A hidden danger in Government health care

Old NFO has discovered a little-discussed provision in the omnibus health bill now being argued over in Congress and the Senate. It involves medical care at the end of life. You can read his whole post here, and the full Bill is online here in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. Pages 425-430 are the important part. They're worth reading.

In brief, shrouded in legalese and wordiness, the Government will require - yes, require - that you have an "Advance Care Planning Consultation" every five years concerning the end of your life. During that consultation, you'll be informed by your physician (or physician assistant) about all relevant issues (there's a long list), and the practitioner will make 'suggestions' and 'recommendations' as to which would be appropriate in your situation. Furthermore, such a consultation "may include the formulation of an order regarding life sustaining treatment or a similar order" (quoting verbatim from the Bill, page 429).

As the Bill stands at present, the wording is pretty innocuous. However, what the practitioner can or will tell you about end-of-life options can, at any time, at the stroke of a pen, be restricted to those choices that the State is prepared to make available to you, or pay for. The Bill doesn't spell this out, of course, but if you read between the lines, the law would not have to be changed to permit that, once it's passed. It would be a purely administrative and/or regulatory decision. If there are options that might cost too much, or which the State decrees are not 'appropriate' for some reason, then the State - i.e. the bureaucrats running State-controlled health care - can simply order practitioners to exclude them from the options discussed, or eliminate them from the care order they prepare and sign.

Think that's far-fetched? Think that's Orwellian? Think again. On Page 432 of the Bill, we read the following:

IN GENERAL. — for purposes of reporting data on quality measures for covered professional services furnished during 2011 and any subsequent year, to the extent that measures are available, the Secretary shall include quality measures on end of life care and advanced care planning that have been adopted or endorsed by a consensus-based organization, if appropriate. Such measures shall measure both the creation of and adherence to orders for life sustaining treatment.

Yep. Practitioners will be required to report annually on what measures they're recommending and/or providing for end-of-life care. Are you willing to bet that some, but not all, of those measures will end up on an "approved" list, and others on a "not approved" list? The State can very easily decide what it will, and will not, pay for, just as your medical insurance or HMO does now. If you happen to need a very expensive end-of-life care option to extend your life for a few months, or alleviate chronic pain, or whatever . . . are you sure the State will fund it? Or will the response be, "Sorry, but we need those funds to pay for toe fungus treatments. You'll just have to die early. Here, have an aspirin. Now go away and stop bothering us."

What about your doctor? If a practitioner persists in recommending or ordering treatments that the State doesn't want to provide, how regularly are his payments going to come through? Administrative delays? Bungled paperwork?

"Oh, we're sorry, Texas Doctor - your payment was misdirected to a clinic in Alaska by mistake. As soon as we recover the money from them, we'll send you another check. You should get it within six months, I'm sure."

"But how am I supposed to pay my staff, and the rent on my offices, until then?"

"I'm afraid we don't have any spare funds for that sort of thing. Of course, if you stopped prescribing such expensive interventions for your patients, that would free up funds. It's in your hands, really."

"But - but - even if I start doing so now, I'm still out a whole quarter's payments! What will I do until they arrive?"

"We all have to make sacrifices for the greater good, Doctor. It's for the children, you know. May I suggest you talk to your bank manager about extending your overdraft? Oh - and while you're talking to him, would you please ask for a larger overdraft, so you can pay back your medical study loans as well? Our records show you still owe us $80,000 or more, and we're having to recover those debts faster to pay for training new doctors. You'll be getting a note in the mail with your new repayment schedule. I'm sure you understand."

Yes, there are ways and means to ensure compliance . . .

Another absolute no-no for me, from a moral perspective, is that the Bill would not exclude abortion (in the sense of using abortion as 'after-the-fact contraception') from State-funded medical care. This is a non-starter for me, and for those who believe, as I do, that human life begins at conception. I will not - repeat, will not - permit my taxes to be used for what I regard, from my moral perspective, as legalized murder. I know there are millions of Americans who feel as I do on this issue. I can see a monumental Constitutional lawsuit brewing right now over this, and a tax revolt as well.

I'm slowly reading my way through the whole Bill. All I can say is that it's a nightmare of verbiage and bureaucratic phraseology. I've actually resorted to re-typing some sections in their entirety, using correct indentation, so that I can be sure what sub-sections fall under what super-sections. It's that bad. Suffice it to say that quite apart from what one may feel about 'socialized medicine', and even knowing that our present system is broken and must be fixed, I believe that this particular Bill will only make matters worse. It's poorly thought out, a bureaucratic nightmare.

What's even worse is that this Bill is so overarching in its implications that volumes and volumes of regulations will have to be written to implement its measures. Those regulations will not - I repeat, WILL NOT - have to be passed by Congress and the Senate. They'll be written by faceless bureaucrats, and take on the force of law. We'll likely have little or no input to them; but political, social and economic pressure groups will make sure they do. Once the regulations are in place, we''ll be stuck with them.

This is no way to treat a free people - and no free person should be willing to accept it.

Peter

Tattoo fight!

This one's for Labrat and Stingray in particular.

Peter

An historic flight, 100 years ago today

On July 25th, 1909, Frenchman Louis Blériot flew across the English Channel for the first time, crash-landing in the grounds of Dover Castle.




His aircraft, a Blériot Model XI, is today preserved in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, France.




Today, exactly one hundred years after Blériot's historic flight, another Frenchman, Edmond Salis, re-enacted his feat in an authentic, restored Blériot XI, landing at the Duke of York's Military School near Dover Castle. He is shown below approaching Dover Castle. He was accompanied by a modern replica two-seat version of the Blériot XI.




Three other Blériot XI aircraft, including Louis Blériot's own original plane, were to have followed later in the day, but French authorities decided it had become too windy for them to depart (to the fury of the pilots).

Here's video footage of M. Salis departing from France this morning, accompanied by the replica aircraft.

I'm still amazed to think of the courage of those early aviators, heading off into the blue with aircraft that were almost guaranteed to suffer breakage or breakdown every hour or two! Blériot's flight was a magnificent achievement for its day, and to repeat it today in the same type of aircraft, with the same less-than-reliable engine, is pretty courageous too.

Kudos and congratulations to all concerned.

Peter

A guide dog with a difference

What do you call a guide dog for a dog? Is it still a service animal?

Bonnie and Clyde do everything together, from walking and wagging to bounding and burying.

But Clyde is always just one faltering step behind.

That's because he is blind - and his fellow border collie Bonnie acts as his guide dog.

She leads him to food or water, and lets him rest his head on her haunches when he feels a bit lost.

They are inseparable, and if Bonnie isn't nearby Clyde refuses to move a paw.

The pair were rescued as strays three weeks ago and are looking for a new home together.

Cherie Cootes, 40, at the Meadow Green Dog Rescue Centre in Loddon, Norfolk, said: 'Clyde relies on Bonnie the whole time. When she walks she tends to stop and make sure he's there - she does look out for him. They really are the most lovely pair of dogs.

Bonnie, two, and Clyde, five, were rescued after being abandoned on a street in the middle of a storm three weeks ago.




Long-haired border collie Clyde has a friendly face while short-haired Bonnie is much smaller.

Sue Cootes, 59, who runs the rescue centre with her daughter Cherie, said it was incredible to see how Bonnie took care of Clyde.

'She's a little darling and he just follows her everywhere,' she said.

'It's just instinctive with them to help each other and it's marvellous to see animals doing this together.

'We get them outside and on walks as much as possible because Clyde may be blind but Bonnie certainly isn't. We have large paddocks and they potter around together out there.'

There's more at the link.

Isn't that a heartwarming story? I'm a sucker for stuff like that - and Welsh border collies are among the most intelligent dogs in the world. If I were near them, I'd adopt them in a heartbeat.

Peter

The financial equivalent of a one-finger salute*

I was amused - and pleased - to read of the reaction of a New Zealand gentleman when his bank denied him a loan.

Defiant Mapua artist Roger Griffiths today made a stand against Westpac by withdrawing his $190,000 savings in $20 notes.

The bank provided a red-and-black carry bag to take away the cash after meticulously counting it in front of Mr Griffiths at its Nelson branch.

Mr Griffiths, a loyal Westpac customer for 25 years, decided to withdraw his money after the bank rejected his application for an $80,000 mortgage. "It's about time normal people took a stand."

He said the bank turned down his application because he did not have a regular income as an artist. However, he was a successful artist, exhibiting his paintings at the World of Wearable Art complex, in Christchurch and New York, he said.

He wanted to buy a $385,000 property in Mapua, had $200,000 in cash and was going to sell his $110,000 campervan.

That more than met the bank's criteria for a 20 per cent deposit, and the property which included a home and commercial premises would have returned $500 a week, he said.

He was disappointed when his loan application was rejected, but it was Westpac losing $111 million to Lane Walker Rudkin Industries that tipped his decision to withdraw his money.

"They can lose $110 million with LWR but turn down a normal customer who has never missed a loan payment," he said. "If they don't have the trust in me after 25 years, there's a problem for Westpac."

Having decided to withdraw his money, he then decided to make it hard for the bank by requesting payment in $20 bills.

He said the Nelson branch told him it did not have that amount and he would have to also go to other branches at Stoke, Richmond and Motueka. However, he insisted the bank have the money ready to collect at 9am today. He then took it to the Nelson Building Society, saying he would rather deal with NBS because it was part of the community.

His message to Westpac: "If you don't support the community, the community won't support you."

There's more at the link.

Well done, Mr. Griffiths - and equally well done for making the matter public! I wonder how much the publicity has cost the bank, over and above losing your account?

I'm sick of financial institutions that 'go by the book' (or, nowadays, by the computer program) without bothering to take the character, circumstances and record of the individual into account. There are a few people around here who live on Social Security and a meager savings account, to whom I'd lend money in a heartbeat. They're honest folk who'll repay me come hell or high water. There are others, better funded, whom I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot disinfected bargepole, because no matter how much money they may make, they're simply not trustworthy.

Peter

* For readers in Britain and her former colonies, that would be the reversed-V-for-Victory two-finger salute.

Remembering the Barcelona Olympics

July 25th is the anniversary of the start of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. I remember them with fondness, as probably the most entertaining and the most downright friendly and sincere Olympics of any I've watched during my life.

There was something very special about the Barcelona Games. For a start, the political controversies of previous years, which had seen the Western and Eastern Blocs trade boycotts, various other political ructions, the terrorist attack at the 1972 games in Munich, and other negative influences. Barcelona was, in a sense, a healing from those times. They were also the first Games since the fall of the Iron Curtain, with a whole new sense of freedom in the air, and the absence - for the first time - of the highly regimented, indoctrinated teams of the former 'socialist paradises'. South Africa was back for the first time since 1960, the embryonic nations of the former Yugoslavia were there . . . it was a joyful time.

Most impressive, to me, was the feel of the Games. They were known as 'the friendly Games', and it seemed that everyone involved - athletes, organizers, spectators and the residents of Barcelona - went out of their way to make them just that. I've certainly never before or since got the feeling of real pleasure I experienced watching the extensive coverage of the Barcelona Games. All those since then have fallen short of that atmosphere.

Here are a couple of highlights. The first is the magnificent lighting of the Olympic torch by paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo, the climax of a wonderful opening pageant that was beautifully choreographed and presented. (There are many video clips of it on YouTube, if you wish to search for them.)

Then, here's the late Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé singing the famous 'Barcelona'.

Great stuff, and happy memories.

Peter

Will you bee mine?

A Chinese couple have taken a rather creative approach to their wedding - to put it mildly!

A Chinese couple have got married wearing clothes made of thousands of living bees.

And despite the fact that most of their pals kept their distance, the couple were still delighted with their new clothes.




Husband Li said: "I have been working with bees for two decades and it was the obvious choice for us for our big day.

"I also wanted to set a world record for the biggest coat of bees - I put a queen bee on each of us but the only thing is it was impossible to count how many bees we had - I don't know if a guess is enough?"

His wife added: "It was an amazing feeling to have a carpet of living bees moving over my body.

"I could feel them as they moved around - it was amazing. I have always loved bees but this was a totally new experience."

There's more at the link.

I'm sure it was indeed 'a totally new experience' - both for them, and for the official or minister conducting the wedding! I wonder if he got danger pay?



Peter

A nifty gadget - which makes me uneasy

A friend has just bought a pen that's also a video and audio recorder, from a company in (I think) Hong Kong. He showed it to me today.

It's a fascinating toy. Externally, it looks (and writes) like a normal pen:




but if you separate the top and bottom, a USB port is revealed, to download its recordings onto a computer.




The operating components are artfully hidden in and above the clip mechanism.




It makes me rather uneasy to think that anyone can walk about with one of these, or a similar device, and record anything and everything, or leave it lying casually on a table during a confidential meeting to record what's said by all present. I suppose that's the way of things now. In sheer self-defense, we're all going to have to record everything, so that if someone claims we said something, we can at least prove (hopefully) that we didn't!

If you'd like to know more, the vendor's Web site is here (which is where I obtained the pictures also). No, I don't get paid commission on them, and I'm not involved with or linked to the vendor in any way. This is posted purely out of personal interest.

Peter

This should be good!

I'm very interested to see a preview of the new movie 'Alice In Wonderland', released by Walt Disney Studios in the UK. It combines the books 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through The Looking-Glass', both by Lewis Carroll (the nom de plume of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), and includes some of his poetry as well, including two of my favorites, 'The Hunting of the Snark' and 'Jabberwocky'.

It's the combination of personalities on this film that most interests me. You've got Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, just for starters. They've struck sparks from each other in other films, and I think that in a madcap setting such as the world of Lewis Carroll they should be in their element. The other actors and actresses are similarly gifted, able to leave their normal 'persona' at the door and enter into the spirit of their characters.

Here's the trailer for the film, to be released next year.

And how do I feel about it?

"Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

For this movie, I might just break an absence of over two decades, and set foot in a movie theater once more, to see it on the big screen. I absolutely loathe the thought of being cooped up with popcorn-munching, cell-phone-answering, giggling idiots, forced to endure unwanted advertisements and previews of movies in which I have not the slightest interest . . . but this one might be worth the sacrifice.

Peter

When the law makes criminals of us all

Fox News published a very thought-provoking article on Tuesday by Brian W. Walsh of the Heritage Foundation. It examined how the explosive growth of Federal laws has criminalized some actions and activities that most of us might engage in without a second thought. The consequences for our future might be disastrous.

A few excerpts:

Federal law in particular now criminalizes entire categories of activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. This is an inevitable result of the fact that the criminal law is no longer restricted to punishing inherently wrongful conduct -- such as murder, rape, robbery, and the like.

Moreover, under these new laws, the government can often secure a conviction without having to prove that the person accused even intended to commit a bad act, historically a protection against wrongful conviction.

Laws like this are dangerous in the hands of social engineers and ambitious lawmakers -- not to mention overzealous prosecutors -- bent on using government's greatest civilian power to punish any activity they dislike. So many thousands of criminal offenses are now in federal law that a prominent federal appeals court judge titled his recent essay on this overcriminalization problem, "You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal."

. . .

The Lacey Act is an example of the dangerous overbreadth of federal criminal law. Incredibly, Congress has made it a federal crime to violate any fish or wildlife law or regulation of any nation on earth.

. . .

Federal criminal law did not get so badly broken overnight, and it will take hard work to get it fixed. It is encouraging that members of Congress such as Reps. Scott and Gohmert are now paying attention to the toll overcriminalization takes on ordinary Americans. Congress needs to begin fixing the damage it has done by starting to restore a more reasonable, limited and just federal criminal law.

It's worth reading the whole thing. Recommended.

Peter

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

LANGUAGE ALERT: The soundtrack isn't work-safe. Turn down the volume if necessary.

Take one sofa.

Add one airbag.

The result:

Peter

Yoga as you've never seen it before!

A Latvian Web site has published a series of photographs in pairs. One shows a typical yoga position; the other shows a drunk person who's collapsed into a close approximation of that position. They're very well done, and even though it may be politically incorrect to say so, I laughed out loud at quite a few of them.

Here are some examples:










I imagine they're enough to give a yoga purist a heart attack! In the interests of 'fair use' and copyright law, I won't post more here: but there are lots more at the link (three pages of them, including one of yoga and cats).

If you have a few minutes to kill, the site is worth a visit (and some of the other articles and features are interesting, too).

Peter

That's a heck of a way to die . . .

The Daily Mail reports that a fugitive couple, who stole a yacht in Portugal to escape the police, found themselves in rather more trouble than they could handle.

A couple who stole a yacht apparently starved to death after it was damaged in a storm.

The story of their slow, agonising death was detailed in a vivid diary found on board.

Sharon Arthurs-Chegini, 46, wrote: 'The lights are going out in my heart.

'We have not eaten for four weeks. I dream of my mum's steak and kidney pie, roast dinner and sausage and mash.'

An inquest in Truro, Cornwall, was told that the former interior designer and her lover Peter Clarke, 49, had enjoyed a 'champagne and cocaine' lifestyle beyond their means.

They stole the yacht, the Skipper VII, while they were on the run in Portugal after skipping bail for a previous boat theft from Mylor harbour in Cornwall.

Months later, the Skipper was found adrift off the coast of Senegal, West Africa, with their bodies on board.

Mrs Arthurs-Chegini - her name was said to be the result of a marriage of convenience to an Iranian immigrant, for which she was paid £15,000 - wrote in her diary that the couple had tried to survive by drinking a combination of seawater and their own urine.

The mother of three added: 'We have been bashed about for days. Peter is collapsed in bed. I have been unable to get to him.

'Everything takes huge amounts of energy, having consumed no water yesterday. I see in a haze, between ten and 20ft. My heart and love goes out to my daughters and to my immediate family.'

The last entry was in June 2006, more than two months before the yacht was found by fishermen. It had a jammed rudder and a torn sail and its hull was encrusted with shellfish, suggesting it had been drifting for at least a month.

There's more at the link, including photographs.

I know that crime doesn't pay, but I wouldn't wish a death like that on anybody. May they find mercy in the hereafter.

Peter

A Bird With A Big Air-Conditioning Bill

That's the title of an article in the latest edition of Science magazine. It's a fascinating look at how the toucan uses its bill as an organ to dispose of excess body heat.

Toucan (Ramphastos toco) (image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Here's a brief extract:

When it comes to keeping cool, toucans get top billing in the animal world. New research shows that the colorful bird uses its massive beak to rapidly radiate away heat, allowing it to chill out in tropical climates or when expending a lot of energy while flying. At its most efficient, the toucan is theoretically capable of jettisoning 100% of its overall body heat loss through its bill.

It's fascinating to think that what I'd always considered an over-large eating utensil is so much more than that! The whole article is very interesting for nature-lovers. It includes an infra-red photograph showing the heat radiating from the beak.

Peter

Warning sign FAIL!

I love the habit, particularly in Britain, of graffitists adding their own sentiments to official signs. It appeals to the irreverent streak in me, I guess. I learned today of one of the funniest examples of this sort of humor.

It seems that a British hospital had experienced several cases of 'blue baby syndrome', where a child is born with a cyanotic condition, producing a blue tinge to the skin. Formerly fatal, this syndrome can now be treated with immediate (frequently surgical) intervention. At any rate, the hospital administration decided that nursing staff needed to be reminded to be particularly alert for more cases of this problem. They therefore had a large poster put up in the off-duty lounge in the maternity department, with a picture of a 'blue baby' and, below it, in large capital letters, the caption:

THE FIRST
FIVE MINUTES OF LIFE
ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS!

I'm told it didn't take very long for someone to add underneath, in equally large letters, with a red Sharpie:

THE LAST
FIVE MINUTES
ARE A BIT DODGY, TOO!

Peter

Nunchuk FAIL!

This video demonstrates graphically why one should never, ever show off on camera!

Peter

More about the financial crisis

I wrote yesterday about the enduring reality of the financial and economic crisis confronting us. Today brings more reports, confirming that my earlier article was pretty much on the money (you should pardon the expression).

First, CNN reports that the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac bailouts might hit $100 billion, or even double that figure. That's your tax money and mine at work, folks . . . A short excerpt:

Since Congress essentially wrote a blank check to the Treasury Department in July 2008 to do what needed to be done to inject capital into the two firms, Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) has received $34.2 billion of direct government support while Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) has received $51.7 billion.

. . .

When Congress was debating the bailout of Fannie and Freddie last July, the official estimate from the Congressional Budget Office was that a bailout would most likely cost taxpayers $25 billion, with only a 5% chance of the price tag reaching $100 billion between them.

In addition, both Fannie and Freddie are likely to need billions of dollars more after they report second quarter results in the coming weeks. Experts believe the cost will only continue to rise in the next year.

"We're assuming they each will cross the $100 billion mark fairly soon. They could be hitting the $200 billion barrier by the end of next year," said Bose George, mortgage analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment bank specializing in financial services firms.

. . .

Both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have used government control of Fannie and Freddie to implement various policies to try to address rising home foreclosures and falling prices. The firms are a key part of the Obama administration's efforts to refinance mortgages of at-risk home owners, in some cases making loans for up to 125% of the home's current market value.

"The way to think of the cost is not as a loan," said Phillip Swagel, a professor at Georgetown's business school who was the assistant secretary for economic policy in the final months of the Bush administration. "It's really a way of spending taxpayer money for policy purposes."

There's more at the link.

The gloomy, but realistic Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, writing in the Daily Telegraph in London, warns that the Western world faces the possibility of fiscal ruin. Europe, it seems, is in an even worse mess than the USA, financially speaking. A few excerpts:

Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the US, and Japan are in varying states of fiscal ruin, and those tipping into demographic decline (unlike young Ireland) have an underlying cancer that is even more deadly. The West cannot support its gold-plated state structures from an aging workforce and depleted tax base.

As the International Monetary Fund made clear last week, Britain is lucky that markets have not yet imposed a "penalty interest" on British Gilts, given the trajectory of UK national debt – now vaulting towards 100pc of GDP – and the scandalous refusal of this Government to map out any path back to solvency.

"The UK has been getting the benefit of the doubt, both in the Government bond market and also the foreign exchange market. This benefit of the doubt is not going to last forever," said the Fund.

France and Italy have been less abject, but they began with higher borrowing needs. Italy's debt is expected to reach the danger level of 120pc next year, according to leaked Treasury documents. France's debt will near 90pc next year if President Nicolas Sarkozy goes ahead with his "Grand Emprunt", a fiscal blitz masquerading as investment.

There was a case for an emergency boost last winter to cushion the blow as global industry crashed. That moment has passed. While I agree with Nomura's Richard Koo that the US, Britain, and Europe risk a deflationary slump along the lines of Japan's Lost Decade (two decades really), I am ever more wary of his calls for Keynesian spending a l'outrance.

Such policies have crippled Japan. A string of make-work stimulus plans - famously building bridges to nowhere in Hokkaido - has ensured that the day of reckoning will be worse, when it comes. The IMF says Japan's gross public debt will reach 240pc of GDP by 2014 - beyond the point of recovery for a nation with a contracting workforce. Sooner or later, Japan's bond market will blow up.

. . .

The imperative for the debt-bloated West is to cut spending systematically for year after year, off-setting the deflationary effect with monetary stimulus. This is the only mix that can save us.

My awful fear is that we will do exactly the opposite, incubating yet another crisis this autumn, to which we will respond with yet further spending. This is the road to ruin.

There's more at the link.

Sobering reading - and a warning to all of us to 'duck and cover', financially speaking. This is no time to be taking speculative risks or getting deeper into debt! I think we should also be hammering our elected representatives, demanding that they cease pouring our tax dollars down a black hole with no return in prospect. Not only are they beggaring us, but our children and our children's children will still be paying off the debts we incur. They'll loathe us for that - and with good reason.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #245

Today's Doofus comes from Germany.

German police had to rescue a 20-year-old man from a train station suitcase locker after he shut himself in for fun and began to suffocate.

After a night out drinking with friends, squeezing into the locker had seemed like an amusing idea to the man, police in the southwestern city of Ludwigshafen said Friday.

But the laughter faded when he started to run out of oxygen and his companions couldn't open the locker. Police broke open the door and dragged the groggy man to safety.

Suggestions:

1. Don't drink to that extent.
2. Get a better class of friends- ones who'll stop you doing dumbass stunts like that!

Peter

A very nifty piece of investigative journalism

I was very interested to read an article in the Daily Mail about the shenanigans and dishonesty of computer repair shops and firms. A laptop computer was sent to six companies for repair, with very interesting - not to mention infuriating! - results. A few extracts from the article:

Investigators wired a new laptop with hidden cameras and spy software that operated without the engineers' knowledge.

The laptop had been given an easily identifiable fault: a loose memory chip that stopped the computer from starting.

To get it working, the chip simply needed to be popped back into position.

. . .

Shortly after identifying the real fault, the firm's engineer called to say the computer needed a new motherboard, costing £130.

The surveillance software then recorded a technician browsing through the files on the hard drive, including intimate holiday photos, some showing the Sky researcher in her bikini.

As the technician snooped through the files, he was filmed grinning and showing the pictures to another colleague.

Later in the same shop, a second technician loaded up the machine to look through the photos - stored inside a folder marked 'private'.

Laughing, the repairman loaded the pictures onto a memory stick he kept round his neck - which the software found was also packed with similar photos in a folder labelled 'Mamma Jammas' - street slang for women with large breasts.

He also copied a file containing passwords for Facebook, Hotmail, eBay and a NatWest bank account.

Once the technician had discovered this information, he opened a web browser on the laptop and attempted to log into the bank account for five minutes - failing because the details were false.

. . .

Only one shop came out with a clean bill of health. ... The company popped the chip back into place, and for free.

There's much more at the link, including photographs.

Readers, if you send your computer to an outside firm for repair (whether a work or a personal computer), you really should read the whole article. It's pretty sobering stuff. It's certainly confirmed my practice of keeping all my important data on remote hard disks, that I can lock in my safe if my computer needs repair. I also purge my local hard disk of 'mirror' and workspace files on a regular basis, to make sure that no personal information is left on it.

Peter

'Climate Change' is really all about 'Climate Money'

What I believe to be a very important report has just been published under the auspices of the Science And Public Policy Institute. They describe themselves as follows:

The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a nonprofit institute of research and education dedicated to sound public policy based on sound science. Free from affiliation to any corporation or political party, we support the advancement of sensible public policies for energy and the environment rooted in rational science and economics. Only through science and factual information, separating reality from rhetoric, can legislators develop beneficial policies without unintended consequences that might threaten the life, liberty, and prosperity of the citizenry.

Though some say anthropogenic "global warming" is the most serious issue facing humankind, security of energy supply is a far more serious problem. The Institute urges critical appraisal of legislative “climate fixes” for their social, political, and economic and security costs, along with their relative utility or futility.

Proposals demanding prodigious economic or political sacrifices for the sake of negligible climatic benefits should be rejected in favor of policies to address graver, more immediate concerns about which something constructive can actually be done.

The new report, authored by Joanne Nova, is called 'Climate Money' (link is to an Adobe Acrobat version of the document in .pdf format). Among its highlights are:

The US Government has spent more than $79 billion of taxpayers’ money since 1989 on policies related to climate change, including science and technology research, administration, propaganda campaigns, foreign aid, and tax breaks. Most of this spending was unnecessary.

Despite the billions wasted, audits of the science are left to unpaid volunteers. A dedicated but largely uncoordinated grassroots movement of scientists has sprung up around the globe to test the integrity of “global warming” theory and to compete with a lavishly-funded, highlyorganized climate monopsony. Major errors have been exposed again and again.

Carbon trading worldwide reached $126 billion in 2008. Banks, which profit most, are calling for more. Experts are predicting the carbon market will reach $2 - $10 trillion in the near future. Hot air will soon be the largest single commodity traded on global exchanges. Meanwhile, in a distracting sideshow, Exxon-Mobil Corp is repeatedly attacked for paying just $23 million to skeptics—less than a thousandth of what the US government spends on alarmists, and less than one five-thousandth of the value of carbon trading in 2008 alone.

The large expenditure designed to prove the non-existent connection between carbon and climate has created a powerful alliance of self-serving vested interests. By pouring so much money into pushing a single, scientifically-baseless agenda, the Government has created not an unbiased investigation but a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I particularly like the sound-bites (or, more accurately, word-bites) that Ms. Nova sprinkles throughout her report. A few examples:

• The most telling point is that after spending $30 billion on pure science research no one is able to point to a single piece of empirical evidence that man‐made carbon dioxide has a significant effect on the global climate.
• How serious are they about getting the data right? Or are they only serious about getting the “right” data?
• It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it (a quote from Upton Sinclair).
• The intimidation, disrespect and ostracism leveled at people who ask awkward questions acts like a form of censorship. Not many fields of science have dedicated smear sites for scientists. Money talks.

This is a very important document, in my opinion. It exposes much of the greed, chicanery and exploitation that's at the heart of the 'Climate Change' lobby, and explains much of what certain individuals, groups and parties in our governing bodies are trying to achieve - and why. Follow the money to understand more.

I think this report should be required reading for every American - every person, for that matter, no matter where they live. Highly recommended.

Peter