23 Jul 2010

60 Years of Socialist Health yet Britain Worse Off - BBC

It's remarkable that after nationalised medicine was introduced into Britain  after World War Two, we could now be in a position where the gap in healthcare is actually worse than in the dark days of the Depression. Or so say the BBC in a story found here.

The health inequality gap in Britain is greater than it was during the post-World War I slump and the Great Depression, a study suggests.........Researchers from Sheffield and Bristol looked at early death rates since 1921.

They found the current gap was greater than it was in the 1920s and 1930s, the British Medical Journal reports."
 The only reason Obama has pushed socialist medicine in the USA down the unwilling population's throat is that it greatly expands the role and power of governing elites - not that it will have any good effect on American health statistics

You Can Make This Stuff Up

Every heard of a "listserv"?  It's a form of  secret  e-mail exchange club.. You have to be invited and get a password to participate.  It was known a listerserv  existed called "Journolist", of some 300 to 400  top journalists from Time, The Guardian, CNN, The New Republic,  other papers and TV stations, Human Rights Watch , influential blogs, professors and NGOs.

An enterprising blog, the Daily Caller, managed to crack the Journolist codes and get access to archives of thousands of backdated emails. The results are  explosive, but do not expect to be seeing them on your big media or TV screen very soon since so far they show:

  •  Hundreds of the top names on journalism with some academics and NGO types collaborated to  act  cheerleaders for the Obama election  2008, spinning  positive stories about Obama and negative ones about his opponents.
  • This included trying to bury the Rev Wright and his  Obama connection and instead fabricate Republican racism. In the words of one famous journalist  they should  pick a top Republican, "any will do"(!), and accuse him of racism to divert attention from Wright.
  • Top journalists discussed how to get the government to simply ban or refuse to renew the licences of conservative news outlets like Fox whilst making very ironic noises and complaints about "fascism".
  •  Journos were stymied as to how they could smear Sarah Palin's lack of experience without showing  up that Obama clearly had no more experience than her. So instead.....
  • Discussed ways the media could destroy her image as an appealing, dynamic woman who might attract feminists.
And we are only on Day 3 of the Daily Caller revelations. Journalists are entitled to their opinions. Still, this proof of a big  leftist push to co-ordinate huge sections of the US media  is surely very similar to the tactics of Goebbels. It shows why anyone who still  uses only mainstream media as his or her information source really is  a dupe...or a dope.

Conservatives have claimed for years there exists a bias in the big media and Journolist could not have handed them a smokier  gun.

20 Jul 2010

Bok Bumbling

As predicted here, tweaking the Springboks produced hardly any positives as they went down again to the All Blacks 31-17 in Auckland. The game would have been closer but for  skewed reffing by Alain Rolland, but even had he blown evenly, the Boks would not have won.

For the next Test against Australia in Brisbane where the Springboks have not won in 30 years, they needed radical surgery. The following should have gone to the bench as impact players: Spies,Habana,Smit, Januarie and Olivier.

These should have been promoted to starting XV: de Jongh, Hougaard, Ralepelle,  Kankowski and Aplon. When the  test XV was announced, Smit, Spies and Habana are still all there and weirdly, Kankowski has been called to play at flank, which is not his position.

The Bok coaches still resist the radical surgery, or prolonged rest (n you take your pick) that certain players who are "regulars" need to have.  The Tri Nations was lost the minute de Villiers and his staff made no effort to seriously trim the team after the shocker of a first  game at Eden Park.

This guaranteed they would lose the 2nd round, and probably does the same for this game against Australia on the 24th.  It is cause for consternation when de Villiers announces, in his cryptic fashion, that he has studied the videos of the Eden Park test and is "mystified" why we lost as we played "very well."

13 Jul 2010

Springboks Leap Downwards

It's wonderful when you get to watch the elite or world rugby play frequently here in the Southern Hemi. Yet not so much fun when your side gets a whumping, as happened to the Springboks last weekend. I can't remember when I saw a side improve so comprehensibly as the All Blacks at Eden Park. Every one of the Boks  considerable strengths were nullified. Even  Matfield, the peerless no 5, was for the first time I have witnessed it, out jumped and worse ( he is a clever rugby man), outsmarted.

The All Blacks were all over the collision phase, wrapped round each other and driving like a black  bulldozer - yes, it seemed like a single unit it was that tight.  They slipped few tackles while the Boks shed runners like an old dog drops fleas.


They managed to not only contain the Boks driving maul, but split it legally. The backs were penetrative and Carter commanded the game. Only in the scrum did the Boks have some sort of parity. It was not a thrashing, despite the 32-12 scoreline but it was a real beating.
Consider that the Springboks took the All Blacks 3 out of 3 last year.


Will anything change in Wellington for the second Test this Saturday? I doubt it. The Bok brass persist in choosing  fat,slow Riki January at scrum-half, it must be a race quota thing. Super centre Jean de Villiers is stuck on the wing, where he looks uncomfortable. Newbie flanker Francois Louw  was a mouse in Auckland and despite the snappier , faster Potgeiter being available, Luow is again starting.


Clunker CJ  Linde comes in at prop, a ponderous, ageing yellow-card factory  who is out of puff in 25 minutes. Jon Smit looks like  he should retire. There are at least 4 hookers ahead of him on SA - Liebenburg, Strauss, du Plessis and Botha. So the Bok brass in their wisdom back him with Ralepelle who does not even start Super 14 games - another case of affirmative dreaming. Yet, better players of colour like De Jongh and Basson are not in the team.

In the old days, after 32-12 most of the Bok team would have been scrapped. Here, they are retained. 2011 for the Boks may well turn into will be shades of 2007, where England seemed determined to play everyone who had won in Australia in 2003 - bandages, metal hinges in their joints and false teeth  as well.

12 Jul 2010

Islamist Cowardice

Al-Shabaab managed to do what its parent Al AQaeda could not and  murder 76 soccer fans in Kampala, Uganda during last night's World Cup final. The bombing  dead include many nationalities and numerous Westerners. This act will send a chill down the spine of all East Africans, since we have large Somali diaspora communities in  the region. Minnesota and Canada seem to be entranced with these skinny sons of the desert. Perhaps  an airlift can be arranged? Kenyans would contribute in droves to provide tickets for the half million of so Somalis that have inundated us.

Dutch Courage?

More signs of the  steady demise of coherent English came during the recent soccer World Cup. How many times did commentators use the words "dutch courage"? I lost count, but not one of them seems to have noted that the  phrase is actually an insult meaning someone incapable of bravery unless fortified by drink! Then again looking at the beserker mood the Dutch played in during the final, perhaps I am missing something.

7 Jul 2010

Arizona Madness

Today Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, announced the Federal government was suing Arizona over it's controversial illegal immigrant law. Arizona's law demands all aliens carry identification papers - exactly the same as Federal law - only Holder won't enforce it.

Holder thinks Arizona's law would "divert resources away from fighting terrorism"- like in bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to trial in New York and repeatedly testifying to Congress that Islam had nothing to do with our 3 terrorists attacks in a year? The same Holder who allowed Mexico to join a lawsuit against Arizona - a foreign state suing an American state, in America.

When this case gets aired the public learns that Arizona law has scrupulously followed Federal law and is even midler! This administration is a dreadful farce, "illegal-centric", "enemy-centric" and "socialism-centric".