Prof.  Stephen hawking tells a couple of

his favorite GWB jokes

(click on image)

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White Angst

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

In an earlier article, Follow This Simple Logic, now on the Second Front page, I had mentioned that in America the person most likely to kill you - far, far above Terrorists, Muggers, Robbers, Rapists and Thieves, O, My!  - was you.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed that in the last decade death by Suicide has taken on epidemic proportions making it the tenth most likely cause of death. Even more so than automobile accidents. In 2010, there were more than 38,000 suicides...

No one seems to want to speculate on the cause or causes associated with the steady and relentless climb ever upward of this tragic statistic that leaves sorrow and frustration in its wake. As well, and maybe most importantly, those who take their own lives fail to see that they are setting into motion the likelihood that one or more of their loved-ones will follow suit, further cascading the grief.

The loss of a kind and gentle God in our society? The crumbling of the American Dream? The worthlessness of free-time activities, such as Television and Facebook? Excess consumption of alcohol, a qualified depressant? Feelings of worthlessness and a lack of control of one’s own life? Maybe all of them...

Wealthy, Middle Class, or part of the ever-increasing component of America living at or below the Poverty Line, no one is exempt. The majority of those who elect to murder themselves, though, are likely to be White, and between the ages of 35 and 64.

Not too long ago we might have labeled this group, the Silent Majority. Perhaps in their silence lies the answer to the question, Why?

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Scout’s Honor

Jos. Warren

@WarrenHillFilms

CNN has reported that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) are considering special dispensation to permit extending Scouting enrollment to openly gay boys. (Not that there weren’t gay kids involved for decades, they just didn’t talk about it.) They will maintain an embargo, though, on openly gay Scout Masters – those who lead the children: Not to be confused with those who play the Dominate role in a homosexual or other sexual relationship, like Catcher-Pitcher, Cop-and-Robber, and so on.

Because I have not been a member of the BSA for more than four decades, I really have no right to influence the BSA’s decision regarding this seemingly abrupt and discordant change: It’s entirely up to the parents of those with Scouting-age children and those who administer the BSA. But I do have some observations to make regarding salient issues facing the BSA that may otherwise languish unrecognized.

Merit Badges

When I was a Scout, as it remains today, I had to reach a certain level of accomplishment in order to attain a Merit Badge in a particular craft or capability, such as Camping, Canoeing, First Aid, Fishing, and Firearms.

After attaining the requisite skill, the Scout ceremoniously received the badge (and related certificate) and Mom sewed it swiftly to either his uniform or sash. The sash was used for excess Merit Badges accumulated by overachievers: People who were kiss-asses to the rest of us who aspired to achieve Badges of Merit in only the mostly manly of arts: Fishing, Hiking and the like. We disdained those who strived to acquire Badges in gay subjects like Business, Plant Science, Citizenship, and so on.

Today, if you take the time to peruse the list of Badges, you’ll see that there are innumerable subjects that weren’t even imaginable or hadn’t reached a level of Social Consciousness to be considered sufficiently enough relevant to be awarded a Merit Badge 40 or 50 years ago: Computers, Family Life, American Cultures, and a plethora of other varied and, What? sort-of subjects. In its entirety you may review the list here.

To be inclusive, as they say, if the BSA elects to acknowledge openly gay children in Scouting, ipso facto, they will have to introduce additional Merit Badges for accomplishments that fall within the purview of being an Openly Gay Scout.

I would suggest that the BSA ought to include:

Swallowing. How this might be demonstrated is anybody’s guess, but perhaps a large spoonful of Barium, as used in the Barium Swallow Test in Medical diagnostics, might be substituted for…you know...uh...

Anyway. To reach Merit Badge status, the Scout would be required to swallow the Barium in its entirety without allowing any of the substance to slide down his chin. Neatness, and not leaving trace evidence behind (no pun) as we know from our experience with President Clinton, is critical to achieving Badge status.

Sphincter Awareness. Combining both Agriculture and Gay Studies, this Badge tests both the flexibility and the pain threshold of the Scout, as well as his gardening skills, by requiring him to insert a zucchini, which he has grown, into his rectum. The level of achievement must be 90% of the zucchini in order to qualify for the Merit Badge. Additionally, the Scout may earn a Merit Badge for Cooking by rendering the zucchini, after-the-fact, into a well-known favorite bread following any of the more traditional recipes.

Reach Around. As we know from R. Lee Ermey in his epic portrayal of a Marine Corps Drill Instructor in Full Metal Jacket, nothing says cooperation and fraternity more than the simple yet kind gesture of providing the person being sodomized with a Reach Around. That is, extending one’s arm around the lower abdomen of the Sodomee and…

To demonstrate this capability I would imagine that the BSA sanctioned method of, Use The Scout Buddy System, described here, might best be employed to demonstrate competence. Extra credit may be awarded for simultaneous orgasm.

(If you have ideas for other Merit Badges, please submit them to the Editor for inclusion in one of our next issues, and we will eventually pass them on to the BSA.)

Scout Uniforms

Although sometimes refuted by some members of the Gay community, everyone knows that dressing in drag is a favored pastime for many gay men. Once again, to insure inclusivity, the BSA ought to consider allowing openly gay Scouts to cross-dress for meetings during the year: Halloween comes to mind, given the status of the holiday South of Market or in the Castro, both in San Francisco. Easter might also be officially sanctioned as a Scouting Cross-Dress event.

Variations in traditional Scouting uniforms might include allowing the openly gay Scout to borrow his sister’s Girl Scout uniform, or alternatively to design and sew a gown reminiscent of one worn by Bette Midler or other favored performer.

TID’s GL Hill recommends Kilts as an alternative to pants for the openly gay Scout. Pleated, they might add a touch of flair to the otherwise drabness of a Scout ensemble, especially when combined with knee-high white socks and a white blouse much like the girls at Mother Butler High School in the SF Bay Area did, with their frilly panties, and...but I digress.

Physical Fitness

I imagine no change to the existing curriculum for calisthenics, but do foresee a need to emphasize Push-Ups and Deep-Knee Bends. And, as in Yoga, practicing prolonged kneeling might be a helpful attribute for the gay Scout. Alternatively, Pillow-Biting.

Does all of the above seem crude, cruel or callous

to our sensitive readers?

It is, and here’s why: Sexuality is not a transcendent act. To the very antithesis, it is base level and fundamental to the existence of the species, or not in the case of homosexuality. One’s sexual practices ought to be no more important to someone else than which hand one uses to wipe one’s butt, if at all. Understand?

Sexual behavior is primitive, fundamental, foundational. Dogs do it; Cats do it; Cattle do it: It is not something to be publicly celebrated or recognized for the manner in which it is performed – it is something to be done, however one may choose to do it. And doing it, occurs at varied times and with particular emphasis based on the needs of the animal.

The answers to, How much we like to do it, In what position, and How we prefer to have sex are responses to questions we typically aggregate under Too Much Information, yet the implied answers to these and other questions underlie the nature of homosexual or gay sexual behavior, just as they do when one is heterosexual. In other words, it ought to be nobody’s business, yet we – collectively, Gay and Straight – are making it everybody’s.

If the BSA elects to embrace an openly gay policy, then they must also embrace and provide appropriate concessions for the Openly Heterosexual, Openly Sleepy, Openly Fat, Openly Stupid, Openly Smart, Openly Black, Openly White, Openly…

...Human, because these are all conditions, traits or characteristics of humankind. To single out one characteristic that does not define the person but only his base Maslovian self is absurd and inconsistent with the mission of Scouting.

There is no correlation between admitting a black child in 1916 and an openly gay child today: The BSA must refuse to bend to the absurd demands of groups of people whose interests are purely sexually based.

Kim Jong-Un:

Will Somebody Please Kill This Guy

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Editor’s Note: We’ve received a few brief emails suggesting that our approach to eradicating Kim Jong-Un through assassination is “inappropriate” and not “reflective of an evolved society”. May I remind our readers that our only goal in invading Iraq was to remove Saddam Hussein, by way of which we largely destroyed Iraq and bankrupted the US. Our suggestion is confined to only Mr. Kim, who is nothing more than an irritating pimple on the world’s collective arse. Besides, we’ve hardly evolved beyond violence as a tenable solution to conflict,

individually or as a nation.

At the conclusion of, Run For Your Life, elsewhere on this page, regarding the once-again proliferation of first strike nuclear arms to be deployed on our behalf guarding against, among other threats, Kim Jong-Un, the author said, “I’m still evaluating our response…” I’ll answer for him. The wait’s over: Kill him.

Mr. Kim has unilaterally threatened nuclear attack against his construed enemies. He is a 28-year-old pudding-headed despot, regarded internationally as a psychotic, and rightly so. He has torn up the armistice that had put an end to the bloody forbearer of Vietnam. He threatens the lives and the sovereignty of South Korean citizens. As a probable consequence he imperils the lives of all of his citizens in the North, and his actions could very well lead to the destabilization of the region, and beyond. And, by all accounts he is perfectly capable of delivering on his delirious ramblings, having attracted the muddleheaded legions who control the military.

Even China can’t tolerate him. What’s more I can’t tolerate him: and collectively we of The Independent Daily are known through our writing for resisting military action except under only the most dire of circumstances. But Military Action is not what we’re suggesting.

Look, in 2001 we embarked on an unwinnable war in a country that even Alexander the Great couldn’t fully pacify, nor any of those who followed. Ten years ago, under the (contrived) aegis of liberation, but in fact to make Iraq safe for Exxon-Mobil and Shell, we invaded a country resulting in the deaths of nearly 5,000 American Men and Women, along with perhaps as many as one million innocent Iraqi women, children, and men.

We’re talking one lunatic here…that’s it. No dead innocents, no collateral destruction: just the surgical extraction of a hemorrhoidic pain.

The US Government is no longer prohibited from assassinating a foreign leader since George Bush’s revocation of Executive Order 12333 in October 2001. In-place since it first emerged as EO 11905 in 1975, the US Government was prohibited from exercising our discretionary powers when it came to liquidating international troublemakers and thugs like…

Well, like Kim Jong-Un.

A very key ingredient is to put an end to him before he has an opportunity to procreate siring yet another imbecile who will inherit the seat of power and continue this reign of absurd rhetoric and threats for yet a fourth generation. (At least in the US we have the good sense to keep these people in Arkansas mostly locked away from the control of power, with the exception of Bill Clinton (and that’s why).)

We need to get back to the business of correcting a dismal International economic situation. We need to husband our financial resources, and instead of financing further weapons of destruction under the threat of nuclear attack, seek solutions to unemployment, illiteracy, and homelessness. We need to grow real jobs...

We promise not to write anything bad about anyone who kills him…Hell, even I could be talked into it if someone would bring him to northern Arizona. (I don’t like to fly and the smell of Kimchi is enough to make me wretch.)

Magnitsky and Scientology?

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

In our January 8, 2013 issue we ran an article on the impending enactment of what is simply called, the Magnitsky Act. Simple only in title, it was a far-reaching successful attempt to use the US Congress to avenge the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer for a very wealthily industrialist, Bill Browder, and his company,  Hermitage Capital, caught in the middle of a scandal that may or may not have been of his (their) own doing...no one really knows for certain. What they do know is that $230 million seems to of vanished in the process.

Authored principally by Senator Ben Cardin, Maryland, the Magnitsky Act (S.1039) became law when Obama affixed his signature to this self-serving legislation in the guise of Human Rights.

Of significance, Ben Cardin’s principal contributors have always been law firms. One lawyer particularly stands out among them: John P. Coale, one of Cardin’s most significant individual contributors (and Greta Van Susteren’s husband, and fellow Scientologist). Together, they are friends to Sarah Palin, also a Scientologist, and numerous other Scientology adherents who apparently are either directly involved in Washington politics or have significant influence on their direction and control.

Of significance, too, is that Russia, under President Putin’s approval, banned the writings of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard in 2010, effectively shutting down this “religion”. For those unaware, L. Ron Hubbard, until finding wealth in the development of Scientology in 1954, was a hack Sci-Fi writer of little renown or accomplishment.

Also, Ben Cardin is strongly supported by the Church of Scientology as a featured Congressional member on their News site, WN.com, where praise is profuse.

Notwithstanding the Scientology connection, and regardless of how that may prove out, the Magnitsky Act was and is a terrible waste of time, money, and does nothing but place another substantial roadblock between America and Russia at a time when doing so is plainly self-destructive.

Cardin, Obama, et al. ought to be singled out for public reprimand. One would presume that the axiom regarding Glass Houses would have come to mind, but Washington runs solely on money and its conjugate influence today, and that is why we are where we are...

Here’s the original article:

President Barak Obama is about to sign into law the Magnitsky Act – a trade law provision that will impose sanctions on those Russians who are alleged to have been in violation of Human Rights laws. Under the provision, violators may have visas denied and available assets frozen by the US government.

Given the extent of Human Rights violations by the United States, as recently as the invasion of Iraq, there is a probable list of offenders against whom the Russians may wish to impose sanctions, as well. If you’d like that list, please feel free to contact the editor: I may have a rather lengthy roster somewhere here on my computer, probably filed under “B” for Bush. (See, The Abduction and Trial of George Bush at no charge online.)

Interestingly, Mr. Putin has recently said, "Listen, they haven't shut Guantanamo for eight years now. They keep people in shackles and chains without trial or investigation, like in the Middle Ages.

"[These are] people who open secret prisons and legalized torture to conduct investigations, and these people are now lecturing us about some of our failings?"

However, to bolster their claim, the US Congress will be subpoenaing both Jimmy Hoffa and John Kennedy to offer testimony to contradict Mr. Putin’s allegations regarding the impurity of our government.

Nobel Gay Prize

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Ought we care what a Gay NBA player has to offer in the way of social consciousness? How pressing is it in the world today to know how many male professional athletes like to put penises in their mouths and rectums (hopefully and presumably in that order)?

Is it critical to the vast number of societal issues we face today in America and Globally as we stand on the precipice of financial and, possibly, existential doom?

How will what this over-paid, marginally sentient individual has to say diminish the millions of deaths every year from global starvation? How will his words solve the devastation of homelessness? How will his thoughts on his sexuality dissuade one country from striving to decimate another?

Might the Norwegian Nobel Committee be in the midst of planning an annual Nobel Gay Prize to those whose sexual appetites do not include placing Tab A into Slot B?

Finally, where do the Masturbators stand in all of this? (Hopefully not too close...)

It seems as though we care far too much about what some jerk off has to say, so we may as well hear from the rest of them, too. It is, after all, just another sexual preference.

Read, Scout’s Honor, below and find out how far we’ve fallen...

The Average Reader

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

The Independent Daily is read in its English form in more than 53 countries every month, by the numbers on a one-to-one ratio, American-to-Other. Based on a few of the emails we receive we presume that for some readers located in, as an example, former Eastern-Bloc countries, we’re more of a curiosity - a learning experience: An avenue to acquire greater depth of understanding of the American political mindset. That would be a mistake.

When comparing American political thinking to other countries located around the world, it’s imperative to remember that one-half of America is intellectually below average. And that the Average American is below the worldwide average from both an involvement and awareness level (and perhaps intellectually) when compared to many of the countries represented in our readership. From our perspective only the UK appears to approximate that of the US in apathy.

As an example, Spain: Currently deluged by unemployment where in some classifications (non-student, less than 25 years of age) there are more people not working than working, while across-the-board unemployment exceeds 27%, the Spanish are not content to watch TV and post illiterate missives on blogs. On the contrary, like the Venezuelans, Italians, and many others, they are on the streets making their disgust with politics-as-usual known.

Although America’s unemployment far exceeds Spain in sheer numbers, the manipulated and published percentage of unemployed at this time is about half that of Spain, or 13.9% of America’s workforce. Underemployment is not a component of our government’s figures: In America we have a record number of college graduates pumping out burgers and coffee for lack of genuine career opportunities. In response, Americans abdicate responsibility for the future and default intellectually to American Idol and Facebook.

There is always an exception, and that seems to lie in the minds of America’s recent immigrants and those whose familial roots were more closely anchored to political discourse and action.

From our mailbox we can tell you that America’s salvation, if there is one, certainly doesn’t rest in the minds of Texans wherein ignorance runs, as does still water, deep.

Tomas Young

and

The Abduction and Trial of George Bush

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

For those readers who have not caught the link between The Independent Daily and Warren-Hill Productions, we are the writers and producers of the film, The Abduction and Trial of George Bush. For those who do not know who Tomas Young is, we invite you to read a well-written article on the BBC, here.

After you’ve read the article, we invite you to view the film, in its entirety (66 min) online at our site http://peoplevsbush.be. It is in small format (640X360 resolution) and viewable on Mobile, as well. It is free of charge. It is important.

Perhaps someday justice will be done, rather than only on film…and we at The Independent Daily urge Mr. Young to consider not ending his life, as painful as his existence has become, and to live to see the day when Good defeats Greed, when Justice is served, and a Murderer faces the consequences of his actions:

We owe it to the 5,000 killed and the more than 30,000 injured in the contrivance we call the Iraq War.

We owe it to the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in Iraq whose only fault was to allow a tyrant to control their country: Something we, as Americans, should understand.

Religious Hate2

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

In Sri Lanka, located just off the tip of India, it has been reported that several Buddhist Monks have led an uprising against local Muslims. It seems that the Buddhists had tired of having to coexist with the Muslim lifestyle practiced by just 9% of the Sri Lankan population.

Sri Lankan police set-up a Hotline through which those experiencing, “…religious or racial hatred hatred…” might lodge a complaint. That is “hatred hatred” which I think has a self-cancelling effect. Or does it mean that one may report instances where those who hate, those who hate may complain? Or, is it just a quaint Sri Lankan way of saying, “That goes double for me”?

But, alas, that’s not the point of this brief opinion. The obvious point, and one you’re probably considering too, is, Why are Buddhist Monks practicing violent radical social activism? More to the point: Why are they throwing rocks, destroying property, and inflicting violence on their fellow Sri Lankans, and urging their followers to violence against those who are only practicing a different belief?

And how would Buddha reconcile this behavior among his followers, notwithstanding the painful history between the two religions?

In the Eight-Fold Path Buddha taught that Right Action meant to abstain from doing harm to other humans, including physical violence, theft, and all of the other anti-social behaviors condemned by other great prophets and leaders throughout time, such as, say Mohammed, Jesus, Moses (peace be unto them all), and if I’ve forgotten anyone, please forgive me.

Not doing harm to others is just basic good behavior. Doing harm to others while a believer of a philosophy steeped in the condemnation of aberrance in all its forms is just simply abominable.

It relegates Buddha’s teachings to the garbage bin when those who represent the quintessential leadership of a religion - a way of life - fail to follow the basic premises of that order. It is the same as Adultery by an Evangelical minister. It is Pedophilia by a Catholic priest. It is Blasphemy by a Mullah.

How can we hope to elevate the behavior of those who do not believe in a Divine Consequence, if those whose very life is allegedly devoted to transcendence on this plane cannot adhere to a few laws basic to secular social order?

Welcome to the Fabulous 50s...

Now run for your life!

Jos. Warren

@WarrenHillFilms

Perry Mason remains one of my favorite old television programs. Gilligan’s Island, too, although I can clearly see the inanity in it today and question our level of sophistication as a viewing audience at that time.

I think fondly of the old days in Highland Park, just outside Los Angeles, back to my early schooldays during the 50s. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Farmer Dick’s Supermarket, and Van deKamps bakery in front of which I’d hawk the LA Times until late at night raising enough money to buy milk, bread, and try to hoard a little for a respite of fun at the Pomona Fair.

Highland Park back at that time was a neighborhood of working-class stiffs, my Dad among them. There was a Recession on at that the time, too. Dad was out of work. We all did what we had to do to make ends meet, although ends rarely did. Our car was repossessed. Sometimes we had to move to avoid being involuntarily displaced. I had to wear Welfare Jeans and knock-off Keds provided by LA County Relief: that’s what it was called then.

I carved initials in a tree down at the park: “JW+KJ”. KJ was a 6th grader, too. I saw the Blob for maybe a dime on a matinee ticket. My friends and I had worked up a scheme where we would steal empty soda bottles from Farmer Dick’s at York and Figueroa and return them to the liquor store up the street for the deposit: A foolproof source of revenue until we were busted. Rock and Roll competed with Big Band at homes up and down my neighborhood.

Today, our children have the opportunity to relive these invigorating, character-building experiences, albeit at costlier thresholds, both as a result of today’s continuing economic downturn combined with the return of Threatened Nuclear Annihilation.

It’s a good bet that some school districts on the West coast will no doubt re-invoke the famous Duck and Cover maneuver effective against both earthquake and runaway nuclear fission, thanks largely to the maniac, Kim Jong-Un, and to the US response, which I’m still evaluating.

And although deeply dumbed-down, I’ll presume that children today will still question the wisdom of attempting to avoid death by placing a school desk between them and a devastating fireball likely to lay waste to everything within hundreds of miles of its center of impact. Perhaps not.

To many today this omnipresent threat will be a unique, new fear: To us it was just life. Frankly, fear of death by incineration never hurt anyone. Look what it did for the Boomers: We’re all relatively normal...

Kim Jong-Un:

Not the Bad Guy Obama Would

Like us to Believe...

Threatening Nuclear Annihilation is one thing. Meaning it, another. As this TID exclusive photo clearly shows, Mr. Kim, whose stage-name is Kim Jong-Mo, obviously enjoys a joke as much as the next guy. Mr. Kim, along with the original Curly Joe and Larry, recently completed a made-for-TV special.

Curly told us off-set, “It was just like having Moe back with us, except we couldn’t understand a goddamned thing he said.” Who can, Curly...Who can, indeed...

Obamacares Deeply About Alcohol

Warren-Hill

@WarrenHillFilms

The Associated Press’ Alonso-Zaldivar released a brief yet informative article describing a little-known clause within Obamacare likely to blacklist millions of Americans from the law’s provisions – effectively pricing them out of the market – and insurance coverage.

It’s a provisional penalty for those who smoke. Not for the obese, like most Americans, and most importantly, not for those who abuse alcohol, like far too many Americans. You can catch the article online at AZ Central, here. Unfortunately, the article stops short. Here’s the rest of the story:

Every year alcohol-related automobile accidents kill 25,000 Americans. 700,000 are injured requiring medical attention, from cursory to life saving.

The total annual cost for healthcare in alcohol-linked medical care is more than 170 Billion US Dollars for the alcohol abuser, only.

This does not include billions of dollars in medical expenses for the victims of drunk drivers and victims of violence, domestic and otherwise.

It does not include the cost of law enforcement time and equipment in response to alcohol-related incidents: traffic, domestic violence and otherwise.

It does not include the cost of adjudicating drunk drivers and those who commit domestic violence.

It does not include the cost of incarceration, probation and parole for violators.

Nor does it include the billions of dollars in lost productivity and opportunity in America’s factories and offices, and very importantly,

The untraceable cost and the irrevocable harm done to America’s families.

For smoking the total cost is about 120 Billion US Dollars. While not pocket change, on a comparative basis it pales to near-translucence when held next to the sum of costs for alcohol abuse today: By most estimates, far in excess of two trillion dollars.

Well how can this be? Given these irrefutable facts, why would Obamacare not place a greater emphasis on those who abuse alcohol?

Political Action Committees (PACs) are those organizations that "contribute" money to Congressional Representatives. During the period 2011-2012 the top PAC contributors in Alcohol-related industries were (in US Dollars):

National Beer Wholesalers Organization, 2,884,750

National Restaurant Association, 3,595,097

Joseph E. Seagram and Sons Inc. (a distiller of alcoholic beverages), 3,518,684

Anheuser-Busch Co. (a beer and beverage maker), 2,473,220

Brown-Forman Corp. (a diversified alcoholic beverage maker), 1,433,980

Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, 1,182,500

Harrah's Entertainment Inc., 982,741

Outback Steakhouse Inc., 951,350

Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, 834,378

Chili's Grill and Bar, 725,400

Et cetera, et cetera...That’s how.

Obama Affirms Feinstein’s Federal Hunting Limit on Children

Warren-Hill

@WarrenHillFilms

“...to continue killing more than ten (10) children, as an example, (he) must change out (his) magazine...” - Barak Obama and Diane Feinstein

This week President Barak Obama approved Senator Feinstein’s proposal to limit the number of “Kills per Weapon” to not more than ten (10) children without requiring a shooter to change out a magazine or revert to a second or subsequent weapon, failing once again to understand that it has nothing to do with the firearm.

The proposal advanced by Senator Diane Feinstein, California, and Manchin, West Virginia (both supporters of the Iraq War), is very reminiscent of the long-expired Assault Weapons Ban, a law which did nothing to curb violence in America (see the Shepherd’s Billy Club, column left).

Under the provisions of this legislation, weapons (or the magazines that feed them) may not have a capacity in excess of 10 rounds. Ipso facto, if any given shooter is a qualified marksman he will thus be limited to not more than 10 kills per magazine or weapon. Thereafter to continue killing children, as an example, “the shooter must change out the magazine and replace it with a fully charged magazine...”

As an alternative, the law will clearly imply that he may, “...at the shooter’s own discretion, carry a separate, 10-round weapon hence obviating the need to re-charge the firearm previously so depleted...” (“Optionally, the shooter may avail himself of as many additional weapons as needed of said capacity.”)

In this way, Feinstein and our other Congressional members may avoid having to confront the issues of violence in our society: Please read, Connecticut, Why Are You Shocked, elsewhere in this issue. Likewise, no single Senator will be required to generate any original thoughts that might raise the ire of our friends at the National Rifle Association, the NRA.

As well, and foremost, to admit that our societal ills lay (at least in large part) at the feet of a government that promotes and condones violence on a global basis is tantamount to having pulled the trigger on the children of Connecticut. Thus both Feinstein and Manchin, who dually supported the 2002 resolution to invade Iraq are manifestly culpable in the murders of those 20 children.

...Reagan decided that providing help to the mentally ill was an unnecessary expense...

I suppose it goes without saying that likewise are Obama, Bush, and a host of other ne'er-do-wells, or as we theorize in an article appearing on this page, “Kill ‘Em All”, Lunatics.

Historically, culpability extends to the late 1960’s when then-Governor of California, Reagan decided that providing help to the mentally ill was an unnecessary expense, releasing people who otherwise would have benefitted greatly from mental health treatment: Fortunately, and seemingly, most have found their way into the US Congress.

We cannot legislate good behavior. We cannot legislate civility. We can only teach our children that violence is not an end in itself, and then, practice what we preach.

Fake Environmentalism

Ricardo dela Luna

You Cannot Call Yourself an Environmentalist

and Shop at Walmart!

I was turning left to move further down a main street waiting patiently in the turn queue. In front of me was a new, small fuel-efficient hybrid car with far too many bumper stickers: Two or three Obama stickers; Anti-war slogans; Dire warnings about Global Warming; The World is a Village sort of thing, and on and on. You could barely see the back of the car.

I deduced, quite astutely I might add, that the driver, a woman maybe in her late fifties, was a left-leaning liberal, of which we don’t have many in Arizona.

From the left turn lane queue she moved to the right lane, and from there into what I consider to be one of, if not The greatest contributors to the downfall of American industry: Walmart. That got me thinking…

Like many Americans I was born when forty percent of American jobs were in the Manufacturing sector: four of ten of my Dad’s friends participated in the making of something. This was always considered a good thing, because making things meant that these things we made were hopefully sold to people somewhere else in the world and that put money into the system that didn’t exist before in the US economy.

This also helped something called the Balance of Trade, a thing we talk a lot about today but really pay no attention to. China has a very positive Balance of Trade with the United States. Through the latest statistics available from the US Census Bureau, China exported billions of dollars more in goods to us than we exported to them.

The very good news is that, owing to our prolonged Depression, China’s exports have fallen off somewhat, because Americans don’t feel like spending as much as they did.

Over the years, the same as most consumers, I saw reduced prices as the focal point of my consumer duty. Of course, back then Sam Walton promoted Walmart and Sam’s Club as safe harbors of American made products. Poor Sam died, though, and that left the operation up to his kids. Anyone who is a parent knows that children are greedy little bastards, and Sam’s kids and all of the shareholders of Sam’s Club and Walmart became greedy little bastards too, just like our children and grandchildren are - or will be - but certainly not anything like we were when we were children.

Cost, Quality, and Availability are the variables in anything we buy. No one can argue the cost-effectiveness of Chinese made products: substantially low labor and transportation costs have led to an absolute glut in Chinese made products around the globe. As a result Availability is assured.

For a time we lived not too far from the main east-west artery of the Burlington Northern Railroad. From several vantage points we could watch traffic in both directions. On the eastern route, stemming from the Port of Los Angeles, (railroad) car after car after car (ad infinitum) laden with cargo containers bearing the names of shippers from the Far East rolled onward to their retail destinations. On the western route, as rail cars lumbered back unfettered by the weight of merchandise and containers, one couldn’t help but notice the absence of American made product moving to super-happy consumers in China, Japan or elsewhere.

This leaves us passing the buck: If six of us get together and we have one dollar between us we can all agree that we’re in deep (crisis). For quite awhile now, that’s what America has been. If one of the six of us was any good at whittling and we were able to sell whatever it was that he or she whittled to someone outside of our circle, presumably through the Lehman’s website since our whittler would undoubtedly be Amish, we would add some level of wealth for every object sold.

The problem with America is we don’t whittle anymore. We have become literally a bunch of people passing a single dollar around to one another, placated by the imported crap we buy at deep discounts, all of which salves our need for immediate gratification. 

But, that’s not the point of this little piece. This is about people who profess to be environmentalists shopping at those places, and buying those things, that are made in those countries, by those people because of the appearance that they can buy more, or just what they need for less money.

So, the second issue is Quality. I have no product quality statistics to share: only personal observations confirmed by many other people. I used to shop at Walmart, K-Mart, Target and all the other places of similar merchandising. I stopped for several reasons, not the least of which was product Quality. It seemed that every time I bought (and re-bought) a shirt the sleeves became frayed, or the thread snaked out, or the buttons broke before the third washing. Every “Comfy” pair of pants suitable for sleeping gave way to ripped seams with virtually no effort on my part. Every pair of shoes irritated my feet in one way or another and fell apart after a few wearings. Every wrench I ever bought that said, “China” was good for one twist. Every broom fell apart; each screw stripped; saw blades didn’t; electric drills wouldn’t and the list is endless.

Why am I buying this crap? I thought. I just have to buy it over and over again. How true. Yet, it takes just about as much energy to make a bad product as it does a good. Here’s an excerpt from the International Herald Tribune, by Joseph Kahn and Kim Yardley, published way back in August 2007:

“No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.

“But just as the speed and scale of China's rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents…

“Public health is reeling. Pollution has made cancer China's leading cause of death…”

So, there are probably thirty different reasons to shop for a comparable American made product, not the least of which is to buy a product that has to only be made once, thus preserving the environment.

In 1950 about four of ten jobs were higher-paid Manufacturing jobs, leaving only six of ten to the dregs of the Service sector. Today? Fewer than one out of ten jobs is involved in manufacturing to some extent. NAFTA has only further tipped an already slippery slope. Only a part of American Made has to be American Made. So, we’ve reached out to our neighbors South of the Border and Up North and have combined forces to insure our mutual failure.

Until America decides it’s going to enter the world economy the Sierra Club can forget about me as a new member. And, if I see that woman turning into Walmart again I’m going to slit her tires. Of course, she’ll probably just replace them with Cooper’s, which are nowadays, made in China.

The Syncretic Party

Is On The Rise

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

There is a new political party: One I’m giving serious consideration to joining. It’s not Utopian: it’s just a synthesis of the many disparate voices around us today - Democrat, Republican, and even a little Teabagging thrown in for balance. Today, we’re regressive: We’re de-evolving. It’s time to take a different and higher road. A road of Plurality.

The Syncretic Party regards all of our nation’s people (and people throughout the world) as equals and deserving of our respect.

It does not promote violence except as a final and last resort when all other systems have failed, and then limits the use of nation-violence to that of defense, in its simplest definition. War will no longer be used as a tool of Greed. As a result, the need for Homeland Defense will all but be negated.

The Party’s leadership unfailingly weighs their decisions and actions against the good of all. They balance the wealthier of society with the less-advantaged. They are regarded as the leaders of progressive thought by the rest of the world.

The Party’s primary tenet is to foster personal growth and achievement at the expense of none and to the benefit of all.

The Party’s adherents urge that everyone – all members of society – ought to do all they can to assure society’s success, and that no one ought to consider him- or herself entitled to anything other than the honor of being a productive member of society, and the gratitude of others for being so.

If a member of society is in earnest physically or mentally unable to contribute as an active member, they are cared for in a manner that is dignified and respects whatever contribution they are capable of making.

The Party believes that truly affordable Health Care ought to be available to everyone through his or her own financial resources, balancing ability to pay against cost.

Also, the Party believes that the attainment of personal goals is critical to the success of all, yet sees Greed as in conflict with this principle: Thus, Philanthropy is the rewarded ultimate end of attainment, resulting in greater funding for the Arts and Sciences, and recognition for its benefactors.

Through the Party’s leadership we will come to embrace all religions and beliefs as essential – Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Atheist – all are critical to a homogenous society where the value and fulfillment of life is held paramount.

The Party often displays the message, To Lead an Unfulfilled Life, is to Spit in God’s Eye, at the bottom of its various messages.

Because of the unceasing efforts of the Party’s leadership, and by the examples clearly illustrated through the lives of those who lead, all of our society’s members will be as productive and determined as they can be within the scope of what for them is possible, and, so, Homelessness and Hunger will not exist. Violence will be nearly eliminated. Hatred will be controlled and neither articulated nor acted upon. A profound sense of freedom will engulf us, and we will become far more than we ever thought possible.

If we could just take Humans

out of the equation.

Premature Ejaculate

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Per favore scusarci. We’ve left the below article intact in the event that Berlusconi does prove to be the eventual victor in Italy’s (now) highly contested seat as the country’s top official. Our readers ought to recognize, please, that we were in good company, with the BBC and other international journals  drawing the same premature conclusion. We all experience this sometime in our lives: There is nothing to be ashamed of.

The Merkin of Venice*

La Parte Due

Warren-Hill

@WarrenHillFilms

Fare attenzione delle signore! È ritornato!

Immediately to mind comes the expression, What were they (the Italian electorate) thinking? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In either frame of reference, the Dow didn’t respond well sending the index plummeting on the heels of the announced results. (A few other factors, like a crumbling US economy, may have played into it, too.)

When considering Berlusconi, though, it’s important to remember that no country’s electorate has a monopoly on truncated logic, or, as they say in the world of academia, Dumbness.

Recall the 1992 election during which the American electorate voted into office a known philanderer and tax and spend Democrat. Undeniably, his accomplishments were many, two of which immediately come to mind: 1) A level of peacetime economic expansion hitherto unseen in our history, and 2) A clever alternative to curing a good cigar in cognac, rum, or brandy. Overall, although certain to manifest great rebuke from some of our readers, President Clinton more than met the expectations of the office, and certainly of what I expected him to do: Philander.

A little further back and we find a Hollywood B-grade actor finding his way to the most powerful position in the world. A freewheeling Capitalist and sometimes confused and arrogant man, under his leadership the US economy skyrocketed and we were all rolling in it. Most of us, anyway. Admittedly, there were losers in the equation, as well. And, during his term we learned to refer to our wives by the sobriquet of, Mommy, which is not the same as asking, Who’s your daddy?

So, why would the impact of Berlusconi’s return carry such international significance as to knock the pegs out from the Dow? No one knows. Those who profess to understand the markets’ myriad personalities are, of course, Bullshit Artists. Keep that in mind while you surf the channels seeking an answer for your losses.

My guess is that it was an excuse to extract profits following the massive run-up the markets had enjoyed. It’s called, Greed.

Who paid for the billions lost today? The small investor. Large portfolio managers and investors set the theme for the day. They are the players and rarely the losers. So...

In an earlier article (archives) we asked, What future within the EU will Italy have if the Merkin of Venice (our coinage, by the way), who maintains sufficient voter appeal in Italy among the male of the species, as well, mounts both a teenage model and a successful campaign?

There is neither rhyme nor reason. I guess we’ll just wait and find out. (*Our apologies to W. Shakespeare.)

Haggling Over Hagel

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

The Middle East is nearing ignition point. An even-eye and a more holistic approach is what the region desperately needs to circumvent the certain calamity awaiting all of us just over the horizon.

Mr. Hagel promises to bring a sense of reason and fairness to the international arena in dealing with Israel and Iran in a more meaningful and effective way than any of those who have hitherto served in the position of Secretary of Defense. Striking an equitable balance in an emotionally charged and highly complex region such as the Middle East, he will bring an improved level of equanimity to an otherwise disintegrating and chaotic circumstance, the result of which is likely to overshadow anything we have witnessed or felt the brunt of to-date.

So, why isn’t everyone onboard?

Although unraveling daily, being replaced by far more independent-of-thought news and opinion venues, the vast majority of control of today’s popular media still rests in the hands of those more Israel-friendly politicos and financial leaders in America. Thus, one who is not devoutly pro-Israel is often colored by deprecating innuendo, insult, and fallacious charges. Those who do their bidding are thus a forceful and vocal group, our own John McCain among them.

Mr. McCain’s interests and thoughts appear to be cloudy and festering with confusion. In all fairness, though, the majority of his constituents here in Arizona are much like those in any conservative state, the bulk of which spend little or no time understanding events beyond their backyard.

Shallow of mind and incapable of voicing opinion, save for those issues on the base level of a Maslovian scale, such as guns and immigrants, every two, four, or six years they lodge an opinion at the voting booth (if then) and default on their responsibility for the rest of their elected official’s term.

Once keen of mind and dedicated to his country, McCain today is muddle-headed and reactionary. While Lindsey Graham, who ought to be far more progressive in his views, continues to vote on behalf of his financial backers like a 90 year-old, 10-term Senator who tenderly wipes a tear from his eyes when recalling the days prior to Abolition.

Consider the issue of Iran and their nuclear program: From where does our inherent distrust of Iran’s intentions come? Are we as a government concerned about Iran’s potential use of nuclear arms against its neighbors, most specifically Israel, because we see Iran as less stable and prone to terrorism than those who direct the strategic goals of Israel?

Israel’s track record on all counts is deplorable, yet they control a nuclear arsenal thanks largely to us, that has yet to be used other than through the perceived threat it represents to Israel’s less acquiescent neighbors.

Israel is a country that has continued to ramrod further settlements, in violation of international mandate, into the West Bank and Gaza without regard to the human suffering and death they have caused daily at their ever-expanding doorstep. It is a country that has exported terrorism throughout the world, but we trust them with the most destructive weapon ever known.

And yet the furor over Benghazi continues, too, but only as a truncheon with which to beat Obama over the head into some level of submission. A very few Americans died in Benghazi. Outraged Republicans find that unacceptable. 6,000 Service Men and Women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have, by any standards, bankrupted the country fighting two historically unwinnable wars to sate our need for Oil. (If you believe it was for a higher, more transcendent goal, you are a fool.)

McCain opposes the man who was one of the voices of reason at a time when so few of us expressed dissent while caught in the trappings of manufactured Patriotism and media-hype.

McCain, who spent years incarcerated in Hanoi while a Prisoner of War, supports the victors of that war every day in the Senate. He is a staunch supporter of trade with Vietnam, yet he vigorously opposed that enemy 40 years past. Why has his position changed so radically?

Follow the money…

It’s time to confirm Mr. Hagel and get-on with the business of bringing America back from the fiscal and moral precipice about to destroy whatever remnants remain of our once-great country.

It’s time for a better world, so put down your fiddle, Nero.

Flyover Country

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Readership of The Independent Daily now approaches many thousands from around the world. And, while that’s a personally pleasing fact it does not help us to specifically define your - the reader’s - interests in this journal.

Most of those who peruse this online publication read multiple pages, and many search the Archives using our Google search engine. From this search feature we know that the top-read article is Einstein’s Wristwatch - a hypothesis regarding a consequence of Special Relativity and how its application may help the more scripturally-constrained reconcile the Word of God more facilely with the word of Science.

Others seek out more humorous criticisms such as the article below on Boko Haram, clarifying the difference between this radical African militant band of murderers, the murderers they oppose (our ally), those innocents caught in the death trap between the two factions, to that of Procol Harum, an English Rock band whose name is not too dissimilar.

Chekhov, speaking of Zola’s defense of Alfred Dreyfus said that a writer has a right to belong to no party and to strike out, Left or Right according to the dictates of his conscience. A small number of our readers do not have that mental facility, and if they happen across an article that subjectively appears Left-leaning construe that we are therefore a Leftist publication. While conversely those who stumble across what they assess as Right-wing presume that is our inclination.

That’s the inherent challenge to the many who have difficulty not marching lock-step to party rhetoric: a pluralist’s perspective - one of independent views and approaches - it doesn’t fit well into Partisanship and some find that disquieting. It’s easier to repeat than to think.

We advocate for Peace yet Just War; We have a Socialist’s inclinations combined with a traditional Capitalist’s belief in the capabilities of unfettered Free Enterprise; We are isolationists yet embrace incursion to guarantee the Human Rights of those being systematically oppressed by gravely faulted governments, including and especially, our own. We believe in a Free Press yet urge you to discard your Television: it is the antichrist of intellectual growth.

We carry no advertising. You will not be cookied. The only Bug is placed by Google for their Ajax search feature, and that is entirely harmless: We don’t care what you shop for, buy, or what your darkest interests may be. We care about what you think, and how you arrived at your conclusion.

We receive from 20 to 30 email comments per month: Some develop into productive discourse and are published in ensuing editions. They are enlightening to both us and to our readers.

May I formally invite your comments?

Non-Relativity and

Professor Hawking

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Although they insist on clinging to the coattails of one of the World’s most renowned Theoretical Physicists, Albert Einstein wasn’t all that enthralled with what Israel had become, either.

Seeing the small, once-peaceful country emerge from the skirmishes and wars that inflicted massive violence on her new and novice citizens evolve into a threatening, conflicted government at the root of many of the problems today faced in the Middle East, along with her steadfast ally, the United States, he repeatedly refused ovations and honors from Israel’s government, only tacitly and reluctantly embracing his Jewish heritage.

Today more than ever Israel is at the heart of the difficulties faced in that part of the world. This is a perspective on the government, not the people. A normatively aberrant and deluded Jewish minority in Israel, though, is the driving factor in the never-ending cacophony that overrides commonsense and sensibility.

Professor Hawking’s refusal to appear at the Israeli conference honoring the 90th birthday of Shimon Peres has been termed by the event organizers as “Bizarre” and not in keeping with Professor Hawking’s ideologies.

On the contrary, I would presume from his published statement that Hawking’s refusal to appear is a clear denial of Israel’s current direction toward Middle East domination, and a precise refutation of the treatment of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians currently being systematically led to the Black Hole of genocide; And strangely reminiscent of Einstein’s views towards the small country’s apparent and incessant drive toward Militarism.

This is what great Theoretical Physicists do: Each to follow builds on the revelations of those who preceded until a clear understanding coalesces.

We applaud Professor Hawking for his independence of thought and clarity of mind through which he transcended the bounds of capitulation.

We presume he’ll catch hell for this...such is the fate of those who do not follow the suggested road to travel by those who rig the world’s political mapping process.

The Problem with “Terrorists”...

Warren-Hill

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

...Seems to be in its lack of clear definition. A one-time pejorative that vilified those so labelled, it is tossed around so loosely today that it’s difficult to agree as to who actually is a Terrorist. There is no consensus, and Terrorism appears to be in the subjective mind of the observer, based on the whim or political need of the moment.

About 240 years ago in North America there was a small group of people residing in the British Colonies who did not represent the will of the majority of the Colony’s residents, yet through force they impressed their vision on circumstances changing the course of history significantly. They were Terrorists by any definition.

Today it seems as though Israel, no stranger to both being Terrorized and as the instigator of Terrorists acts, is once again involved in perpetrating what Syria terms as Terrorism against the Syrian state, supporting those people through air strikes who not too long ago, were Terrorists in their public acclamations.

And not many months before, Hillary Clinton acting on our behalf as Secretary of State, spent much time in the international public eye by embracing the new Egyptian government of Mohamed Morsi, who had recently come to power via the Muslim Brotherhood, previously declared Terrorists for their alignment with Hamas.

We have variously throughout the last two decades supported Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban in their individual and collective actions against what they had seen as repressive governments, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: Arming them extensively, in some cases with weapons that would, only a few years later, be turned against our servicemen and -women.

From our perspective, America has been guilty of international Terrorism in the past. And, yet, so have those we have opposed. It’s a gray and shadowy area.

My guess is that lurking in the subconscious minds of many left-leaning Americans is the thought that recently in Texas there was a large cell of Terrorists gathering under the seemingly innocuous banner of an “NRA Convention” who might best have been targeted for Drone attack.

Through its permeation the word, Terrorist, no longer carries with it the significance it once did. Broadly, today it means, Those with whom we do not agree.

How much longer before disagreeable husbands and wives file divorce actions citing, “Terrorist Spouse” as the cause? And, will Fifth Graders who occasionally bite their classmates be expelled for “Terroristic Assault”?

What of this online journal? Will The Independent Daily eventually be ordered to close by our own government for fomenting Terrorism? Stay tuned...

(Migrated)

Wall Street Joy

Jos. Warren

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Why not? The Dow has edged upward beyond any prior records, and periodically hops, skips, and jumps still higher while a non-cautious optimism rules the Street. It still hasn’t kept pace with inflation, but that’s not a concern of those smaller investors who currently ride the daily ebb and flood.

Why is it of little concern? Because this is a new generation of smaller investors: those whose life savings or free investment capital fed the machine that fueled the rise up to April 2007 are long gone. They were part of the massive foreclosure and bankruptcy wave that followed, and that continues to today.

Smaller investors are what fuel the market, systematically transferring their money to the larger investors, like at a Las Vegas casino. Larger investors – those who control the movement of the market and sustain its existence (quite literally in 1929 and 2008) – rarely go bust on a downturn. Our government and the Fed are always there to maintain their investments and compensate for their failed management practices.

To have kept pace with inflation the Dow ought to be at about $15,900 (Read, They’re Dollars, Not Points, elsewhere in this issue). Of course, it’s not, but once again, those who pumped their hard-earned capital into the Market, with very rare exception, aren’t around to care anyway. It’s a new day and a new generation, ripe for the plucking.

Still, a record is a record, just as it was on September 3, 1929 when the Dow stood at $381. That is, until April 17, 1930 when, at “294” it began a long downward slide finally resting at “62” until recapturing its “381” high in November 1954.

Right now, Congress is establishing a default payment system re-establishing its priorities for payment of obligations whereby US Bondholders and Social Security recipients will be paid before anyone else in-line should the US Government not be able to fulfill its full debt obligations later this year. Remember the Fiscal Cliff? Yeah…we didn’t solve that problem: we put it off.

Unemployment figures released by the BLS have been manipulated in new and unusual ways digesting state-provided data in such a way as to eliminate those who have completely given up on finding meaningful work. Why would a market driven by international viability think that unemployment in Europe, setting records in France, Spain, Greece, and so on, be any different here in the US? It’s a Global economy.

America has not completed the intake of homes currently in foreclosure proceedings. According to a recent Forbes article, “In the first quarter of 2013, 11 states experienced increases in foreclosure activity compared to a year earlier. Maine experienced the most dramatic jump: a 327% increase in filing activity. Other states where foreclosures surged by triple digits were Arkansas (150%), Maryland (123%), Washington (126%), and New York (114%).”

2012 Personal Bankruptcy filings generally declined nationally, but continue to trend much higher than at any time in the past fifty years. California’s filings continue at the rate of more than 5 people per 1,000 residents. Nevada, nearly 7. Utah and Colorado at about 6.

So, as Winston Wolf said in Pulp Fiction, alluding to how the joy of the moment can sometimes blind us to the greater, looming threat that is being largely ignored, “…before we start sucking each other’s dicks…” perhaps Congress and the President need to spend a little more time developing long-term solutions, rather than pandering to the moment.

Oil Price Fixing? Never...

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

According to a recent Reuters report, European authorities have raided offices of oil majors Shell, BP and Statoil in an investigation of suspected manipulation of oil prices.

No! I am aghast! Oil companies fixing prices higher than the market (Supply vs. Demand) ought to dictate? Not in America my fey European friends.

Here, prices aren’t rigged - they’re established by a precise mathematical formula: Using factor “$” (contributions) multiplied by “W” (President “O” or previously, “B”, empirically-derived lust for financial solvency following departure from office), divided by the number of years remaining in said office. Simple, no?

Why will you never find the US government examining the books of major Oil in America? Because major Oil is the US government. See how that simplifies things: Not having to get those nasty Subpoena Duces Tecum or Search Warrants. Just blissful concession...I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Standard Oil.

Full story here.

Drone Update

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Last month we speculated that it was only a matter of time before the US used Drone-based lethal force against a US citizen on US soil.

On March 5, CNN reported that our Attorney General, Eric Holder, now says, “It is possible I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

Who’s imagining this? Under what conditions do they imagine that a Drone-strike would be within the parameters of the Constitution given the extrajudicial nature of the act? What happened to Due Process? And, what does “extraordinary” mean to Eric Holder?

Now, other than Obama, find out who the other killers are, below in Soylent Brown.

For a full read of the report and related stories,

see CNN’s article here.

Boston

Jos.Warren

@WarrenHillFilms

Most Americans are too smart to equate the actions of two young brothers to the underlying foundation of the belief of millions. Most Americans...

Timothy McVeigh, as you may recall, was a Republican, Christian Fundamentalist who believed that America was on the precipice of moral collapse. His answer was, with his cohorts, to destroy a federal building in Oklahoma City claiming the lives of 168 innocent people.

His actions left us stunned because there was no logical course of action to follow other than to punish him for his misdeed. We did that. That is the way justice works: We punish the guilty.

Following the bombing, elements within our society did not engage in vigilantism and destroy local Republican political offices. We didn’t blow up Christian churches. We didn’t beat up Christians we encountered in a parking lot. We didn't paint defaming graffiti on the sides of buildings frequented by Christians.

Christian children were not singled-out in class by their peers and  asked if they were going to blow up the school; their lockers were not searched presupposing that, because they too were Christian, they were likely to share the same aberrant beliefs as Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh.

Christian children were not tormented on the playground nor were they bullied and cajoled in the locker room. Their parents were not ostracized from the community. When their eyes met those of non-Christians they did not sense fear and trepidation.

Yet, all of these abhorrent acts have happened already, before the identity of the Boston bombing suspects was known with any certainty. We presumed.

We all need to be reminded that Muslim-Americans are an integral part of America. They are our physicians, scientists, school teachers, mechanics, laborers, mothers and fathers...and that they are deserving of our respect. Not our condemnation.

Suspect No. 1: State of California

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Mohave County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) released it’s official report January 18, 2013 regarding the State of California’s theft of the editor’s identity. (See, California, Shrinking the Deficit Through Identity Theft and Fraud, column right.)

The report asks, “Is suspect known?” Yes, is the official response. “Has suspect been apprehended?” No. “Suspect No. 1” is identified as, State of California.

There are 38,000,000 Californians. Through our penal system in Arizona we currently house 9,000 Californians serving their sentences here due to overcrowding there. Although it is very satisfying to read the report, I’m just not certain where we’ll put the other 37,991,000 inmates.

Save Our State:

A reaction to last issue’s report of California stealing identities to enhance the state’s coffers

“I was pleased to see your article on the State Board of Equalization's habit of making assessments on out-of-state persons. I have many stories about the Board's activities, but not like yours. I have been watching their activities though, based upon what I went through, (partially self-inflicted), and what case information comes within my sight. The Board makes many "determinations" upon people who live in other states, usually due to businesses operated (in California) that failed.

“I remember one business I (had) closed…and they made an assessment for taxes theoretically collected after the business closed, two quarters I think. My effort to convince them it was closed fell upon disbelieving…ears, even (after) showing the bank records with no income, and other documents.

“I was somewhat lucky that I even got notice of it to oppose it. Most move away to (other states) and don't learn about it until the state tries to obtain, or does obtain, a sister state judgment and collection begins (there).

“I have been publishing the roster of tax settlements where people have went through offers in compromise program. Millions are forgiven by the state…But what gripes me to no end is seeing the hypocrisy the state exhibits to selected classes of persons in the prosecution of the tax offenders. Each year, the legislature allows the Mexican government to set up shop at the state capitol on Mexican independence day.

“I could go on here for pages, but I just wanted to offer a bit of solace since you took time to write about your experience.”

Davi Rodrigues

Chairman,

Save Our State

http://SaveOurState.info

Why On Earth Do You Care?

A regular, laconic featurette by the Editor-in-Chief

O. W. Holmes said that taxes ought to be like the rain: Equally falling upon each member of a political region.

So, why are they not?

Who is Save Our State? According to its Chairman, Davi Rodrigues, “Save Our State has its roots in the Save Our License, Prop 187, anti-illegal immigration movement. We have altered our corporate statement to include a few more efforts that contribute to illegal immigration, and infringe upon citizen rights by way of foreign influence.

“The tax issue is one we have complained about for many years (see, California: Shrinking... column right), in that the state was eager to enforce the tax code against people who operate above board, but were indifferent or dismissive where immigrants were involved. We specifically pointed out several block-long areas where the underground economy operated openly, but never saw any enforcement.

“There's one section of the forum (at the SOS site) called ‘Partners in Propriety’ where we are seeking to ask government agencies to embrace the concept of fair enforcement of tax codes, and employment codes. We work with anybody that asks for help in reporting violators, and trying to get the law enforced…

“It's too easy for government agencies to abuse…(the balance of society). Right now, we believe they are massaging the Latino/illegal alien/immigrant demographic for political gain by relaxing enforcement on them so they can grow economically, politically, and demographically: All to the peril of the rest of the citizens who suffer the full force of government intrusion…”

(Davi Rodrigues, Chairman)

And, a very brief letter from USCrow.org regarding our earlier article, Yet Another Militia:

“Good article, great read. We're not right wing: we’re Center Right.

“Keep up the fight.”

“USCrow.org”

Editor’s reply: Rather than Center Right we think you fall more appropriately into the category of Pragmatists: Every day that passes it seems clearer that the prudent individual ought to be more prepared for the growing potential eventuality.

Refuse Your Daily Meds: Turn Off Your TV.

It’s time to wake up.

California:

Shrinking the Budget Deficit Through Identity Theft and Fraud

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

…If any of our readers, anywhere in the world committed this same act they would be guilty of Identity Theft because that’s what it was: The knowing, willful, voluntary taking of someone’s identity for the financial gain of someone else…

California’s never-ending financial calamity is no secret: Every day the Associated Press reports the newest scheme devised by either California’s “shaken, not stirred” legislature or its still-crazy-after-all-these-years governor, Jerry Brown, to bring about renewed financial well-being to the once great, now crumbling state.

While the highways leading out of California to other neighboring and distant geographies are busily traversed by the multitudes departing California for good, the brooding remaining masses (energized by an influx of recent immigrants) continue to struggle over how best to impose new and better taxes on an already over-burdened populace.

How does one keep exorbitant welfare rolls, a bloated government, an excruciatingly painful infrastructure, a prison system that is so overcrowded that more than 9,000 inmates have been shipped off to Arizona to serve out their sentences, and a pork-barrel legislature in business when there are only so many residents to tax?

It is a problem, but not one insurmountable to California’s bureaucratic creative thinkers. Here’s their latest outside-the-box approach: Levy a tax on people who no longer live in California for businesses they did not operate. Simple, very creative, and illegal, but it’s the government, so why trouble one’s self over the question of legality, not to mention ethics.

Here’s how their latest idea works: If you’ve ever conducted business in California you had to register with one or (likely many) more of the agencies whose wills (and fees) they collectively impose upon you for the privilege of exercising a basic right in a Democratic society. Registration includes providing these agencies with information the nature of which is so sensitive that any consumer protection agency would caution you to shred, burn, then mix the ashes of the paper on which this information was printed into an edible paste…

The various state agencies in California don’t subscribe to this level of information security, though, and see it instead as a vast resource leading to a beneficial end. California’s State Board of Equalization – the people who collect the Sales Taxes paid by consumers to the state’s retailers – are heading the new effort through a program I like to think they call, Why not!

Within this vast whirlpool of computer-stored information is all the data one would need to re-construct anyone’s identity. And that’s what they did…with mine.

Briefly, the editors departed California in 2004 having spent fifty-three years watching as the state slowly ran its course from, What a beautiful place! to just, What? Leaving Newport Beach – the still lovely peninsula of Balboa – we trekked eastward overcome by the ability to buy an historic home in a lovely and friendly community (and another, and another) for the equivalent of a month’s worth of Toll Road fees. The years pass…happiness abounds…state government in Arizona vastly lacks the equivalent lunatic fringe so prevalent in California…we come to understand that Normal truly is much more pleasant.

March 2012 circuitously brings a letter from the California State Board of Equalization (the Board) I was able to receive only because the property to which it was addressed is tenant occupied, having bounced off our old Newport Beach address, then redirected: From the letter it would appear that while living in Arizona during 2007, my doppelgänger had been busy operating a hardware store somewhere in Pioneer, California, which I have since learned is north of where Mark Twain’s infamous Jumping Frog took place. (I love Mark Twain’s stories so I must have been enjoying myself.) Not only was he my double, but he also used my Social Security number, and was sleeping with another woman. For the sake of clarity in third-person narrative, let’s call this person, Mr. Editor.

Mr. Editor’s very concerned when it comes to letters from the government so he dutifully called the State Board of Equalization who was, therein, threatening to assess him more than one thousand dollars in delinquent taxes. After an exhaustive discussion with the Board’s representative (we’ll call her, Sandy Besso, for purposes of this article) he received assurances that the issue would be looked into. He provided Ms. Besso with all contact information so that if further discussion were necessary she could handily reach him: good man.

Subsequently, and after much further discussion via email, he received further assurance that the mischaracterization of Mr. Editor as Tax Deadbeat would be resolved. After some realignment of his psyche, happiness returns.

January 2013. Tax Deadbeat Mr. Editor receives another letter redirected as before through the same convoluted channels from the same entity – the Board. This letter assures him that he does owe more than one thousand dollars and that additional penalties will be assessed should he fail to make timely payment.

Ordinarily an Arizonan (or any other state resident) may cast aside a letter such as this and think, Good luck! But here’s how this works: Mr. Editor has Special Knowledge (gained through 10 years of painful experience) and knows that in California the Board shares information liberally with the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) a California department that collects individual income taxes from California’s taxpayers living in California and elsewhere. He also knows that the FTB shares information liberally with the Internal Revenue Service (the IRS). And you know who they are...

So, at some point in the future the FTB receives a copy of the final billing from the Board and they think, Wonderful! An opportunity to increase revenue and prepare a billing for failure to file a tax return in the State of California. They send it to the same old address (mail forwarding long expired) and of course, it goes unappealed and becomes a final tax bill appended to Mr. Editor’s Social Security number and full legal name with last known address.

Shortly thereafter, the IRS gets computer-wind of this and crosschecks revenue and tax filings, discovering that Mr. Editor didn’t report income from his Jumping Frog business, and this makes them hopping mad. So, they send a fraud assessment to Mr. and Mrs. Editor for a lot of money and threatening so many years in the slammer that Mrs. Editor out of fear leaves Mr. Editor for a young Latin writer named Ramon living in Mexico City two floors above the offices of Luis Ramirez, Abogado, specializing in expedient divorces.

How can this be the reader may ask? It’s the system: It’s what technology, incompetence, and laziness has wrought.

So, once again, Mr. Editor spends a very disquieting time trying to undo what the Board has done. What did they do?

Apparently, based on conversation with Ms. Besso, they knew that someone with the same last name as Mr. Editor operated a business in Pioneer, and that that person had committed the unspeakable act of failing to register with them while trying to squeeze a few bucks out of a crippled economy and maybe - just maybe - feed his family while keeping his house from being taken away by the banks who were so well supported by our federal government’s largesse. But, I digress.

Anyway, it’s far too difficult to actually investigate who that person might have been, requiring them to log-off Facebook and work while on the job, so the efficient government servant, under extreme pressure to assess a lot of people a lot of money so the machine may perpetuate itself, looked into the trash and digging amongst the smelly orange peels, used sticky Kleenex, and discarded financial statements, found Mr. Editor’s name and life story. She then thought, Why not! (That’s the derivation of the program’s name.)

That Mr. Editor hadn’t lived in California for many years prior was not of her concern. That there was no driver’s license or any other information placing Mr. Editor in California since Newport Beach years before and 600 miles to the south of where the frogs jump, did not enter their thinking…it’s not supposed to. It’s about revenue and revenue at all costs: kind of a, “Damned the torpedoes…” sort of response to prevailing conditions.

If any of our readers, anywhere in the world committed this same act they would be guilty of Identity Theft because that’s what it was: The knowing, willful, voluntary taking of someone’s identity for the financial gain of someone else.

Has it been resolved, or is Mr. Editor likely to be the recipient of a one-way ticket to Guantanamo’s Special Detention Center for Tax Terrorists?

Mr. Editor has received the same feeble assurance as before, but, having had it up to here (imagine the accompanying gesture), he decided to aggressively fight back:

On January 8, 2013 both Mr. and Mrs. Editor filed a criminal report with the Mohave County Sheriff's Office alleging Identity Theft, Fraud and Extortion against the California State Board of Equalization, including its directing members, Betty T. Yee, George Runner, Michelle Steel, Jerome E. Horton, and John Chiang who happens to be the California State Controller, and a few others just to keep the mix. (Obviously John Chiang doesn’t do a very good job of controlling things over there.)

The Deputy, a wonderfully competent law enforcement officer, admitted that it was probably the first complaint he had taken against any state, California among them, but he understood the nature of what we were doing: it’s a serious allegation for serious reasons. Interestingly, although I feared it may be the case the morning of our visit to the Sheriff’s office, he did not suggest medication or restraints.

Worse, what would have happened had Mr. Editor not still owned the tenant-occupied home and been able to intercede in this internecine debacle? And, foremost, how many others in and out of California have been similarly set-up and ripped off by this criminal cartel? It could not have been an anomaly; it must have occurred by design or by design failure.

If you have had a similar experience, let us know.

Contact the editor at:

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

Teach Peace

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

A recent letter by a thoughtful reader, Muhammad Khan, reminds me of how important it is to be fearless in the face of fear. Like Damocles’ proverbial Sword, the watchful eyes of government, ever more omnipotent and vengeful, constantly weigh and evaluate everything we confidentially say to one another through a sophisticated network of intrusive technology.

Mr. Kahn signs his name referencing, http://GainPeace.com.

But how are we to gain peace if those who seek this elusive and worthy goal are constrained by fear of government intrusion and the Kafkaesque consequences and machinations thereof? Simply, by not being obedient to fear: To urge ourselves to share thoughts and ideas that transcend today’s normative practices without apprehension, such as Mr. Khan has done.

We know of what we speak: Last year’s production and release of, The Abduction and Trial of George Bush brought us far too much attention. Being reproofed by the government is troublesome. Believing in an ideal, though, like reconciliation, admission of guilt, and striving to establish a line across which we as a country ought not step again, is far too important a goal: it must be our future if we are to survive.

We cannot Gain Peace if we cannot Talk Peace. To Talk Peace requires us to abandon Fear, Greed, and, perhaps deeply held personal Spiritual Beliefs for the ultimate good of all humanity. Thus, to successfully Talk Peace, we must strip ourselves naked leaving the soul – the essence – of our own humanity exposed and vulnerable.

Thank you for your kind letter, Mr. Khan.

“Somebody’s Just Shot 20 Children: Don’t Answer the Phone.”

-(Probable) NYPD Response to Newtown Shooting

Warren-Hill

@WarrenHillFilms

As we initiate a series of sure-to-be-volatile debates this year regarding Guns in America, we need to begin with an accurate baseline. Such is not the case with New York City. To listen to Michael Bloomberg offer his sage advice on how to counteract the menace of violent crime is to listen to fiction.

The statistics look good: too good to the average thinking American (sounds like a Carlin-defined, oxymoron), and/or to anyone who has spent any time at all in Manhattan. Crime statistics in Index Crimes (Homicide, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Burglary, Aggravated Assault, Larceny, Motor Vehicle Theft, and Arson) are down, according to databases reporting statistics based on reported crime.

Actually being able to report crimes in New York City, though, appears to be the problem, as many of its savvy citizens are discouraged from reporting violations against them and others, or flatly turned away and refused the time it would take to prepare a report, including for suspected Murder victims! (The examples documented in journals ranging from the Village Voice to the New York Times are too numerous to cite here: Seek, though, and you shall find, with little effort, we might add.)

The practice is apparently so out-of-hand that the Office of the Mayor called for the assembly of a committee to study the problem. The committee includes the Chief of NYPD. (Objectivity will surely prevail. – ed.)

Examples of refused and “lost” reports are, as is crime, rampant. This includes all forms of criminal acts: those that involve a firearm and those that do not.

Sleight of hand manipulation is not a way to control crime, and only obfuscates what actual progress may (or may not) have been made defeating crime. Thus, to include any representative from the City of New York, Mayor’s Office or otherwise, to participate in any national Gun Control debate ought to be steadfastly avoided.

On the other hand, why is Michael Bloomberg so happy? Of reported crime (now recognizing that our friends in New York tend to deflate the statistics more than a bit) NYC’s crime rate in 2011 numbered 51,209. That seems terribly high to the authors, and especially so when recognizing that the actual statistics are much higher.

At the same time, the city of Phoenix, Arizona (one of the many strongholds of the Second Amendment) reported 8,089 for the same period with a population of about 70% that of NYC. (The population of the entire state of Arizona approximates that of New York City: 2011 Index Crime statewide: 26,311 or about one-half of NYC.)

The city of New Haven, Connecticut – the nearest metropolitan neighbor to Newtown, the site of the now-famous shooting, reported 1,748. Dallas, Texas, where not only ought one not “Mess with Texas” but with their firearms, too, reported 8,330. And, most importantly, in Aurora, Colorado, the site of last year’s theater massacre, statistically when combined with Denver, reported a total of about 5,100.

What does this tell us, other than that Michael Bloomberg’s pants are on fire?

From our perspective any blue-ribbon panel, the goal of which would be to better understand how to control Violence in America, might best be assembled of participants from anywhere other than New York, otherwise the result will be nothing more than a methodology on how to not report the shooting deaths of 20 children.

Foremost these statistics tell us with all certainty that Guns do not commit crimes: People do, as they always have and very likely, unfortunately, always will...particularly those who live in New York.

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Bomb the Old People

Editor

...In short, our defense budget is at least ten times that of any other developed country...

In an effort to shore up the dismally destitute and dilapidated American economy, the US Congress and our president, one Barak Obama, have elected to change upward the age of qualifying for Medicare from 65 to 67 years of age, thus potentially decreasing Medicare enrollment in a cost saving maneuver that would reap a benefit to the federal budget of about $400 billion over the next ten years, or the equivalent of about $40 billion per year.

In related news, and of equal importance, our friends at the Department of Defense have released their 2013 budget requirements. Their Christmas wish list includes funding in the amount of a whopping $614 billion, which does not include supplemental clandestine and other off-the-books expenditures that most experts tend to estimate at a little more than $300 billion annually, bringing total expenditures to about one trillion dollars for 2013. The number of active service personnel remains about the same today: two million, or about $500,000.00 per person.

In 2005 during the height of both the Afghan and Iraq wars the amount requested (and funded) was $478 billion, making 2013 about half-again as much as when we were actively involved in Afghanistan and Iraq...In short, our defense budget is at least ten times that of any other developed country while not operating in any major theater of battle.

So, we ask, “Exactly what are we protecting?” It certainly can’t be the American way of life:

•Educationally we’ve fallen to about 47th worldwide for college graduates, and that includes those foreign nationals who attend our colleges and universities.

•Our average wage has fallen to about the 50th percentile worldwide of developed nations.

•Our Homeless population has redoubled to the point where there are about three million people without homes, and the average age of the homeless child has dropped to 9 years of age: There are vast numbers of children walking the streets of America in our cities,  seeking shelter during this Christmas season. (TID’s Jack Shepherd, whose years of experience in working with the Homeless estimates that our nation’s homeless population far exceeds that number.)

•Unemployment remains at about 14%.

•Once abundant natural resources have been drastically depleted.

•Our air in the metropolitan regions of the country remains unfit to breath, and our water is polluted by carcinogens and other assorted filth.

•Illegal (and prescribed) drugs permeate our society destroying the underlying fabric of commonality that made us once a great country.

•Half of our population is on the dole, in one form or another, while most of the rest have no positive effect on the economy.

•Globally any right-thinking populace despises us, since our foreign policy, by any other name, is dedicated to destroying the hearts and minds of any opposing people, rather than uplifting them from poverty and ignorance.

•We manufacture nearly nothing, and represent only a drain on the balance of the world’s resources: We consume 25% of the world’s resources, yet we represent only 5% of the world’s population.

•In the last decade we’ve murdered more than one million innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, not combatants.

•Typically less than 50% of the qualifying American electorate cares enough about their government to participate in the electoral process.

The list of America the Failed is far too extensive to delineate in the pages of this journal. Overwhelmingly, though, the reality is that we have nothing left to protect other than our foreign oil interests, and therein lies the reason for our military budget.

...by any definition this is insanity...

If Russia, China, France, England, and all the other developed countries see no reason to capitalize their military to such a ridiculous level, why do we?

America’s physicians earn an average of at least three times that of any other developed country, $280,000 per year, with Japan, the closest second at about $80,000. America’s hospitals are recording record profits. Pharmaceutical companies peddle heart medications (the costs of which are likely to induce heart failure) and a plethora of other drugs (the benefits of which remain highly suspect) at exorbitant amounts.

The effects of the proposed Medicare reductions for America’s older generation will leave most of our grandparents on the brink of financial ruin as they scramble to pay prescription medication costs, co-payments, and increased insurance premiums to the ever burgeoning, insatiable Healthcare machine in America.

Taken in sum, all of the above leads us to the inescapable conclusion that directing America’s military might toward destroying our elderly and homeless population might address the needs of all concerned: Maybe we’ll win their hearts and minds.

Here’s the bottom line: It’s time for you to actively participate in government. You must set-aside self-interests: Our government is your self-interest.

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Editor

@WarrenHillFilms

Maybe George Bush had the right idea: There are too many of us inhabiting this little 66,400 mile-per-hour dirt-ball. We need to trim down a bit.

There are officially, according to the US Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html, more than 7 billion of us elbow-to-elbow trying to nudge our way to the front of the line.

Which line is that? Pick one: Food Line; Energy Line; Dominate-the-World Line…it’s plainly just too many people. And, the way medical science is curing those diseases that would have trimmed the flock, purging the lame, diseased and marginally capable, we’re heading toward a complete breakdown. The Earth cannot support that many people.

So what’s a government to do? Kill a few million, of course: Somebody has to, since we’ve negated the basic function of Natural Selection.

The good news is that Congress has passed a US Military budget of $650 billion (USD), which when combined with a little more than $300 billion in off-the-books appropriations, brings our total “Culling Power” to nearly one trillion: Get ready Terrorists (and the hapless millions who happen to be standing anywhere within a thousand mile blast zone).

Maybe we’ll have the opportunity to use some of this Instant Thinner on some of our own people since Congress and former president Bush approved the use of our military on our people. (We should probably wait, though, until the Housing market stabilizes.)

The bad news is that the world’s governments don’t do that good of a job of thinning the herd: Since the beginning of the 19th Century we’ve only culled about 119 million from the Earth as a result of the genocidal acts of Superstars in the field like Chairman Mao (with about 70 million slain), while our population in that time has grown from 1.5 billion to today’s see-saw tipping 7.06 billion. It’s going to take a really fat girl to bring the teeter-totter back in balance, and that fat girl is Miss World Genocide.

An example of the more pitiful efforts: Efrain Montt’s Best in Guatemala in the 1980’s was about 70,000 dead. You’ve got to do better than that to take on the big boys like Mao, Hitler, Stalin and Bush.

Another poor showing? Although scoring high in name coolness, Papa Doc Duvalier did not live up to the expectations of those who saw him as a true potential contender for Despotic Tyrant, coming to the finish line with a body count of only about 60,000. Shameful showing for having so much potential.

In the category of Runners-Up in the Miss World Genocide competition, Leopold II had a fairly presentable showing eliminating about 8 million people down in the Congo. (As the reader likely knows, the United States will not interfere with pogroms directed at eliminating Africans because Africa’s black population en masse, do not meet the US Government’s definition of Human, thus providing Africa’s ruling tyrants with a decided advantage.)

Then, too, Tojo managed to take out about 5 million, while Pol Pot, who scored very high for great looking neckwear while slaughtering the masses, managed a meager 1.7 million, yet has been the subject of far more cinematic dramas than his rival, Leopold. Such is the life of a tyrant, subject as they are to the whims of a fickle world population.

Who knows? Maybe the world’s next savior is out there right now…sharpening his machete. We can only hope.

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Shall We Gather at the Liver

Editor

Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com

At our local Kingman, Arizona, Smith’s grocery store this past December milk was a little more than two dollars a gallon: If we don’t fall over the Cliff, it’ll stay about the same as long as our Dairy industry continues to receive its substantial stipend from the Federal Government totaling, according to the PCRM – Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - about $500 million per year: one-half of a billion dollars. Of course, given the other Federal subsidies provided to related industries - those who provide the feed for the Dairy industry - it is, overall, a small drop in the bucket. Yet, once again all of this was made possible by the New Deal back in the 1930’s when FDR ruled the DC roost. Ironic that we’re still dealing with the New Deal, isn’t it?

At the same local store, Petite Sirloin Steaks sell for about $2.50 per pound or a bit more depending on the prevailing market. Great news. Now here’s the bad for 2013:

If you own a horse, as so many of us in Arizona and the Southwest do, you’ve noticed that the price of hay and alfalfa and other Forage products has gotten to the point where Ol’ Paint’s starting to look a little more like stew meat than original Western yard art. At least a 1962 Buick on blocks doesn’t have to be fed (or washed) and rarely craps in the yard.

Most of us tend to think it has something to do with the price of fuel combined with drought conditions in the Southwest. That’s not entirely true: That’s far too brief an answer, and there is at least one other very significant cause at work.

Horsemeat Fajitas

Recipe ingredients:

1/2 red onion, minced

1/2 red bell pepper, minced

1/2 green bell pepper, minced

2 Tbsp. safflower oil

1/2 cup medium salsa

1 lb. strips of horsemeat surlonge steak

To taste salt and white pepper

4 plain tortillas

1/4 cup 1% sour cream

Preparation:

Sauté the vegetables in oil. Add the salsa. Keep warm.

Quickly sauté the horsemeat until pink in the middle.

Mix the meat, the vegetables and the salsa.

Adjust the seasoning.

Spread the sour cream on the tortillas.

Spoon the mixture on the tortillas.

Fold the fajitas and serve.

It would appear as though our friends in China have a tremendous emerging need for Forage owing to their expanding Dairy industry. Once benign and not very robust, the Chinese Dairy market was very limited. That was before we started sending all of our money to them via the more than $2 trillion US Dollars we spend annually (and growing) on Chinese made clothes, TVs, computers, et cetera. Now, many Chinese have acquired a taste for designer Dairy foods such as flavored yogurt and other tasty treats previously reserved for Bourgeois Americans.

Here’s what’s happened: According to a recent market development report from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), China imported nearly 95,000 metric tons of U.S. alfalfa during the first six months of 2010. In all of 2009, Chinese imports of U.S. alfalfa totaled just 76,000 tons. For the year (2012), the FAS reports that Chinese imports could approach 420,000 metric tons. Hooo-weee! That ain’t hay! Well actually it is hay, and a lot of it. But how can it be cheaper to send hay to China than it is to just feed it to Ol’ Paint here in Arizona or Texas or New Mexico or California...?

You know all of those containers you see on the railroad lines heading east along the tracks leading through town? Well ships brought them here and the Chinese still have many more wonderful and cheap products to send us, and that we can’t wait to buy, so the ships either go back west empty or they figure out a way to make a few bucks in the process: that’s where Forage and other food products comes into play: Given the availability of Forage in California and Arizona, it can be sent overseas to China for about $30 a metric ton (2200 pounds). Unfortunately for our trucking industry, that’s less money than it costs to ship the same products a few hundred miles to your local feed store.

Trigger Brochette

Recipe ingredients:

1 1/2 lb. lean ground or cubes horsemeat

1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Sauce:

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 cup tomato sauce

1 Tbsp. brown sugar or liquid honey

1 Tbsp. mustard

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a pan, sauté the horsemeat in oil.

Drain the meat and throw out the cooking fat.

In a glass bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients.

Pour into the pan over the meat.

Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Serve with pasta and sprinkle with

parmesan or peccorino cheese.

Supply and demand. In 2010 China sent us us $273 billion US Dollars more in goods than we sent them. So, in a strange way this Forage and food product thing pays out for us. Or does it? Meat (beef, etc.) and dairy looks like a pretty good buy…for now. The problem is that very few people have figured out what this is all going to lead to except the ranchers who grow beef.

Here’s what the US Food and Agriculture people have to say, “Drought continues to motivate sales of feeder cattle and cows, which will likely reduce feedlot placement in 2012 and calf crops this year and in 2012. Commercial cow slaughter - primarily drought-driven at this point in 2011 - is set to exceed last year’s high rate and numbers for the first half of the year.”

Uh-oh. So we’ll have fewer cattle to start the year with. We’ll have less feed owing to the drought persisting in the Southwest. We’re sending Forage to China and placing a greater strain on cattle producers here in America – in particular the Southwest.

Need more convincing? In a March 2011 report the Asian Development Bank issued a report that included the projection, “Global food prices registered a new high in February 2011, rising by more than 30% year-on-year, underpinned by large increases in the prices of cereals, edible oils, and meat.”

So, at twenty bucks a bale today, one can only imagine what the world will look like in the coming year. But, if the thought of turning your favorite critter who does little more than eat (and you-know-what) into food is troublesome to you, consider this option:

Dog Meat Stew

Ingredients:

100 g. of boiled dog meat

500 g. of gravy

20 g. of green onion

10 g. of a leek

10 g. of perilla leaves

100 g. of taro stalk soaked in water

8 g. of salt

2 g. of mashed garlic

3 g. of perilla

2 g. of red pepper

2 g. of mashed ginger

Directions:

After boiling the dog meat with gravy and stalk of taro for some time, boil again after putting vegetables and other ingredients into it. Before eating, sprinkle pepper on it and put into an earthen bowl.

“Fetch the stewpot, boy! Good job.”