Global catastrophe is NOT “fiduciary responsibility”!

If Business kills-off its stockholders and customers, isn’t that bad for business???

ISTM the REAL bottom line is to HAVE a bottom line!!!  But right now it seems most American business is in a race to the bottom, period: ‘He who dies with the most toys wins.’ 

Story from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.

The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.

Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy as Mr Gore. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.

This is taxpayer money, folks. Your money and my money.

I note that Watts Up With That links to a UK Telegraph story up on how climate change beliefs are now given the same status and protections as religious beliefs. Well, that’s what global warming is, only it’s less supported by science than some religions I know.

Al Gore knows less about science than my keyboard

Here’s a Washington Times article about Al Gore’s academic performance.

Excerpt:

Despite Mr. Gore’s image as star pupil, the kid most likely to be the first to raise his hand in class, it seems that Mr. Gore barely applied himself during his years as an undergraduate and graduate student. Indeed, his sophomore year at Harvard, The Post notes, was “the year Gore’s classmates remember him spending a notable amount of time in the Dunster House basement lounge shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers and occasionally smoking marijuana.” Please, take a moment to appreciate the scene painted in that one sentence.

In introductory economics, the only economics course Mr. Gore ever took, he received a C-, which goes a long way toward explaining his December remark that he would consider raising taxes should the economy fall into recession.

If the rudiments of fiscal policy proved to be too taxing for young Al, it should hardly be surprising that the self-appointed protector of the world’s ecosystems had almost as much trouble understanding the basic concept of biology. After all, Mr. Gore’s high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 “terrible,” St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 “He didn’t do too well in chemistry,” Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along.

As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al “earned” a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named “Man’s Place in Nature.” That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118.

At Vanderbilt divinity school, Mr. Gore took a course in theology and natural science. The assigned readings included the apocalyptic, and widely discredited “Limits to Growth,” which formed much of the foundation for “Earth in the Balance.” It is said that Mr. Gore failed to hand in his book report on time. Thus, his incomplete grade turned into an F, one of five Fs Mr. Gore received at divinity school, which may well be a worldwide record.

He also dropped out of law school at Vanderbilt, not just divinity school. But his father was a liberal U.S. Senator, so things worked out OK for the pot-smoking silver-spoon leftist. As long as he avoids debates on global warming with actual scientists, he can keep laughing all the way to the bank. Recall the recent post about the Finnish car company backed by Al Gore getting a 529M US government loan. He needs your money to pay for the massive electricity bills he runs up while living in his huge mansion.

Global warming alarmism has nothing to do with science

Global warming is a myth sold to us by greedy, power-hungry socialists like Al Gore.

• Comparison of hockey stick graph data to a larger data set in the same area
• Government-funded research unit destroyed original climate data
• The state of the debate about catastrophic man-made global warming
• Peer-reviewed article in journal Science says solar activity impacts climate
• Famous UN IPCC hockey stick graph is based on cherry-picked data
• Princeton physics professor testifies to Senate about global warming
• Global warming advocates refuse to give their data to skeptics
• Peer-reviewed article in journal Science says prior ice melting caused by solar variation
• Oceans are not warming now
• Polar ice caps are not melting now
• Polar bear populations are not decreasing now
• Global warming is not caused by humans

Global warming is about enriching leftist elites while controlling the lives of productive private citizens.

BBC reports:

Essentially what the judgment says is that a belief in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperative is capable of being a philosophical belief and is therefore protected by the 2003 religion or belief regulations.

Cult leader Al Gore appears to agree:

“I’ve done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It’s probably my favourite version, but I don’t use it very often because it can come off as proselytising,” Gore tells Newsweek.

If that doesn’t work, Gore plans to turn his scam into the next civil rights movement. You can’t make this stuff up.

The fear-mongering is turning out to be very profitable for Gore as he is set become a the first “carbon billionaire“.

Today is Halloween, formerly All-Saint’s Day Eve, formerly Samain Night. The origins of the holiday aren’t important- like many Christian celebrations, it combined local traditions (in this case, the Celtic equivalent of Dias de los Muertos) with elements of Christianity. What happened nearly two thousand years ago has happened again, though this time it isn’t a case of one religion attempting to exploit another- it’s Capitalism attempting to exploit religion.

Now you’ll have heard these kinds of arguments before- Christmas has become too materialistic, Valentine’s Day is just about consumerism, and so on. Let’s face it- it’s true. Capitalism, as it always does, attempts to take advantage of whatever situation and profit from it. The problem with this in the case of religious holidays is that consumerism and religion simply do not mix.

Take Valentine’s Day for example. While there are several differing accounts, most records agree that Valentine was a third-century Christian priest who was executed by the Emperor Claudius for proselytizing. According to legend, Valentine sent his friends and supporters letters and flowers while he was imprisoned, a tradition that eventually evolved (or devolved, according to your opinion) to the exchange of romantic notes and roses today (though most stories assert that Valentine sent crocuses- but that’s off topic). Here you can see the problem for Capitalists: profiting off of historical religious intolerance isn’t exactly easy. So Capitalists came up with the idea to pervert the holiday and change it from a memorial of a saint to a day of obligated romance. As you can imagine, there’s a lot more money off of over-priced chocolates, perfumes, roses, and red construction paper than there is in the general appreciation of fellow members of your faith. The same could be said about Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras (believe it or not, it started as a religious event), Easter, and to a lesser extent, Hanukkah and Ramadan.

So why would this matter to Communism? Doesn’t Communism claim that religion is simply the “opiate of the people”? The answer is both yes and no- interpretations vary and Communists are by no means united on what exactly Marxism’s stance on religion is- but that’s all irrelevant. My purpose here is to demonstrate that Capitalism will profit off of anything, no matter the origin or purpose. The very days and events meant to celebrate anti-materialism, community, and spirituality are warped into being the epitome of gluttonous consumerism, self-centeredness, and wasteful excess. If nothing else can convince you of the twistedness of Capitalism- this will. Capitalism is making (and with great success) an attempt to infiltrate and dominate religious holidays- it’s only a matter of time before they target religion.

So I guess what I’m trying to communicate is this. Ask yourself, the next time you’re confronted with a ten-dollar bag of stale candy; a garish, plastic snowman lawn-ornament; or carton of foul-tasting chocolate bunnies; what would Jesus buy?

Tomorrow is Halloween, formerly All-Saint’s Day Eve, formerly Samain Night. The origins of the holiday aren’t important- like many Christian celebrations, it combined local traditions (in this case, the Celtic equivalent of Dias de los Muertos) with elements of Christianity. What happened nearly two thousand years ago has happened again, though this time it isn’t a case of one religion attempting to exploit another- it’s Capitalism attempting to exploit religion.

Now you’ll have heard these kinds of arguments before- Christmas has become to materialistic, Valentine’s Day is just about consumerism, and so on. Let’s face it- it’s true. Capitalism, as it always does, attempts to take advantage of whatever situation and profit from it. The problem with this in the case of religious holidays is that consumerism and religion simply do not mix.

Take Valentine’s Day for example. While there are several differing accounts, most records agree that Valentine was a third-century Christian priest who was eventually executed by the Emperor Claudius for proselytizing. According to legend, Valentine sent his friends and supporters letters and flowers while he was imprisoned, a tradition that eventually evolved (or devolved, according to your opinion) to the exchange of romantic notes and roses today (though most stories assert that Valentine sent crocuses- but that’s off topic). Here you can see the problem for Capitalists: profiting off of historical religious intolerance isn’t exactly easy. So Capitalists came up with the idea to pervert the holiday and change it from a memorial of a saint to a day of obligated romance. As you can imagine, there’s a lot more money off of over-priced chocolates, perfumes, roses, and red construction paper than there is in the general appreciation of fellow members of your faith. The same could be said about Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras (believe it or not, it started as a religious event), Easter, and to a lesser extent, Hanukkah and Ramadan.

So why would this matter to Communism? Doesn’t Communism claim that religion is simply the “opiate of the people”? The answer is both yes and no- interpretations vary and Communists are by no means united on what exactly Marxism’s stance on religion is- but that’s all irrelevant. My purpose here is to demonstrate that Capitalism will profit off of anything, no matter the origin or purpose. The very days and events meant to celebrate anti-materialism, community, and spirituality are warped into being the epitome of gluttonous consumerism, self-centeredness, and wasteful excess. If nothing else can convince you of the twistedness of Capitalism- this will. Capitalism is making (and with great success) an attempt to infiltrate and dominate religious holidays- it’s only a matter of time before they target religion.

So I guess what I’m trying to communicate is this. Ask yourself, the next time you’re confronted with a ten-dollar bag of stale candy; a garish, plastic snowman lawn-ornament; or carton of foul-tasting chocolate bunnies; what would Jesus buy?

MJ was definitely the greatest entertainer of our time.  Hell, he was one of the greatest entertainers ever.

As disappointed as I am that I will never have the opportunity to see him to perform live, I am in no hurry to see Michael Jackson’s This Is It.   In case you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, This Is It, directed by Kenny Ortega (the same guy who brought us all of the High School Musicals – um, yeah, he may get his own blog entry for that money grossing atrocity), is a compilation of behind the scenes footage from MJ’s rehearsals for the This Is It concert series, which was scheduled to take place in London.

I like celebrity gossip as much as the next person.  But, I have limits.  For instance, I stopped watching Jon & Kate once the divorce transitioned from being “the most likely long-term scenario” into being “the present reality.”  Some suffering is to remain personal and private.

For me, Michael Jackson’s This Is It comes too soon.  It feels a lot like a profiteering attempt.  MJ suffered in life from our constant need for his attention and his privacy.  I feel like the best way to honor him in death is to not watch the rehearsal footage that he had no intentions of us seeing in the first place.

Re-Regulate For Peace

Dear Mr. President.
As I write you fall is upon us and you are struggling with health care at home, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan abroad, and a lot of people yelling about things that aren’t even factual.

In this circumstance, I truly thank you for taking the time to consider my views.

I am a child of a post-Vietnam world. The call for peace among nations has been in the nursery rhymes sung to me in my crib. The potential of humanity has not even been tapped due to uneven distribution of peace and education.

It seems clearer than ever that the reason some have opportunity in the world and in our nation while others do not is a result of one of the oldest plagues of our species: Greed.

It seems clear that you have a divided nation, not so much along racial lines, religious lines, fiscal policy lines, educational lines or even the very real divisions in our fundamental views of American militarism.

It seems clear that your two Americas are those of the people and those of the elite citizenry of privilege who achieve their special prominence with the help of the Modern American Business Corporation and the protections that it (perhaps unfairly) gives them.

My friends, my family and I were frankly thrilled when you spoke of a world without the threat of nuclear weapons. Some of us saw the possibility for the first time with your words. I assure you you have my support and the support I’m sure of the majority of Americans on such a target goal.
But I write today to suggest aiming today’s arrows at an even farther-out target for the future. We can provide to ourselves and our neighbors a world that no longer has to suffer the international business adventurism of our corporate citizens.

Allowing our prominent businessmen to use the military and more alarmingly, the less transparent muscle of the vast & dangerously armed national “security” segment of our mighty nation to win continued economic primacy for Wall Street has a long history. It is however not our entire history.

We could say that after Teddy Roosevelt the trend began. After World War II, perhaps September 18, 1947, the trend apparently became a parallel power structure in our republic.

Not today, not tomorrow but someday in the future America won’t do this anymore. Someday in the future the IMF the World Bank & the enforcers for Wall Street won’t exist as they do today. America’s international power will be derived from the will of her citizenry and not just those with the highest positions in business.

How can I, my friends, family and my readers help you to lay a new foundation for a better future; one without corporate militarism, violent adventurism for profit, and the belligerent international arm of Wall Street’s protected class?

I remember reading that not only was our former president’s family enriched by WW2 but Samuel P. Bush, the great grandfather to our former president, even profiteered during WWI. I only bring this up to acknowledge that it is a very old, very established sin of our mainstream citizenry, but it is still a sin. It is not where we should aim our arrows for the future of our nation and it’s place in a just world characterized by peace, opportunity, prosperity and cooperation among nations, our interconnected economies and with the ecosystem itself.

If war is wildly profitable for some it must continue for them; those in a position to reap the rewards and experience a scant few risks. The 85 Billion Dollar global private equity investment firm, “The Carlyle Group” is a perfect symbol of this.

Imagine! 85 Billion Dollars… and when one does a cursory study with Google and a few hours to spare, one sees that they have a disturbing accuracy for profitable investments for their few clients. They seem to know where the money is made in the business of war & global resources better than anybody.

For me and many others, they symbolize the rigged system. They symbolize the opportunities for some but not all. They symbolize, even more than the controversial Halliburton Inc., the rewards of violent military domination of areas with resources; rewards achieved with far less risk than a middle class family taking out one of today’s mortgages.

But to the poor citizen unfortunate enough to live in a weaker nation that has resources that a preferred member of the Wall St. power structure might want to control, the violence and death wrought upon them is in the name of the people of the United States of America.

It’s obvious that I am unhappy being associated with that, not because I want any of Halliburton’s or Carlyle’s ill gotten gains, but because I love my freedom and my fellow man. I wish to see all people in the world at least as happy and free as I am if not more.

So when I call for peace, I am not merely calling for an end to these particular Bush Cheney oil wars.
I am asking for a road-map.
I am asking for aiming at the bulls-eye.
I am asking that we encourage progressive think tanks and forward thinking public servants to remake our rules so that it’s not as friendly to the wild profits of war and of militaristic bullying.

I am expressing our national desire for peace with a desire for a 21st century trend away from Wall Street’s primacy and most especially their power to commit acts of violence on behalf of big business.

So it is in that context that I ask for you to confer with those who most profoundly argued from our legislature against war during the 43rd president’s administration.

I ask you to confer with the new blood in the house and senate that will take the risks to not only end our involvement providing access to Iraq’s oil to the biggest private energy companies in the world, but to pass ground breaking new legislation to make it far less likely to happen that way ever again.

I admire your bold words. You are so right, it was a mistake to go into Iraq.
I understand why you framed it in relationship to 9/11/2001 and Al Qaeda as well, but as that event fades back into history, we need to make sure that such adventurism whether in error or in anticipation of gain for our wealthiest citizens is no longer easy to accomplish.

I understand that a whole web of factors are involved.

I understand that making elections publicly financed, for example, allows for far fewer in the house and senate that would push for military action on behalf of their biggest contributors.

I understand that re-regulating and possibly even redefining by charter the American Corporation might be required to remove the endless incentive for quarterly profits and this dangerous practice of finding “externalities”, or ways to reduce costs by harming the public commons.

( ie: let the costs of pollution be borne by the medical system, the loss of health and life of humans, other animals and other living things. That’s a hidden cost. Or let the “low prices” reflect unseen abused workers in far-off lands.)

Rewriting the rules for corporations seems a way to point our arrows to a more peaceful world.

Then there is the free press. Our constitution considers this business so necessary to our continued existence as a republic, that it is the only business mentioned in the bill of rights. Our press is now digital. Whether we read words or someone reads them for us into a camera or microphone, our founders directed us all to keep that practice of journalism and expression healthy, vital, diverse and sacrosanct.

The “error” of the Iraq war could not have happened without the press in all of it’s forms also making some severe errors themselves. Though we cannot legislate good sense, we can legislate new rules of the road for being called “news”.

Facts exist. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, The sun is hotter than the earth, increasing populations of bark beetles endanger the worlds forests, and some governments are measurably dangerous and threatening to others. Anything called news should deal in facts. Opinions, especially those designed to mislead, should not be labeled news.

Opinion, driven by a profit motive, is not what our constitution and it’s bill of rights is primarily concerned with protecting. It is the reportage of fact uncontaminated with profit motive, that makes it possible for myself and my fellow citizens to do our job as voters; as those who send representatives to the legislature. We cannot send coherent messages to our legislators if we are operating on faulty information.

I understand that this is key, I understand that this broke down during the 43rd president’s administration and I understand that there are brilliant men and women in the legislature today that have ideas for new protections against the disproportionate communication of misinformation, propaganda and profit motivated deception.

The other threat to peace, a very real concern from the last decade came about in the problems with elections. The previous administration and prominent business men engaged in very aggressive tactics of blaming voters & registration efforts for election chaos all while Corporate Tech CEOs were bragging to “deliver” elections for certain candidates with their voting machines. The firing of federal prosecutors for not joining in with this deception cries out for new rules – and for justice.

Peace, if it is the will of the people, must not be threatened with rigged elections. With a new world of technology comes a need for clarification of the rules of fair elections. I urge you to meet with the legislators and thinkers who have simple and straight forward fixes for the unacceptable problems experienced in elections over the past decade. I also want you to know I support Attorney General Eric Holder if he seeks to hold people accountable. This is one topic where accountability seems as important as any I can think of for the future of our voting republic certainly lies in the balance.

I sometimes wonder if creating a more parliamentary system for our legislature would not lead to less systemic corruption including international adventurism on behalf of big business. If we had proportional representation of the various kinds of liberals and conservatives, along with good educations and honest news, it seems to me that America would be a far more peaceful neighbor.

But perhaps expecting you to consider that future is an overreach.

I would like you to remind the people that Instant Runoff Voting is a wonderful tool for reading the will of the people in elections. And so perhaps as simplistic as it may seem, an end to “black box” or proprietary-software electronic voting, and the adoption of instant runoff voting would be sure to keep representation closer to the will of the electorate, and that’s always good for the people.

The fact that big corporate interests oppose it bodes well.

You have my support on real reform of health care and how to pay for it. You have my support on education reform and getting more Americans into and through college without a lifetime of debt. You have my support on holding banks and financial institutions accountable. You have my support in standing up to the few who benefited a bit too much between 2000 and 2008.

But this is a letter about peace sir, and so be clear that you have my enthusiastic support for closing the detention center at Guantanimo Bay, Cuba, ending the occupation of Iraq, removing our men and women from Afghanistan, and finding non violent solutions in Pakistan.

Yes we want change. Peace would be the best change I can think of.

Ultimately, I want you to know that I and so many like me stand behind you and your vision of a peaceful cooperative world.

I also want you to know that we will struggle with you to reduce the power of the few who benefit from a lack of peace, disharmony and division.

- CORPORATIONS_ate_my_BABY

===

(The 7Billionth John Doe) (7bJD)

www.myspace.com/reregulation

short link for this blog:

http://wp.me/pqMgr-x

It has become a cliche these days to hear sayings like “in this economic climate,” or “in these difficult times.”  And of course it becomes a self-perpetuating prophecy.  Are these statements the whole truth about today’s economic climate?  First, people selling gizmos of various kinds, people who run restaurants, and folks in service industries, will tell you that customers are spending less money.  Why?  Because they are making less money.  Why are they making less money?  Because their customers are spending less money.  Why is all this happening?  Because of difficult economic times!  It is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The more we believe it, the more it becomes true.  The other thing that is true about these times is that it’s not longer so easy to make money from having money.  Back in the 90’s you could buy a house for $200,000 and, if you played your cards right, you could put 5% down ($10,000).  If the house went up 50% in value (which many houses did over just a few years), it then became worth $300,000.  You just made $100,000 on an investment of $5,000.  That is a 2000% profit.

The same thing could be done at that time in the stock market, or just lending money to start-up businesses.  Why?  Because everybody had the opposite belief as we have now.  It was boom time!  People were using worlds like “great opportunities” and “leverage.”  Everybody believed that story together, and it became another self-fulfilling prophecy.
If your interest in life is making a lot of money from having money without being particularly creative in the process, then this might be a sobering period for you.  Sooner or later, of course, that bubble had to burst, and an economic system based essentially on gambling and creating income without contributing value is short lived.  But not everybody is depressed these days.  Many people I know are finding this to be a time of unprecedented opportunity and creativity.  But wait, let me explain what I mean.  Not an opportunity to make a living by doing nothing creative, without anything to give.  It is a time of opportunity to make a difference and add value.

When it is easy to make money just by buying a house and waiting, there is not much incentive to look deeper into yourself.  There is not much incentive to find out what you were born to give, what your unique talents are.  There is not much incentive to find out about the unconscious blocks that prevent you from giving your gift, there are not so many opportunities to find out about co-creation and collaboration, just like a trust fund baby who never learns to work or discipline themselves.  So the 90’s and early 2000’s were great for turning a profit, but not necessarily the greatest time to bring the best out of us.  And now that the ‘producing money out of nowhere’ game has come to an end, a much more creative and beautiful game follows in its wake:  earning money from creating value.  This has been a primary focus for me and my Awakening Coaching clients: tot only a shift out of the conceptual mind into direct realization of your unlimited potential, but to actually bring that down into the body so it becomes a tangible gift, one that contributes significantly to other people, and one that also translates into tangible rewards.

Here are the five most important tips that I have discovered in how to make this economy the best time ever to expand your potential:

1. Catalog your Beliefs
Get clear about the beliefs that you carry about money from your family, your culture,  and you religious belief systems.  This doesn’t mean that you should try to change your beliefs to be suitable for massive profiteering.  It means to get clear and sober about the conceptual biases you have around work and money, and find ways to let them go.  You will find all of my favorite ways of letting go of beliefs on the CD series Let Yourself Go.

2.  Listen to the still small Voice
Make friends with your creative impulses.  As you move through the layers of perceptual bias around work and money, you will naturally settle into a place of deeper silence, stillness and clarity within yourself.  I call this Clear Seeing and I wrote a whole book about it in 1997.  When you relax into clear seeing, you start to notice gentle impulses arising from within yourself.  They may come as a still small voice, or a feeling, state, or an image.  These impulses will guide you in what to do.  Again, the impulses may not be for how to make massive profits by doing very little.  Oh boy, that is oh so 90’s!  No, the impulses will be more about why you are here on the planet, what your deepest gifts are, what your contribution is, and ultimately what your greatest joys are as well.

3.  Enough!
Learn the meaning of the word enough.  Explore deeply in your own life what is enough:  enough to be happy, enough to be in a loving, open, creative relationship with your family, enough to take care of your body, and above all enough to be able to give the gifts you were born to give.  Becoming friendly with the word enough is called sufficiency, and it’s an essential consideration in order to be able to adjust to the new economic climate.

4.  Service
Dedicate your creativity to something beyond yourself.  Last month I was visiting Jack Canfield in Santa Barbara, and he showed me a really interesting trick.  He had me think about something that I wanted to create, and first he asked me to concentrate only on what it would do for me.  Maybe it would bring me some income, maybe it would give me a creative outlet, or allow me to connect with people I enjoy being with.  Then he used a simple method of kineseology to test the strength of the muscles in my arm.  I was quite weak.  Next, he asked me to think about the same project, the same desire, only this time he asked me to focus on what it would contribute to my family, the team I work with, and all the people close to me.  My strength became undeniably stronger and way beyond anything that was within my conscious control.  Finally, Jack asked me to think about the same project, but this time in a larger context.   How many people could it serve all over the world, what is the greatest potential for serving people I don’t even yet know?  My arm became like a piece of steel, and as hard as Jack tried, he couldn’t even get my arm to budge an inch.  This simple test demonstrates what many people already intuit to be the case.  The actions and creativity we commit to that are of huge service are much more effective and easier to execute than the ones we do to our own ends.  This is much more true in today’s economic climate than it was 5 years ago.

5.  Heal the spirit matter split.
If you have not already done so please check back to the blog I wrote last week.  Some people might say that this time is about the collapse of everything we have created, the end of the world as we know it:  a huge, karmic boomerang coming back on humanity.  Others say this is a time of global awakening: a golden age, a time when humanity finally matures into collective awakening. How about if both are true?  Maybe this is the time when we get to question the split we have all created between awakening to our true nature and fully participating in the world.  For thousands of years it has been assumed that a “spiritual” life does not include worldly desire and that successful people have no time for navel gazing.  Even today when I write or talk about intention or creating worldly results, the non-dual advaita people come out in droves as though I’d just pee’d on their holy book.  More than anything, this is a time to examine the split within yourself between worldly achievement and awakening to your true self, and to question if it is fundamentally true or valid.  What I have noticed within the last years is that it is people who are waking up to their true nature are also realizing their success in the world.  And it is successful people who have the greatest access to spaciousness.

Remember, this kind of process of maturation around work and money doesn’t happen overnight.  We carry mountains of concepts about all of this not only from the way we were brought up, and from thousands of years of spiritual traditions, but equally from many contemporary writers and teachers as well.

I will be conducting a 4-part tele-seminar series beginning on November 2nd called “Getting Clear about Work and Money.”  Using the cutting edge Maestro Conference technology, I will be leading the class myself, but you will also split off into small, intimate groups with a trained awakening coach. The coaches will guide you, using effective tools, to awaken to your true nature and to recognize and dissolve  encrusted old beliefs about work and money.  The class is limited to 40 people and will happen on two Monday’s and two Wednesday’s from 5 until 7pm Pacific time.

REGISTER HERE

Ok, the concept of “something rotten in DC” is both obvious and an understatement. But, I already said Timothy Geither as Treasury Secretary was like the fox watching the hen house. Apparently, Geithner has quite the cozy relationship with CEOs of Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan Chase, and Citigroup, all headquartered in New York. Remember, Geithner was president of the New York Federal Reserve until he became Treasury Secretary. This relationship doesn’t include Bank of America, headquartered on the West Coast. Seems fishy to me.

So, let’s see. The guy who oversees the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is best buds with 3 of its biggest benefactors? No conflict of interest there. In at least one case, Geithner was on the phone with J.P. Morgan, took a call from Pres. Obama, and then got back on the phone with J.P. Morgan. I guess we should be happy he took the call from his boss, huh?

To make matters worse, several of Geithner’s top aides worked for Wall Street, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Seeing a trend here? Geithner has close ties with Wall Street’s top banks, he takes their advice, and his top aides made millions on Wall Street.

On top of that, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Neil Barofsky, said AIG’s spring bonuses were “a failure of oversight by Treasury”. Geithner claims not knowing about AIG bonuses until 3 days prior to March 13th, despite 2 months on the job and having been President of the New York Fed, which knew about the AIG bonuses in November. Is this surprising? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said:

We have a Secretary of the Treasury who failed to know what he should have known, failed to do what he should have done, and has failed to give us transparency.

As Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) said, “It just doesn’t seem right that the people who caused this tragedy should be so richly rewarded.” It could happen again, in March, when AIG is due to pay out another $198 million in retention payments. We shouldn’t have to keep enduring such insults. And we’re surprised Geithner’s the man without a plan?

I started to wonder the other day just why Macs are so much more expensive in South Africa than elsewhere.

As I write, an entry-level white MacBook is advertised in the US at $999, or R7,300. They’re more expensive in the UK, for example, R8,700. No doubt tariffs and taxes play a role here. But if I want to buy the same MacBook here in Cape Town, though, I must pay … R12,000. No less than 64% higher than the US price.

Is this an inevitable consequence of importing electronics into South Africa? A local dealer tells me the price gap is partly a consequence of buying exchange rate cover. If so, all imports should be similarly affected. But, to take just one example, local PC retailers Incredible Connection manage to sell an Acer Aspire One A110 Blue for just R1,999, when the same machine is advertised in the US at $265, or R1,959.

So who’s behind the 64%?

Apples are distributed in this country by an organisation calling themselves “Core Group”, to whom Apple appear to have granted a license to profiteer (local dealers assure me their margins are no more than 10%). So, who or what is “Core Group”? Its website (which is pretty shabby compared to the gleaming elegance one usually expects from Mac sites) tells us that:

Core Group consists of The Core Computer Business (Pty) Ltd – the distribution company of Apple Computer in SA – and Core Peripherals (Pty) Ltd, which distributes all other brands…

In 2001, the ‘Ichikowitz Group’, which previously was a minority shareholder, bought a controlling interest in Core Group and installed a new management team, and implemented a new strategy…

[Ichikowitz] operates businesses ranging from automotive import and distribution, lotteries and gaming, information technology, sporting goods and dental equipment to minerals, petroleum and other natural resources.”

Lotteries and gaming, petroleum… this does not sound like your usual computer business. And the ‘Ichikowitz Group’ (why the inverted commas?) clearly likes to keep a low profile – it has no website of its own. Dig a little furthur, and we find this: “The arms dealer who flies Zuma“, and begin to understand why. One Ivor Ichikowitz, it seems, is the brother of Core Group CEO Rodney Ichikowitz, and it turns out:

Ivor Ichikowitz, the arms and oil broker who laid on his company jet to ferry Nelson Mandela to a Jacob Zuma election rally in Transkei, has made a career from turning political connections into profit… Ichikowitz (42) made a fortune selling surplus South African armoured vehicles into Africa and the Middle East, and seems to have manoeuvred his way into Zuma’s inner circle … Ichikowitz, who also represents controversial commodities trader Glencore, partnered Majali in his 2001 bid to supply Iraqi crude to South Africa under the controversial oil-for-food programme allowing limited trade with Saddam’s Iraq … In 2005 the M&G revealed Majali, with official ANC backing, intended setting up an oil trading operation intended to benefit the ANC and Saddam’s Ba’ath party … Ichikowitz’s other main business: selling reconditioned surplus South African military equipment into Africa and the Middle East.

(None of this is mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for Ichikowitz’s company, Paramount.)

A couple of threads on a local website reflect a certain amount of public unhappiness with the ‘Apple experience’ in South Africa.

Lotteries, gaming, arms dealing in Africa, oil deals with Saddam… Way cool, Apple.

Electronic Payments Coalition, the group funded by Visa Inc.,  MasterCard Worldwide and the major banks and credit card issuers (payment card networks and financial services companies) just issued this press release. Click here.

We disagree with it, including this key point:  The problem with cash discounts is that they don’t allow for different prices depending on the type of payment card used.  There are about one-hundred separate merchant interchange fees and it is nearly impossible to know what the cost is for each transaction. In other words, they prevent Visa and MasterCard from competing over the cost of acceptance. The same principle applies to the honor-all-cards rules, which prevent merchants from exercising a preference for lower-cost cards, thereby preventing competitive forces from placing downward pressure on interchange fees. Not to mention the condescending, patronizing attitude that credit card companies know better than merchants how to treat a merchant’s customers.

—————-

PRNewswire release

Merchants Can Already Discount for Cash, But Don’t – So What Would H.R. 2382 Really Do?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ — In advance of the October 8th hearing in the House Financial Services Committee on H.R. 2382, “The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act,” sponsored by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), the Electronic Payments Coalition has issued the following statement:

“H.R. 2382 is one of the most egregious assaults on consumer protection that this country has seen in some time. Disguised as a measure to allow for cash discounts – something that is already allowed by federal law and by all card network contracts – the bill would instead open up the door for bait-and-switch advertising schemes, charging additional checkout fees at the register, and discrimination against certain card holders. The bill is chock full of provisions that mean one thing: consumers will pay more so merchants can pay less. Bottom line – retailers don’t want to pay their fair share for a service that brings them more sales and higher profits – and want their customers to pick up the tab instead.”

The Electronic Payments Coalition released today a document detailing the anti-consumer protection measures detailed in H.R. 2382. This document follows this statement.

Rep. Peter Welch’s H.R. 2382 – “The Credit Card Interchange Fees Act” – would…

Leave consumers vulnerable and unprotected against deceptive, bait-and-switch advertising.

Rep. Welch’s legislation would eliminate important consumer protections on how merchants are allowed to advertise their prices – restrictions that are in place expressly to protect consumers. This would allow retailers to promise one low price, then charge more – potentially a lot more – when the customer reaches the cash register. Consumers would be left unprotected, forced to pay the demanded price regardless of what was advertised – and retailers would profit unjustly from their dishonest schemes.

Leave consumers stranded at the checkout counter.

Imagine getting to the front of a long line at the grocery store, only to discover that the store doesn’t accept your alma mater’s credit card. Or they won’t accept the card that donates a few cents of every purchase to your favorite charity. This legislation allows merchants to pick and choose which cards they will accept – and which cards they won’t – with no advance warning to their customers.

Dramatically reduce – or eliminate – the card rewards programs that are used by 80% of American households.

H.R. 2382 would prohibit a slightly higher interchange rate for rewards cards – cards that are traditionally used by customers who are proven to spend more when they shop, in turn providing greater value to merchants. Unfortunately, merchants don’t want to pay for this benefit – and the result would be far fewer rewards for American consumers who value such programs. In fact, similar regulation in Australia has resulted in a 23% reduction in the value of rewards programs for consumers.”

Force businesses to disclose highly confidential financial information to the public and to their competitors.

H.R. 2382 would require every contract, rate agreement, and rule on merchant discount rates to be submitted to the Federal Reserve, which would then be responsible for publishing every bit of it. This would involve literally millions of documents, most containing highly sensitive financial information. The chaos that would result from the sheer volume of contracts – not to mention the compromised financial information – would be incredibly harmful to retailers and to financial institutions.

Falsely characterize interchange as a consumer fee, by requiring that it be disclosed on consumer statements.

It’s simple: consumers don’t pay for the cost of card acceptance. It’s a cost of doing business for merchants that accept cards. Despite this clear distinction, H.R. 2382 would force card issuers to print the amount of interchange, as well as the total amount various merchants paid for each charge – an amount that varies depending on what each merchant negotiated – on consumer’s credit or debit card statements. This is nonsensical, unrealistic, and would ultimately confuse consumers and the financial decisions they make.

About Electronic Payments Coalition

The Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC) includes credit unions, banks, and payment card networks that move electronic payments quickly and securely between millions of merchants and millions of consumers across the globe. EPC’s goal is to protect the value, innovation, convenience and competition in today’s growing electronic payments system. EPC educates policymakers, consumers, and the media on the system’s role economic growth, and the importance of protecting consumer choice and stability for the continued growth of global commerce. http://electronicpaymentscoalition.org/

SOURCE Electronic Payments Coalition

Cheaper Medicine

What will make medicine cheaper for more Filipinos now that the “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act” or Republic Act (RA) 9502 is in place?

There are several programs that should make medicines more affordable under the new law.

These are the intensification of competition through “parallel importation” of patented cheaper medicine; increased production of generic medicine, compulsory licensing of patented drugs, reimbursement by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) of money spent by consumers on drugs, imposition of a maximum retail price (MRP) on drugs, and a drug consignment selling scheme.

There are other systems that will be in place to help accelerate reduction in price and encourage consumption of cheap drugs.

These are the early working provision (EWP) of the law, strengthening of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), and generic drug awareness.

Competition through parallel importation.

Competition is really recognized to bring down the cost of a product or service.

This is why RA 9502’s Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) encourages competition at each level of the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Patents are territorial. Under the old system, a company holding a patent in the Philippines is fully protected and can sell the drug at any price it wants, even at an unaffordable level. A competitor company cannot import the same drug that is patented locally. The exception now is in medicine.

Even if a drug is patented, an importer that has a contact abroad for the same drug of the same brand and quality may bring in that drug as allowed under Section 72.1 of RA 9502. “With ‘international exhaustion,’ once a product is introduced anywhere-else in the world, anyone can import this. If I know a source of a genuine Pfizer product that is much lesser in price, I will bring it to the country and secure import permit and everything from BFAD. This is called parallel importation,” said IPO Bureau of Patent Director Epifanio M. Evasco.

International exhaustion is accepted under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement between World Trade Organization member-countries.

Since 2001, state-owned Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) has been allowed to import medicine in order to cut local medicine costs. Unfortunately, PITC’s mandate until RA 9502 was ratified was only to import off-patent drugs, those not protected by a Philippine patent.

PITC’s importation of off-patent drugs was just about P90 million in 2007, according to PITC Consultant Joy Riel.

Allowing importation only of off-patent drugs must be illogical since the real way to cut price is to provide drugs that can compete with high-priced patented drugs that carry brands offered by multinational companies that once heavily dominated the Filipino market. With the law, anyone can import from any country a branded drug in the Philippines that is also produced in another country (same manufacturer, same quality, same brand), only with a cheaper price.

Pfizer that offers a more expensive drug in the Philippines may be producing the same drug at a cheaper price in India. So, importing this from India, known to be one of the world’s cheapest source of medicine, may substantially cut price.

One of the reasons why India may have cheaper medicine, according to pharmaceutical suppliers, may be due to Indian firms’ not having to pay for research and development (R&D).

The brand Norvasc (generic name: amlodipine besylate), a drug for hypertension, is produced by Pfizer.

“But Indian pharmaceutical companies produced amlodipine besylate, and they may not have anymore had to pay for R&D. The formulation is the same actually, although I don’t have any idea how they got the formulation. But maybe the formulation is available to all Indian pharmaceutical companies,” said an industry official.

With RA 9502, drug importation may actually be done in bulk by the PITC even for the private sector in order to bring down cost through economies of scale.

Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said government also plans to carry out collective importation for all government agencies’ drug requirements in order to consolidate volume and bring down import cost.

Increased production of generic medicine. For any reason why India has cheaper medicine, the real long-term factor to cutting medicine price will really be the production of generic medicine.

Riel believes the expansion of generic medicine manufacturing will be the key to the long-term cut-down on local drug price.

Importation will only be a stop-gap measure.

“Filipinos are brand-conscious. That’s why we came up with parallel importation. But eventually, when Filipinos get used to generic, parallel importation will generally die because why will we import if there’s generic counterpart that is cheap (that’s equal in quality)?” said Riel.

Duque said that once a drug becomes off-patent, or its 20-year protection expires, then the original company that developed it, the innovator, will be compelled to manufacture a generic of that medicine. “Innovator companies that have already earned a lot from their patents over a long time are required to produce generic counterpart of their drugs once the patent expires,” said Duque.

Will generic medicine have the same quality as that of branded medicine? DOH officials assure that both imported and locally-manufactured generic medicine will be strictly monitored for quality.

BFAD Director Leticia B. Gutierrez said that once an import shipment arrives, drug samples are sent to BFAD laboratory for testing.

“We collect samples and undergo additional test. So we’re very assured of quality of medicine brought in through parallel importation,” said Gutierrez.

Similarly, generic drugs are tested by BFAD. These drugs are also tested from samples that are already in the market.

Prior to importation of a drug, Rule 74 of the Implementing Rules and Regulation (IRR) indicated that the World Health Organization should certify that imported products in finished dosage forms should conform with international purity and quality standards as established in the International Pharmacopoeia.

As part of widening generic drug consumption, all government health agencies and government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC) are required to use generic names in all transactions.

For private medical practitioners, they are required too to prescribe a medicine using the generic name of a drug. However, they can include a drug’s brand name as an option.

Compulsory Licensing. When a national emergency situation arises, a patented invention may be opened by the government for licensing to other manufacturers even without the consent of the patent holder.

“Where the public interest, in particular, national security, nutrition, health or the development of other vital sectors of the national economy… so requires, the … Intellectual Property Office (IPO) may grant a license to exploit a patented invention.”

Reimbursement by Philhealth of money spent on medicine.

Since the major objective of RA 9502 is to “eliminate out-of-pocket expenses” of patients and promote social health welfare, Philhealth is mandated to make cheaper drugs available to the public.

Philhealth will help implement the following:

• Setting up of an Outpatient Drug Benefit Package,

• Accreditation of all health-related units—hospital and commercial pharmacies, DOH-recognized drug outlets, and

• Penalty imposition for medical professionals failing to use generic medicine on their prescription.

Philhealth’s reimbursement of drugs will be through hospital pharmacies.

Primarily, it will reimburse a Philhealth member’s expense for drugs covered by prescriptions in generic names based on the list of drugs under the Philippine National Drug Formulatory System (PNDF).

The PNDF will be set up by the DOH and will be updated quarterly. It is a list of drugs that are used often by the public. Drug list will be based on mortality and morbidity rates.

DOH Undersecretary Alex Padilla said reimbursement by Philhealth will only be valid for PNDF drugs. This PNDF list will also be the basis for procurement of medicines by all government agencies and local government units.

Consignment of drugs and medicines. Philhealth will also set up a consignment program under which drug producers will be allowed to display their products on consignment basis or payable only once the drugs are sold.

DOH already accredits drug outlets called Botika ng Barangays which improves people’s access to important drugs.

BFAD will further issue guidelines for the licensing of drug distribution through non-traditional outlets.

Moreover, DOH will release guidelines for this consignment system under the IRR’s Rule 35.

Maximum Retail Price. This may be a difficult measure. But the imposition of an MRP on drug manufacturers is one of the strongest provisions of RA 9502.

Under this, the Philippine president may impose MRP on any drug or all drugs or medicines under a national emergency situation.

Duque said imposition of the MRP may be issued by the president anytime when this is needed.

“The goal is to bring down the price of medicine by not lower than 50 percent (from 2003 drug prices). If we can’t attain that, we may impose the MRP even after six months,” he said.

The MRP may be imposed on all levels of the supply chain—the manufacturer, trader, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer.

To be subjected under MRP are drugs in PNDF’s Essential Drug List, all drugs for chronic illnesses and life-threatening conditions, disease-preventing drugs (vaccines, immunoglobulin, anti-sera), pregnancy-preventing drugs, anesthetic agents, and intravenous fluids.

DOH will consider the following factors in setting the maximum price– retail price of drugs, supply availability, cost to each level of the supply chain, foreign exchange rate, labor costs, transport and distribution costs, and costs on research, promotion, advertising, and taxes.

When price manipulation is suspected in the market, hoarding may be investigated based on a person’s or entity’s accumulation of drugs beyond his normal inventory level (50 % higher), unreasonable limitation or refusal to dispose this drug, and unjustifiable withdrawal of a drug from channels of production.

RA 9502 may also rule profiteering of traders if a product has no price tag, if it is misrepresented as to weight or other measurement forms, and is adulterated or diluted.

It can also charge cartel against two or more enterprises if they perform uniform acts to increase price for competing products that are pharmaceutically the same.

Senior Citizen Law and People with Disability Law. With RA 9502 and provisions like the MRP already in place, government will still recognize rights of senior citizens and disabled.

“If MRP will have to be imposed, we’ll continue to honor the senior citizen law and people with disability law. So even if the price is already low, price will continue to go down,” Duque said.

Early Working Provision in the Intellectual Property Code. Since patents carry a lengthy 20-year protection during which no one can manufacture the same drug formulation, an early working provision (EWP) allows for a preparatory period by which any future generic drug manufacturer can begin registration and experimentation of the product.

Three to five years before a patent of a drug expires, a generic manufacturer can begin these processes including manufacturing of this drug, provided this is not yet sold in the market.

EWP’s aim is by Day One after the patent expires, this drug can immediately be distributed to the market.

“They can already stockpile, although they can’t sell it yet. This will improve competition because under the old regime, a generic company cannot begin developing a drug until the drug patent expires,” said Evasco.

With the permit to start developing the drugs, generic companies can carry out reverse engineering in developing an equivalent drug as permitted under the EWP as stated under the “Limitation of Patent Rights” of the RA 9502.

“Generic companies can do reverse engineering. But information disclosed (by patent holders) with BFAD like pre-clinical trial and pre-clinical tests are (usually) trade secrets. So those are protected and BFAD won’t give that,” Evasco said.

Strengthening of BFAD. To effectively implement RA 9502, BFAD’s operation will be strengthened through the retention of its income. BFAD does not need to remit its income to the national government.

The fees, fines, royalties, and other charges that BFAD collects from its services will be used to fund upgrading of facilities and investments in equipment and human resource development.

Duque said the national government has already supported the beefing up of BFAD’s workforce with an additional 28 personnel.

Generic Drug Awareness. When a patented product becomes off patent, Section 39n of RA 9502 indicates that manufacturing companies will be required by DOH to manufacture their generic counterparts. Priority for this are PNDF drugs.

The awareness of the equal quality of generics medicine is really envisioned to make cheap generics medicine replace high-priced medicine manufactured by multinational firms.

Even now, the Philippine Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI) reports that generic drugs that are beginning to be recognized as having an equal quality as those of branded drugs have already gained a foothold on a substantial 40 percent of the P107 billion industry.

United Laboratories Inc. (Unilab) Vice President Joey Ochave reported Unilab’s having taken up a hefty part of this market at 20 percent as of the end of 2007 while Pascual Laboratories claimed a three percent market.

Filipino companies have already started embarking on an expansion as Pascual is pouring in P200 million for quality assurance, quality control, and research and development. Pascual subsidiary Pharex is coming up with medicines on hypertension, anti-diabetes, and injectables like Ascof’s lagundi cough syrup.

Already, these efforts have been actually bringing down cost of certain medicines.

Norvasc, for one, which sells at P45 in the market sells at only P17 in government’s Botika ng Baranggay.

Duque said quality assurance is also given by DOH to generic products as it has been imposing on local companies the adoption of Good Manufacturing Practices.

To create generic awareness, both the government and Filipino generic companies inevitably have to invest in spreading information about generic medicine’s good quality.

“The local industry has to come out with generic counterpart. That’s why DOH is doing generic awareness. This has made a big dent on information. When the buying public are aware of the generic product, they will naturally buy the lower-priced generic product compared to the branded ones,” said Riel.

International monitoring of drug price. One way to ensure that local drugs will remain cheap is the active monitoring of international price. Aside from DOH, the Department of Trade and Industry has the mandate to monitor international price. This can be through Philippine Health attaches and Philippine Missions.

You just have to watch this how-to video. The key facts about illegal antitrust price-fixing are omitted, as are the reasons why merchant interchange fees in the U.S. are upwards of six-times what other industrialized nations pay. Remember, this video and the organization promoting it is funded by the banks and Visa and MasterCard. 

The problem is that few understand what these fees are; it is a hidden tax on consumers – amounting to upwards of $48 billion in anticompetitive charges each year. As proof, since this video was posted, only about 450 people viewed it, which my guess was largely from those who produced it.

The election is over and we are now bigger than ever.
FRP got 1/4 of all votes in Norway. I know we didn’t win, but neither did Palin OK?
However everything is going according to plan. We seem to have been able to reduce the size of the only anti-nationalist party in Norway in 2009 and all the other small parties are struggling to survive now too. The tactical plan from USA has worked well. In 15 years time there will only be 3 parties in Norway thanks to the Norwegian media following our guidelines and focusing on what we construct as an issue to them.

We can safely say that Norwegians have bought our nationalism hook, line and sinker. In 2013 Norway will be changed through our 100 day program, and as our powerful leader Siv Jensen said, this change will be irreversible.

The former leader of the nationalist party, Carl Hagen, teamed up with the propaganda corporation Burson-Marsteller (famously works with the mercenary corporation Blackwater along with numerous others) at the same time as the election (“coincidentally” FRP will be utilizing Norwegian mercenaries in our wars as outlined in our party program).
Sandberg, Jensen, Amundsen, Høglund, as well as our minor and hidden officers in our organization will be schooled further by our instructors abroad before the next elections. Our collaboration with officers in other European nations have paid off and show great potential. All our misdirection campaigns with the Norwegian media has worked according to plan. Our partner “NGO” Civita is also helping pave the way for us.
Also, our wallets are full with money thanks to the Norwegian taxpayers we have been able to squeeze millions out of, and our foreign funders too keep us wealthy (though we are often reminded which future favors are attached to this).

It IS a long wait, but Norwegians have taken some time to manipulate. We are looking at more liberal alcohol laws so that people will become less serious before the next election (election participation was down to 75% this time), and we will push for a much more narrow cultural offer and have Norwegians focus solely on sports and christianity instead which we are currently successfully in the process of tying up with nationalism. TV2 is doing a great job here, and have lots of inventive ideas for future projects.
In conclusion, there are no clouds on the horizon. With all the wealth in our party and all the billionaires, companies, and organizations pulling strings for us, we will have Norwegians dance to our tunes before the next election.

Click here to read the recent report profiling interchange merchant interchange fees rates.  U.S. credit card interchange fees ~2X rates in UK, New Zealand.  ~4X rates in Australia. ~6X cross border MasterCard rates in the EU

Excerpt:

While “we the people” are encouraged to be ever more partisan and fuss with each other, the less-than-one-percent continue to drain us all dry.

Glenn Greenwald    Salon   09/14/09

Who are the undeserving “others” benefiting from expanded government actions?

“…..This is the paradox of the tea-party movement and other right-wing protests fueled by genuine citizen anger and fear.  It is true that the federal government embraces redistributive policies and that middle-class income is seized in order that “someone else benefits.”  But so obviously, that “someone else” who is benefiting is not the poor and lower classes — who continue to get poorer as the numbers living below the poverty line expand and the rich-poor gap grows in the U.S. to unprecedented proportions.  The “someone else” that is benefiting from Washington policies are — as usual  — the super-rich, the tiny number of huge corporations which literally own and control the Government.  ”

read entire article

That’s the whole fucking point of nationalism. We are above the law. Why?! Because we are the nationalist leaders. What is it that you don’t fucking get?
Here is a brief list of some of the criminal heroes of FRP (you are an inspiration to nationalists everywhere):

Frp-politician Robert Kaastad:
http://www.ba.no/nyheter/politikk/article4442704.ece
Robert Kaastad had been making trouble at the pub and were taken care of by the doorkeeper. Kaastad’s buddies got involved and the whole thing escalated. He was told to remove himself from the city centre, but of course didn’t listen to the legal authorities of Norway. Later he gave the police the finger and pulled his pants down to moon them. Police officer Terje Sperrevik decided to press charges.

FRP politician Jan-Henrik Fredriksen
http://www.frifagbevegelse.no/anb-nyheter/article4474639.ece

Frps stortingsrepresentant Jan-Henrik Fredriksen

Jan-Henrik Fredriksen was caught drunk driving by the police.
Fredriksen was sentenced to 16 days in jail (Norwegian jail days), lost his drivers license for a year, and a 80 000 NOK fine for his DUI. Party leader Siv Jensen rhetorically managed to downplay his guilt, considering that Fredriksen wasn’t an immigrant.
Fuck the police, fuck the law, and fuck civilians on the roads. When we come to power we will install corrupt FRP friendly officers.

FRP politician John Arvid Kleppe
http://www.kommunal-rapport.no/index.gan?id=11196154
John Arvid Kleppe was caught building a garage without permission. This case is interesting, cause Kleppe was at the time himself a part of the building inspectors office.
We’ve got an insider here. Great work Kleppe! We have the right of way, cause we are the nationalists. Fuck democracy and law.

FRP politician Terje Taraldset
http://arkiv.nettavisen.no/Nyhet/256469/Frp-politiker+anmeldt.html
Oslo city council pressed charges against Taraldset for illegally buding houses without required permissions.

FRP politician Henning Haaland
http://web3.aftenbladet.no/lokalt/article428309.ece
Henning Haaland: boxer, MC enthusiast, and FRP politician, attacked the police by ripping open their car door and punching one officer in the face after one of his buddies had been arrested for indecent behaviour.
According to Haaland he himself is innocent. According to Haaland, it was the police officer who somehow fell on Haalands clinched fist and started to nosebleed.

FRP politician Torgrim Nordberg
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/ostfold/1.3792788
City council member from Fredrikstad, Torgrim Nordberg was prosecuted for storage and sale of large quantities of illegal doping. So? It makes you violent and unstable, it goes hand in hand with our culture. George Bush is a junkie remember?

FRP politician Hans Petter “Hitler” Nikolaisen
http://www.dagsavisen.no/innenriks/article314024.ece

Long time violent abuser, Nikolaisen was sentenced to 11 years in jail (Norwegian jail years) for stabbing his female partner to death and leaving her to die in a pool of blood.

FRP politician Martin Schance
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2004/08/10/405106.html
Schance says both fuck off to the environment just like Bush did, and he too loves violence. Here he is slapping a politician of another party.
Norwegian nationalists have been drawing on Yugoslavian inspiration for years.

FRP politician Arne Herman Sæterlid
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=528453
In Norway you are not permitted to buy beer in stores after a certain hour. Herman found a way around that by simply threatening the store clerk.
He later regretted having been caught after the story reached the democratic press, and promised to be less obvious until he has greater power.

FRP politician Hans Petter Angell-Olsen
http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2000/10/20/224056.html
Angell-Olsen, at the time a scout leader, and leader of “church, sports, and culture” office, refused to pass through Norwegian customs inspection after a trip abroad, and tried to escape from the law. He was later caught with 24 bottles of wine and some spirits. He attempted to deny as much as possible, but because of democratic law and bla. bla. charges were still pressed against him.

FRP political advisor Tord Morsund
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tord_Morsund
Instigator of violence, nazi, and FRP speech writer Tord Morsund, sentenced to jail for assaults he conducted in Sweden.

Vice chairman of FRP, Per “Fat Cat” Sandberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Sandberg
Popular criminal within the nationalist establishment, Sandberg is gaining a good reputation for being above democracy and the Norwegian law. He has been headbutting people, been caught speeding recklessly at 100 km/h in a 60 km/h speed zone, and have turned up drunk in the parliament.
Never a person to be humble, Sandberg will amass great power in the years to come.

Naturally there is loads more. FRP politician having underage sex with a 15 year old girl.
50 year old FRP politician sentenced to jail for flashing in front of little children at their school.
FRP politician sentenced to 30 days in jail for threatening and assaulting his business partner with a knife.
A FRP politician from Telemark was sentenced to 21 days in jail in 2002 for having beat up his partner as well as having assaulted a police officer.
Telemark is also where another FRP leader was sentenced to jail for 2 years and 3 months for rape. Of course he was also using amfetamin.
Some FRP leaders will stalk their ex’s and harass them in public by publishing posters and letters around the country.
Another FRP politician was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 2003 for having sexually assulted some boys and having downloaded child pornography.
Porn is okay by the way. Some of FRP’s most intellectual representatives have published some masturbation videos of themselves on the Internet.

FRP intellectuals

The city council of Oslo, including FRP politicians, managed to miss cost targets for the new ski jump in Oslo by 600 million NOK (100 000 000 USD). But who cares, it’s the tax payers money. Our insiders in the construction industry came to benefit from it. So? Offended? Another FRP leader swindled his grandmother for 250 000 NOK (40 000 USD)

But we are used to making demands by now. What is so difficult to comprehend here? It’s merely our cultural imperialism. Our spiritual leader Carl Ivar Hagen have demanded that “Spaniards must teach themselves Norwegian if they are to be working with Norwegians living in Spain.” Carl Hagen is famous for fucking the environment too, like his mentor Bush. Once he was caught throwing garbage with chemical substances into other peoples recycable container. Hagen is the one married to Eli Hagen, famous for driving down the pedestrian stairs below the castle in Oslo.
 (Don’t feel bad, Laura Bush killed her boyfriend with her car once too.)
We have our tools if the press were to start to step on our toes. We may use the clever “phone connection is poor” should they ever start to snoop around like journalists.

But of course they don’t care. We have already been successfully able to tie up Viking romanticism with contemporary nationalism. The public are clueless of course, and let’s continue to keep it that way. It’s not like the pot smoking media editors will stop us since they spend every moment of their waking day looking for their next lay. Besides the environment in Norway has embraced us. The Norwegian nazi Knut Hamsun is celebrated throughout the whole year, and half of Norway is standing in line to protect his reputation (somehow half the Norwegian population became qualified literary critics overnight).

He has even been celebrated with his own grand museum recently.

Siv “Lille Bush” Jensen, dubbed Margaret Thatcher of Norway, is leading on hell of a party.
Get ready for the Norwegian Bush period.
When we are in power we wont have to bother with shitty democracy, law, and stuff.
We’ll do what it takes. Nothing can stop us. It’s been a long journey since Anders Lange (a proud supporter of South African apartheid, Lange became known for organizing counter-rallies to working class demonstrations and also nominated Hitler and Mussolini for the Nobel Peace Price. However, during Nazi occupation of Norway the Nobel Peace Prize was disbanded by the German Nazis) founded the nationalist party.

Now the journey is over. Our time has finally come again.

FRP Åsnes

The new Mac operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 (aka “Snow Leopard”) is out this month. The upgrade price, a very reasonable $29, or £25. Not bad.

So why the rant? Because $29 ≠ £25. $29 = £17.60. Why the hell does Apple *always* insist on ripping off it’s UK customers? It does not cost 60% more to print a DVD in the UK, or to ship one. And VAT would not make up anything like that amount. It’s bl**dy ridiculous

/end rant