that were made in the Great Depression? They are making EXACTLY the same stupid mistakes. The Federal Government went on a spending binge in the 1930's thinking, that if the government didn't do something…. What they did was expand government, borrow money hand over fist creating a debt that this time will never be paid (maybe trying to intentionally collapse the U.S. as a government per Saul Alinsky and other 1960's radical leftists of whom Obama, Ayers, Jeff Jones, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett are followers of) and still our Unemployment remains high.

Maybe, instead of doing the FDR Obama should take a lesson from President Garfield who inherited a bloated government, out of control spending and over 17% unemployment because of the returning soldiers from WWI. The depression of 1920 became the "Roaring 20's" in 18 months. However did he do it? Massive cuts of government and government spending is how. What was his reward for that? He is reviled in today's history as a corrupt President.
If that example is too much for those like Pelosi and Reid to understand, what of the "Should have been" Depression after WWII? That is when all the Leftist Economists were decrying that there will be a Depression from the 10 million returning soldiers of that great war and the massive debt built up to pay for that war. What was even worse for those people with the "Doom and Gloom" theories (those writings sound a lot like the Global Warming/Climate Change gloom and doom of today) was that the "Evil Republicans" were now in power in the Congress and Senate. THAT was going to make the forthcoming Depression even worse for the "average working man" of that day.
During the reign of FDR, the 1943-45 debt to GDP went up 50% to 120% of the GDP. 47% of the workforce worked for the U.S. Government and 27% of Labor were in Unions. The Unemployment over that period of time fluctuated from 14% to 35%.
So what happened? Why was there no Depression to end all Depressions as the Leftists predicted? Let us look at what transpired at that time.
The "Evil Republicans" went to work and cut the Federal Budget from $84 Billion in 1945 to $30 Billion in 1946 and paid back the massive debt accumulated from the FDR years and WWII. Economic controls were lifted even with 10 million people returning to the workforce. Unemployment did not go up and the workforce grew by 4 million jobs. Imports, exports, investments and consumer consumption all went up. The only shrinkage was that government spending was scaled back and government regulations were eased up.
This was also the same time when George Soros, the owner of the Democratic Party made his billions upon billions of dollars in fortune.
Oh, the evil that was unleashed upon the world at that time is what the Left likes to scream out. What is sad is that the children of today with no knowledge of history do not understand that many of the things they take for granted were developed and created in those "evil" times. Things such as Refrigerators replacing the IceBox. televisions, portable sewing machines and the like. It was the height of great companies like GM, Ford, Westinghouse and other companies who employed millions of people. Yes, those were "evil" times indeed. No soup lines, housing boom, medical miracles taking place as new vaccines and techniques were developed.
Has anyone reading this ever looked at pictures of West Berlin in 1980 and contrasted that with pictures of East Berlin from the same time period? West Berlin was controlled by the "allied" powers of US, UK, etc., whereas the East was controlled by the former Soviet Union and that Bloc. Capitalism vs Government control. If you have, tell me truly, where would you rather live?
Learn from History. It is repeating thanks to MaObama and his cronies in power now. It's all about Classes of people and power. They NEED an permanent underclass to keep them in power and in their mansions while telling you that they will tax the rich and help you be equal.
Right. Equality is bull when people like Soros and MaObama's supporters live like Kings and tax people making $40,000 or more a year to death. We get MaObamaCare and they get the top of the line stuff we will never again see.
Right.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
How not to have Miranda Rights if you are a Citizen
Around that same time, Homeland Security was issuing a memo saying that Tea Party people were thought of as Terrorists.
Our new Supreme Court Appointee and Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that IF a citizen is thought of as being a Terrorist they do not have to be read their Miranda Rights. The Obama Administration has stated that people have no 1st Amendment Rights when it comes to Cell Phones and EMail. No warrant necessary for someone to "look into" an American Citizens Cell Phone Log or EMails. Another point is that with no Miranda Rights, said citizen can be held (interrogated) indefinitely without charges.
Is it not interesting how we have had The Fort Hood shooter (Muslim Extremist), The Christmas Bomber (Muslim Terrorist), the Times Square Bomber (Muslim Extremist), Jihad Jane (Muslim Convert Extremist) and the University of Alabama Shooter (Former Obama Campaign Chair and Left Wing Extremist) just in the past year. We are told by the President and Attorney General not to "rush to conclusions" regarding these people.
Yet Tea Party people are considered Domestic Terrorists. Since the advent of the Tea Parties there has yet to be a single act of violence recorded either on audio or video. There is audio and video of people being beaten at Tea Party protests by SEIU Purple Shirts. But those were the "evil" Tea Party people being beaten and called the "N" word by the SEIU Purple Shirts.
Consider that this tactic began under President Clinton with the supposed "Malitias" like Randy Weaver and Waco. Those evil "Rugged Individualists" were in the headlines while the bombings of the U.S.S. Cole were quickly removed from the front page. Did anyone hear of these "Malitias" until President Obama, Attorney General Holder (who was Janet Reno's second in command and ordered Weaver's wife to be shot through the front door while nursing her baby to her breast) once again brought them to the forefront.
Well, I'm afraid I get it. Hope you do, too. I pledge non-violence ala Martin Luther King, but unfortunately, the other side has shown that human life is cheap and people are expendable for the greater Party Good.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Gulf Oil Spill In Perspective
1) Isn't it strange how this occurred right after President Sotero.. I mean President Obama said drilling was okay.
2) How did this happen? I have seen nothing regarding an investigation as to the cause of this explosion and subsequent disaster. Everytime someone tries to bring it up the subject is changed to the oil spill itself.
3) Follow the money time. This particular Oil Rig was found to be "Unsafe" in 2007 under President Bush. Just when it was to be shut down, numerous prominent Democrats intervened for British Petroleum to "give it a break, it can be fixed". Once again in 2009 the same rig was found to be "Unsafe". This time it is President Sotero....I mean President Obama's regime and this problem is swept under the rug. Why? Could it be the more than $16 million in Campaign Contributions given to Barry....I mean Barak?
Now this President wants once again to halt all U.S. drilling in the Gulf. Nevermind that BP is a British Company and in exchange for ?favors? China, Vietnam and Venezuela have Oil Rigs close to that one i the Gulf, along with numerous rigs just outside the 3 mile limit. Interesting, no?
Now, let's look at this "unprecedented" disaster as it has been called. From none other than the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04enviro.html
"The ruptured well, currently pouring an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf, could flow for years and still not begin to approach the 36 billion gallons of oil spilled by retreating Iraqi forces when they left Kuwait in 1991. It is not yet close to the magnitude of the Ixtoc I blowout in the Bay of Campeche in Mexico in 1979, which spilled an estimated 140 million gallons of crude before the gusher could be stopped.
And it will have to get much worse before it approaches the impact of the Exxon Valdez accident of 1989, which contaminated 1,300 miles of largely untouched shoreline and killed tens of thousands of seabirds, otters and seals along with 250 eagles and 22 killer whales."
Please understand, I am not making light of this. I am just wondering if this comes under Rahm Imanuel's statement of "no crisis go unused" to push the Socialist Political Agenda of this Administration.
Another point, lest we forget;
The ruptured well, currently pouring an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf, could flow for years and still not begin to approach the 36 billion gallons of oil spilled by retreating Iraqi forces when they left Kuwait in 1991.
As we watch the disaster in the Gulf, it’s important to remember that the biggest oil spill in the history of man was not caused by an evil oil company trying to cut corners for profit. It was created by the dictator that the left tried to stop Bush from removing from power. In fact, the current oil spill would have to continue, every day, for about 470 years before it would reach the levels of Saddam’s intentional spill.
This isn’t entirely shocking considering that according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, “natural oil seeps contribute the highest amount of oil to the marine environment, accounting for 46 per cent of the annual load to the world’s oceans.”
This reaction by the Administration to this particular spill, the timing of it and the fact that other countries are still drilling nearby just makes me wonder.