Well, I'm awake, and didn't sleep real well, so

let's see...
“The FCC might be empowered to require that networks donate time for ads to awaken people to the population-resource-environment crisis,” the authors [of Ecoscience, John P. Holdren and Paul and Anne Ehrlich] wrote. “Such spots, sponsored by voluntary organizations like Planned Parenthood, ZPG, and the Sierra Club, have been moderately effective in drawing public attention to the problems. Unfortunately, the advertising budgets available to these groups are puny compared to those of General Motors or Exxon.” Yep, more words from Obama's science czar and enviro-propaganda minister.

“Much programming ought to be informational, even if presented as entertainment,” wrote Holdren, Ehrlich and Enrlich. “People in the LDCs [less developed countries] need help in increasing agricultural production and improving public health, as well as information on the need for population control and the ways it may be achieved.”

“Programming should be carefully designed by social scientists and communications experts thoroughly familiar with the needs and attitudes of the audiences in each country or locality,” they wrote. “This is particularly important in LDCs, where it will be especially difficult because of the lack of trained people and the radical change in attitude that is required. Control of the communications media obviously should be public, with maximum safeguard against abuses and against the problems of ‘cultural homogenization.’ The problem of controlling ‘Big Brother’ will be ever present in all societies.”

Makes you wonder what Holdren considers 'Big Brother', since he's talking about BEING the creature.


Ref one of the excuses being made for Obama's Mao-loving comm director,
Let’s say that Mr. Atwater had quoted the bit from Mao that Anita Dunn quoted — you fight your war and I’ll fight mine, etc., etc. So what? Lee Atwater did not identify Mao as one of his two favorite political philosophers. He did not stand before a room full of high school students and praise the revolutionary tactics of the greatest mass murderer in history.

Bottom line: it is one thing to quote a tyrant. It is another to endorse his view of the world.
And let's not let it be forgotten, one of the big legacies left by her favorite philosopher:
In his October 2005 essay in COMMENTARY, Arthur Waldron describes the architect of China’s Cultural Revolution this way: “Mao was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. Much of the killing was direct, as in the torture and purges at Yan’an. After the Communist seizure of power in 1949, the practice became countrywide. Mao set his numerical targets openly, and stressed the ‘revolutionary’ importance of killing.” It is said of Mao — who was responsible for the death of some 70 million Chinese — that he derived a “sadistic pleasure” from seeing people put to death in horrible ways.

All this goes uncommented upon by Miss Dunn. Her praise for Mao — unqualified and without caveats, based on the excerpts of her speech — is quite extraordinary. For a senior member of the White House to hold these views is more extraordinary still. Perhaps Pol Pot will be the subject of Dunn’s next favorable meditation.
Thanks to Fausta for that last link.

Fascism defined, with pictures! Y'know, for us right-wing types who don't do so well with words.


A piece on how Yale University has apparently decided that actual messy freedom of speech isn't really important.


Short time ago Mel had a piece about the census, and about how many people are reacting to ANYBODY with a federal ID:
If you ever want to know how little trust in and regard for the federal government the average person has, put on a government i.d. and knock on doors. Seriously.

In the past few weeks I've been sworn at, openly derided, and questioned within an inch of my life. I haven't been attacked, but one co-worker walked onto a property (fence-less, no warning signs) only to have a door opened and large dogs sent after him.

Seriously.

Now before you say, "but that's what you get for walking onto private property and knocking on the doors of private homes" we weren't. That wasn't the mission.

We were knocking on the doors of businesses, most of them open to the public.

Nursing homes. Hospitals. Hotels. Places of business. NOT private homes.

And we were already getting this treatment.

Whatever goodwill the average person had for the organization that actually performs a CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED FUNCTION is completely gone.

I wonder how the average person feels about OTHER functions of the government. I don't really want to find out, at least not while wearing a federal i.d.



Under the heading of "Some people just don't intimidate worth a damn"


If you want to be taken as just another citizen, this kind of thing doesn't exactly help.


No, no media bias here, nossiree!
If you dig deep, they do admit to sifting through over 900,000 gun permits (including mine!) in (at least) two counties to come up with 211 supposedly iffy permit grants, four (4) of which they deemed bad enough to address in detail, three of whom have already had their License To Carry Handgun revoked for cause. It's difficult to be sure but it looks as if at least two of them were probably Lautenberged out of even buying a gun and all of them lied on their applications, at least by omitting criminal history and managed to slip through. Being criminally-inclined, they've since outed themselves by subsequent acts, meaning the system did, in fact, work.

Fishing expedition, anyone?

The Star's gripe seems to be that State Police use the well-defined criteria for "proper person" in determining eligibility for a permit rather than the statute's vague "good character" clause (probably because they're only too familiar with getting tripped up by sloppily-crafted laws judges later hold to be unenforceably vague, but I'm only speculating). They're peeved ISP can't read minds and refuses to try.


And finally, more fun from Chicago and some of the wonderful minions of law enforcement. Damn. Being a good cop there must be a whole lot of fun.

There's a motorcycle swap meet at the fairgrounds, I think I'll go take a look around.