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What have loans, obesity, and cheap clothing have to do with each other? What could unite such different categories? Nothing, on a first glance. But wait. Wasn’t there the story in the IHT about the mortgage loan crisis, published on 8/28/2007? Quote:
” Other documents from the sub prime unit also show that Countrywide was willing to underwrite loans that left little disposable income for borrowers’ food, clothing and other living expenses.”
When I came to Malaysia in 2004, there weren’t many fat people. People were driving mainly old cars, and renting simple houses. Now they are driving big cars, there’s a building boom, and people are getting obese. But salaries didn’t rise that much, neither in middle-class Malaysia, nor in middle-class America.
Where does this apparent wealth come from? It all has to do with loans. Recently, banks started to hand out loans for cars, houses, fridges etc., and down payments are often waved. It triggered an enormous boom in building. There are now many proud home and car owners, but there is a darker side. Like stated in the IHT quote above, credit taking became very easy, and people simply pushed their limits too far. There isn’t enough money and time left for a decent home-cooked good meal, decent clothing, good shoes and a visit to the movie theatre – mortgage and other loans have led to a financial monthly hemorrhage.
Instead, as a colleague told me, “people now work a lot harder; there is little time left, such as for home-cooking, what means that one quickly buys some frozen food, which is quickly fried and served.”
Or, as described in a recent article of the German newspaper “Der Spiegel,” poor people turn to cheap and fried food, as it provides a lot of calories for little money. Not surprisingly, diabetes II and cancer are on the rise everywhere.
If unchecked, whereto will this trend lead? We’ll see many people getting broke, there will be blood on the street, and health maintenance cost and mortality will go up.
It’s the bitter price for an unsustainable show-off life style.
As a kid, Grandma told me an important lesson. “If you want to buy something, you wait until you can pay for it. Otherwise, it means that you have to work harder all the time, and you’re going to loose your freedom.”
Right she was.
Picture: Statistics showing the fattening of America. It compares the America of 1991 with the America of 2006(from: Der Spiegel). Blue means: less than 20 % obesity in the population. Orange means: above 20 % obese people. Mississipi is the most obese state, with obesity beyond 30 %
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The abstract below is a reprint of the above titled article by Mark Avrum Gubrud of the Center for Superconductivity Research. The full article can be read at the Foresight Nanotech Institute website.
Abstract
Recent U.S. planning and policy documents foretell “how wars will be fought in the future,” and warn of new or re-emergent “global peer competitors” in the 2005-2025 time frame. It is generally appreciated that this period will be characterized by rapid progress in many areas of technology. However, assembler-based nanotechnology and artificial general intelligence have implications far beyond the Pentagon’s current vision of a “revolution in military affairs.”
Whereas the perfection of nuclear explosives established a strategic stalemate, advanced molecular manufacturing based on self-replicating systems, or any military production system fully automated by advanced artificial intelligence, would lead to instability in a confrontation between rough equals. Rivals would feel pressured to preempt, if possible, in initiating a full-scale military buildup, and certainly not to be caught behind. As the rearmament reached high levels, close contact between forces at sea and in space would give an advantage to the first to strike.
The greatest danger coincides with the emergence of these powerful technologies: A quickening succession of “revolutions” may spark a new arms race involving a number of potential competitors. Older systems, including nuclear weapons, would become vulnerable to novel forms of attack or neutralization. Rapidly evolving, untested, secret, and even “virtual” arsenals would undermine confidence in the ability to retaliate or resist aggression. Warning and decision times would shrink. Covert infiltration of intelligence and sabotage devices would blur the distinction between confrontation and war. Overt deployment of ultramodern weapons, perhaps on a massive scale, would alarm technological laggards. Actual and perceived power balances would shift dramatically and abruptly. Accompanied by economic upheaval, general uncertainty and disputes over the future of major resources and of humanity itself, such a runaway crisis would likely erupt into large-scale rearmament and warfare well before another technological plateau was reached.
International regimes combining arms control, verification and transparency, collective security and limited military capabilities, can be proposed in order to maintain stability. However, these would require unprecedented levels of cooperation and restraint, and would be prone to collapse if nations persist in challenging each other with threats of force.
If we believe that assemblers are feasible, perhaps the most important implication is this: Ultimately, we will need an integrated international security system. For the present, failure to consider alternatives to unilateral “peace through strength” puts us on a course toward the next world war.
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I just want to let everyone know in advance, we will be moving this website to a new server this week. During the move the site will go down. Don’t panic, we will be back up ASAP.
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Please watch the above video. The Fountainhead - Howard Roark Speech (Ayn Rand)
There are three kinds of people in the world; doers, pretenders and nothing’s. Doers and pretenders are both learners, anxious to possess knowledge. But pretenders use their knowledge to make it easier for them to pretend at doing. The third type of persons are the nothing’s; people who do not contribute anything to society, parasites. They might be rich, they might be poor, but they do absolutely nothing. They live on the dole, either from the government, a charitable organization or their family.
Doers and pretenders can be either leaders or followers. They can be successful or failures. At the surface you might be asking yourself, “What difference does it make if one is a doer or a pretender if the end game is the same?” Well, I’ll tell you. I believe doers get more satisfaction out of life. A doer, even in their failure, enjoys a certain sense of achievement, the knowledge they DID something. They worked their mojo to the max, they reached higher with their own effort. If they were to fall down while doing, they accept it as an opportunity to do more next time; or to do better. They do no ride others coattails. They are the coattail. They achieve, so that others may copy.
Now, a pretender could be in a position of leadership. But, because they are a pretender, we can be assured, their creations will not be original; or their perhaps, not even their own. And quite often, the product of their work has little value. To imitate a pretender is dangerous too. Whenever you make a copy of a copy, you lose some clarity on each generation away from the original. Quite interestingly, a pretender is more like a nothing, than a doer. Both the pretender and the nothing are essentially both parasites of varying degrees.
However, a pretender might be more interesting to know. They are after all, actors. Not the kind you see in film and media, but everyday people, sucking up to their friends, neighbors, and bosses; stealing ideas and latching onto others.
For a pretender and a nothing to survive, they need conflict. They need a messy world so they can hide in that whirlwind of activity. Pretenders and nothing’s are the consummate manipulator’s, convincing doers to give up their worth, for the others furtive happiness.
If there are too many pretenders and even more nothing’s, the world will find itself on a precipice of dying. Pretenders and nothing’s, are both like an algal bloom, choking off all the oxygen in an ecosystem. So, choose for yourself, do you have the courage to be a doer, or will you just coast through life, leaving behind nothing of value as a pretender or worse, a nothing? Choose your path; don’t let others choose it for you. It is your life.
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Many of us have beliefs and dreams. I remember the times of Communism, when western leftists (I was one of them) said: “Sure, the Soviet Union and China are communist, but they are not on the right way of organizing a socialist society.” In those years, there wasn’t a single communist country around the world that could feed its people.
Today’s Muslims voice a similar argument. They often say: “Sure, Islamists aren’t true believers, true forms of Islam aren’t practiced in that country” or so.
Well, this might be so. But let’s have a look at the facts. Let’s look at the “real existing Islam,” “Islamic” countries that are either dominated by Islam, or have at least a population share of some 50 % Muslim population.
Have a look at the ‘Fund for Peace’ website, http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/, a non-governmental organization that studies and characterizes countries in the following way:
“ Quote: Country Profiles provide the public with insight into why a country received the score it did on the Failed States Index. They also include some analysis of change from the previous year. In addition to the social, economic and political/military indicators analyzed as part of the Failed States Index, we include a brief analysis of the core state institutions, which measures the capacity of the state to cope with pressures identified by the indicators. There is also a short prognosis for each country as well as recommendations. Unquote”
Based on such analysis, the ‘Fund for Peace’ has come up with a ‘Failed State Index,’ and also characterizes countries in four categories: red, orange, yellow green.
In the 2007 listing, we see the following:
Red zone, failed states:
Numbers: 1 – 32
Worst in class: Sudan, Islamic
Best in class: Niger, Islamic
Number of Islamic-dominated states: 18 out of 32
Orange zone/serious trouble brewing:
Numbers: 33 – 129
Worst in class: Colombia
Best in class: Bahamas
Number of Islamic-dominated states: 28 out of 96
Yellow zone, warnings:
Numbers: 130 – 162
Worst in class: Barbados (130)
Best in class: Portugal (162)
Number of Islamic-dominated states: 4 out of 32
United States of America = 160th
__
Green zone - fully functioning:
__
Numbers: 163 – 177
Worst in class: Netherlands (163)
Best in class: Norway (177)
Number of Islamic-dominated states: None Canada = 168th
This simple statistics shows: “The real existing Islam” is a state of mind that belongs to the doomed and failed states. It defines more than 50% of all failed states. More “real existing Islam” = more failure and doom.
What characterizes the exceptional orange and yellow (there aren’t any green) Islamic countries? Essentially three factors:
- Exceptional resources (such as oil etc) in respect of population size;
- And/or a relatively modern, tolerant form of Islam;
- And/or strong non-Islamic minority (the Chinese in Malaysia, for instance), endowed with exceptional skills and work ethics (and doing the job of the remainder).
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I watched the Democrats debate tonight
I listened to each one of them answer
Question after question
With yet another question
One man, disabled and retired from the union
Stood up with the aid of crutches and a brace and asked
Why?
Why am I so poor that I can’t afford health insurance?
Why?
Why was my pension cut in half when my company went bankrupt?
He asked the candidates, while looking them right in their faces
What is wrong with America?
There was a long period of applause
For this obviously pained man
And yet not one of the candidates had the right answer for him
They all jumped on the chance to put down this country
Claiming the country was wrong
But they never answered his question
Choosing to only address his fears
I watched in disbelief as not one of them
Took the opportunity to defend this great land in which we live
Not one of the wannabe Presidents offered much hope
Not one answer was given to inspire the people
Only doom and more gloom
I thought to myself…..
Had I been on that stage my answer would have been
‘There is nothing wrong with America that Americans can’t fix.’
Because I’d rather have a dream than only live a nightmare
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The Kayan, a rice-growing warrior tribe from Borneo Island’s interior, have an ambivalent historical relationship with Chinese immigrants and traders who settled on Borneo’s shores since a few hundreds of years.
The below little Kayan allegory should be a reminder to European and American politicians, who bask in the momentary glory of free trade agreements with China.
My message to these politicians, and quick-money-makers: you better watch out what you’re giving away! See the below story:
A Chinese man enters an inn and looks into another person’s
soup bowl.
“Oh. I see you eat soup,” the Chinese man says. “I would like to try your soup.” The polite person nods. The Chinese man first tastes, then finishes the soup.
“Oh. I see your soup has got meat in it,” the Chinese man says. “I would like to try your soup meat.” The polite person nods. The Chinese man first tastes, then finishes the meat.
“Oh. I see you have got bone in your soup,” the Chinese man says. “I would like to have a taste of your soup bone.” The polite person nods. The Chinese man first tastes, then finishes the last bone, too.
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It was Utterly attractive to me……
Hillary Clinton never returned my call
Especially when affronted
About something as silly as her
Recent display of cleavage
I guess even though she only showed
A little more than most men own
It was done perhaps without intention?
And therefore had nothing to do with the comments by
Her very pretty and feminine opposing candidate
John ‘The Breck Girl’ Edward’s wife Elisabeth
Claiming that her husband was more of a woman than Hillary
And just for an extra crushing blow
How about ‘She looks like a man in a pantsuit’
Well Hillary I must in all ‘honesty’ (new word for Liberals) confess
Were I not a contented and happily married man
With a mortgage to pay and a loving sexy wife
I’d place my hands upon your tiny breast
And wrapping my legs around your ‘tree trunk’ size thighs
I’d hold on and ride you, you sexy thing, for dear life
Like a loyal and abiding ‘tree hugging liberal’
In an attempt to save an old forest from the saw
But since you won’t return my call
I guess the one thing I wanted you to know
It’s not the size of the utter which matters…..
It’s how much you tax the cow….
P.S.
I don’t know in some sort of sick and demented way
I’m guessing, I could be sexually attracted to you after all…..
This is America
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These are not my words, but I agree with them completely and hope everyone who reads this will pass it on to other media outlets.
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Posted by Sultan Knish on his blog:
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand” Mark Twain
Anyone who seriously believed after 9/11 that victory against the ongoing Islamic conquest would be accomplished by military force has by now been steadily disabused of that illusion after 5 years of political correctness, passivity and misguided campaigns to bring democracy to the Muslim world.
The war against Islam is not going to be won with guns or bombs. Force is merely the final solution to settling conflicts but Islam’s violence is for now only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger campaign to make the world into an Islamic domain.
While we fight with police actions and holding elections, Islamists are seizing control of governments by force or by democratic elections. They are conquering African nations and staging civil wars in pacific ones. They are importing millions of Muslims to Europe and America as Europe’s ‘Palestinians’ for a coming European Infitada. They are rewriting history to claim that Arab explorers originally discovered America and Australia giving them claim to the land. They are aggressively evangelizing hundreds of thousands a year to convert to Islam through misleading claims and marriages of Western women to Muslim men.
What we believe is a war, is merely a minor skirmish in a global conquest. While we spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives to stabilize a single Muslim country, dozens of non-Muslim countries including our own are being destabilized day by day.
The true war against Islam is not a military war, it is a cultural war. For Islam it is a religious conflict by an empire intent on transforming every aspect of life into one defined by Islam. For us it is about preserving our way of life. The cartoon controversy woke many Europeans to the fact that free speech and many of the other attributes of democracy that they take for granted are incompatible with Islam. Under the relentless pressure of multi-culturalism, they and we are increasingly deciding that our way of life has to bow to theirs.
This is the ultimate victory of Islam. Not the fall of the Twin Towers or any single act of terrorism is as great a victory for Islam as when our own government and press repeat their propoganda and muzzle their critics. This represents the submission of the West to their rule. It turns Islam into the only legally sanctioned religion in Western nations that have long since instituted seperations of Church and State.
Islam cannot be criticised by any public figure without violence quickly following. Islam cannot be criticised by the press without violence quickly following. No disrespect, real or percieved, towards Islam can be tolerated either. This is the lesson Muslim violence is teaching in Europe and much of the European and American media, politicians and clergy are becoming quick students. Criticism of Islam by individuals will get you condemned as a bigot by those very same people who are for all intents and purposes collaborating with our new tyrants.
While the entertainers, academics and pundits of a liberalized West are free to criticise and impugn Christianity and Judaism, Islam is a No-Go Zone. While Judaism and Christianity cannot be taught in the schools of a liberalized West, Islam can and is. Muslim religious artifacts can be displayed, Muslim religion taught and its holy books present, where those of other religions cannot. This elevates Islam to a special status. It gives Muslims power over other religions and they use that power. In a society where traditional religion is mocked, theirs is held sacred. Is it any wonder that sheltered from any criticism or negative appraisal by the same comedians and academics who tear apart Judaism and Christianity; that the view of many will be that Islam is a better religion. And this is exactly what Muslims want.
Our culture is being invaded. Our nations are being overrun. In England some government offices banned mugs featuring Piglet on them. In Israel a woman was sentenced to jail for drawing a cartoon of Mohammed as a pig. In America defaced Korans are being investigated as hate crimes. This is the power of the law backing up the power of the cultural consensus of our politicians and press and preventing any criticism or mockery of Islam as if this was Saudi Arabia. We can defeat Islam. We can stop this. If we fight back.
When Mark Twain said that, “Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand”, he was speaking as part of a long tradition of American humorists who satirized the great and powerfull, who knew that nothing so much cuts a puffed up ego to size and the insecure man hiding behind it, as a well told joke. Islam in our time is the biggest puffed up ego there is. A fradulent religion based on the plagirism of a vicious desert warlord turned into a global empire. There is not one thing new in Islam. Its only claim to power is that it is wielded by men more ruthless and murderous than any other today.
Muslim rage is not a strenght. When Muslims riot screaming in the streets every time they’re offended in some way, this is not the mark of a strong faith but a weak insecure one. So weak and insecure that it cannot turn the cheek or look down from a superior position of belief in the true God. Instead like all pagan savages it goes into a murderous rage because inside its worshippers know they are not the servants of a living God who can avenge all insults, but of a faith cribbed from Jews and Christians by an illiterate bandit who proceeded to win convert by terrorizing everyone who didn’t join his gang of bandits. Muslim rage does not emerge from a deep respect for Allah but from the knowledge that Allah is a fraud and that their entire system of belief is a fraud that could never stand up to any scrutiny. If the world’s religions were paintings in a museum, Islam would be a child’s dirty smeared finger painting all in one color.
Islam’s drive for world conquest is a sign of weakness. It is a sign of a deeply insecure faith. But then most killers are driven by their own insecurities too. The man who opens fire on a crowded cafateria is weak inside but that only makes his explosive violence more dangerous and it makes coddling him more dangerous because sooner or later he will kill.
The way to defeat Islam is never to coddle it, to enable its rages or its conquest of our lands. It is to stand up to it over and over again. It’s to laugh at it. Yes laugh it and ridicule it. America is a collection of immigrants with the humorous traditions of dozens of cultures, Irish, Jews, Italians, Scots, Russians, Asians. We’re not just the resevoir of the world’s talent but its humor too and humor is the ultimate weapon against the balloon that is Islam. Islam can only expand by force. It can’t leverage any real military force against us. Instead it expands by intimidation, by conformity, by deception, by political correctness. It has no defense against laughter. Men who are so insecure they would kill over a stray word here or there, can’t stand up to being laughed at, to being ridiculed, to have their cherished values transformed into a laughingstock.
We’re fighting a cultural war and humor is our best weapon. We’ve spent the last 50 years laughing and mocking every aspect of our societies. Let’s turn that laughter on Islam full bore. And Islam’s defenders will find it difficult to censor and silence humor, the way they can silence and discredit political commentary. To try and silence humor is to look like a prig and if there’s anything our politically correct cultural overlords hate, it’s to come out looking like the stuffy humorless totalitarian-minded fascists that they really are.
The front line of the cultural war between Islam and the West is right here. It’s the internet. It can’t be silenced or shut down. It’s the interface point between two colliding cultures. It’s the gateway for information and disinformation. It will also help determine which will stand and which will fall.
So go on telling those jokes. When the arguments run out and the rhetoric is exhausted, humor can always be fresh and a weapon no one can argue against. Get out your photoshops and make those pictures. Get out your Windows Movie Makers and make those videos. There’s one thing Muslims can’t stand above all else and that’s mockery. It drives them mad and when that happens they show their true face beneath the false polite masks they so often wear, in a way that not even liberals can long ignore.
Battling Islam with humor quickly clarifies the stakes for the west in an undeniable way showing that our choice is between maintaining our freedoms or losing them forever. Islam’s apologists, our press, our politicians, our academics have been cooking us like lobsters in a pot, slowly raising the temperature until we’re broiling and barely notice it. Muslim rage raises the temperature a lot. It wakes up some of those in the lobster pot as the murders of Theo VanGogh and the Cartoon controversy did.
A billion plus Muslims around the world are shouting angrily demanding that we take their perverted homicidal mania of a religion seriously. Let’s laugh at them instead.