An independent inquiry found that the NHS Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.
British Health System Nightmare: Hospital 'caused unimaginable suffering'...
Patients left 'unwashed in their own filth for month'...
Wards were left bloody, discarded needl...es; Sick drink water from flower vases...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7039285.ece
David Rose, Health Correspondent Patients were routinely neglected or left “sobbing and humiliated” by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.
An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs.
The inquiry report, published yesterday by Robert Francis, QC, included proposals for tough new regulations that could lead to managers at failing NHS trusts being struck off.
Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses “left a lot to be desired”.
The report, which follows reviews by the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, said that “unimaginable” suffering had been caused. Regulators said last year that between 400 and 1,200 more patients than expected may have died at the hospital from 2005 to 2008.
Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said there could be “no excuses” for the failures and added that the board that presided over the scandal had been replaced. An undisclosed number of doctors and at least one nurse are being investigated by the General Medical Council and Nursing and Midwifery Council.
Mr Burnham said it was a “longstanding anomaly” that the NHS did not have a robust way of regulating managers or banning them from working, as it does with doctors or nurses. “We must end the situation where a senior NHS manager who has failed in one job can simply move to another elsewhere,” he added. “This is not acceptable to the public and not conducive to promoting accountability and high professional standards.”
A system of professional accreditation for senior managers would be considered and the Mid Staffordshire trust might lose its foundation status.
Some NHS chief executives have received six-figure redundancy packages or moved to other trusts despite poor performance. Martin Yeates, the former chief executive at Mid Staffordshire, received pay rises that took his annual salary to £180,000, while standards at the trust deteriorated.
The Liberal Democrats claimed that he had also received a payoff of more than £400,000 after stepping down last March, though Mr Burnham said he had received “no more than his contractual entitlement”.
The Care Quality Commission, the NHS regulator, said that the trust under its new management was now “safe to provide services”. But it still had concerns about staffing, patient welfare, the availability and suitability of equipment at the trust, and how it monitored and dealt with complaints. The inquiry made 18 recommendations for the trust and the wider health service, which the Government accepted in full. They include a new review of how regulators and regional health authorities monitor NHS hospitals and a report on “early-warning systems” to identify failing trusts.
But the families of those who died or suffered poor care branded the inquiry a “whitewash” and repeated calls for a full public investigation. The Conservatives accused ministers of trying to blame managers rather than taking responsibility for problems with national targets.
Julie Bailey, who founded the victims’ campaign group Cure the NHS after her mother died at Stafford Hospital, said that the handling of the scandal was disgraceful and unacceptable.
“It is time that the public were told the truth about the very large number of excess deaths in NHS care and the very large number of avoidable but deadly errors that occur every day.”
The NHS Confederation, which represents health trusts, said: “The responsibility for the way this hospital was run rests with its board, management and staff but, as the report says, the framework of targets, regulatory systems and policy priorities it worked within are also very important.”
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Poll: More than half of Hispanics identify as conservative
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/022410dntexhisppolitics.39fae92.html
February 24, 2010
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – A bent to conservatism and family makes Hispanics a promising pool of votes for Republicans, but the party's targeting of illegal immigrants has withered its attraction.
Regardless, Gov. Rick Perry has fared relatively well, perhaps because of his anti-Washington rhetoric and his careful immigration stance, a recent poll indicates.
It shows more than half of Texas Hispanics call themselves conservative, and a surprising 23 percent say they might participate in Tuesday's GOP primary. Among those, Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 2 to 1, according to the poll, commissioned by an Austin consultant for a national group of Hispanic legislative leaders.
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the poll hints at a little-noticed facet of Perry's political persona: He doesn't frighten Hispanics because he often visits their communities, and he distances himself from immigration hard-liners in the GOP.
"He thought the border wall was a little ridiculous and didn't think it was going to help," said Van de Putte, Democrats' leader in the Senate and a co-chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in Denver two years ago. "What he wanted to keep out were those people that are smuggling drugs and people."
Van de Putte said Perry tilts more to the right than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and can't match Bush's high level of support among Hispanics. But she said many Hispanics remember that Perry signed a 2001 bill that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges. He has defended the bill, saying affected students have studied hard in Texas schools and will be good citizens.
"That kind of inoculated him a little bit," she said. She added: "Rick Perry is a tremendous retail campaigner."
Some political demographers remain skeptical that more than a smattering of Hispanics will cast GOP ballots next week or that Perry will capture much beyond token support among Latinos in the primary or November's election.
Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the nonpartisan Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said exit polls in recent governor's races show Perry captured far less of the Hispanic vote than the 39 percent that Bush grabbed in 1998 against Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Democrat.
Perry attracted only 13 percent of Hispanic votes cast in his 2002 general election showdown with Laredo banker Tony Sanchez, according to exit polls by the William C. Velasquez Institute, a think tank affiliated with Camarillo's group.
Four years ago, Perry won just 14 percent of Hispanic votes cast, compared with 40 percent for Democrat Chris Bell and 29 percent for independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, exit polls showed.
With both Perry and Hutchison stressing a lean state government and low taxes, Camarillo said, it's hard to see many Hispanics breaking for the GOP nominee this year.
Differing definitions
The poll found that only 18 percent of Texas Hispanics say they're liberal or progressive, while 54 percent say they're conservative, moderate conservative or religiously conservative.
But Camarillo said many Hispanics who identify themselves as conservative aren't talking about "less taxes, less government," the way white conservatives would.
"When a Latino says that he or she is conservative, they're thinking about how they are raising the kids and ... the family," she said. "It's more about work ethic, and that when you give your word, you give your word. Those kinds of things are what they're thinking of. It's a different frame of mind, and pollsters have yet to define it."
Demographer Dan Weiser pointed to voter turnout in recent Dallas County elections and said that despite the poll's findings, Perry can hope for relatively little Hispanic support.
In the hotly contested 2008 presidential primary in Dallas County, 91 percent of Hispanics who participated cast a Democratic ballot, he said. Weiser, a longtime student of Dallas politics, projects countywide turnout among minorities by studying key precincts dominated by blacks or Hispanics.
He said that while almost 300,000 voters participated in Dallas County's presidential primary two years ago, only 12 percent were Hispanics. Of about 92,000 voters in the county's last GOP presidential primary, only 4 percent were Hispanics, Weiser said.
"Each time you think there will be a real increase in Hispanic votes, I don't find it," he said.
Frank Santos, the Austin lobbyist and consultant who commissioned the poll, conceded it's only a first attempt to grasp Hispanics' complex leanings.
The Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs, a group of Hispanic legislative leaders from 32 states, paid for the poll. It was supervised by Cristina Garcia, a California-based researcher who studies Hispanic civic engagement. There were telephone interviews with 502 registered Hispanic voters, conducted Jan. 27-31, in either English or Spanish, at the choice of the voter surveyed. The poll has an error margin of 4.4 percent, meaning results can vary by that much in either direction.
A wakeup call
"It's really a wakeup call for both parties," said Santos, the group's executive director. "Either [Hispanics] are being taken for granted by the Democratic Party or they're being ignored by the Republican Party."
He said that of about 3 million new people added to Texas' population between 2000 and 2008, 63 percent were Hispanic.
A majority said they're conservative, but a bigger share, 63 percent, said they identify most with the Democratic Party. And 70 percent approve of the job that President Barack Obama is doing. Meanwhile, 54 percent approve of Perry's performance as governor; and 58 percent, of Hutchison's as senator.
"What does that say?" Santos said. "It says they're a growing, developing and evolving electorate."
February 24, 2010
By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – A bent to conservatism and family makes Hispanics a promising pool of votes for Republicans, but the party's targeting of illegal immigrants has withered its attraction.
Regardless, Gov. Rick Perry has fared relatively well, perhaps because of his anti-Washington rhetoric and his careful immigration stance, a recent poll indicates.
It shows more than half of Texas Hispanics call themselves conservative, and a surprising 23 percent say they might participate in Tuesday's GOP primary. Among those, Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 2 to 1, according to the poll, commissioned by an Austin consultant for a national group of Hispanic legislative leaders.
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the poll hints at a little-noticed facet of Perry's political persona: He doesn't frighten Hispanics because he often visits their communities, and he distances himself from immigration hard-liners in the GOP.
"He thought the border wall was a little ridiculous and didn't think it was going to help," said Van de Putte, Democrats' leader in the Senate and a co-chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in Denver two years ago. "What he wanted to keep out were those people that are smuggling drugs and people."
Van de Putte said Perry tilts more to the right than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and can't match Bush's high level of support among Hispanics. But she said many Hispanics remember that Perry signed a 2001 bill that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges. He has defended the bill, saying affected students have studied hard in Texas schools and will be good citizens.
"That kind of inoculated him a little bit," she said. She added: "Rick Perry is a tremendous retail campaigner."
Some political demographers remain skeptical that more than a smattering of Hispanics will cast GOP ballots next week or that Perry will capture much beyond token support among Latinos in the primary or November's election.
Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the nonpartisan Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said exit polls in recent governor's races show Perry captured far less of the Hispanic vote than the 39 percent that Bush grabbed in 1998 against Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Democrat.
Perry attracted only 13 percent of Hispanic votes cast in his 2002 general election showdown with Laredo banker Tony Sanchez, according to exit polls by the William C. Velasquez Institute, a think tank affiliated with Camarillo's group.
Four years ago, Perry won just 14 percent of Hispanic votes cast, compared with 40 percent for Democrat Chris Bell and 29 percent for independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, exit polls showed.
With both Perry and Hutchison stressing a lean state government and low taxes, Camarillo said, it's hard to see many Hispanics breaking for the GOP nominee this year.
Differing definitions
The poll found that only 18 percent of Texas Hispanics say they're liberal or progressive, while 54 percent say they're conservative, moderate conservative or religiously conservative.
But Camarillo said many Hispanics who identify themselves as conservative aren't talking about "less taxes, less government," the way white conservatives would.
"When a Latino says that he or she is conservative, they're thinking about how they are raising the kids and ... the family," she said. "It's more about work ethic, and that when you give your word, you give your word. Those kinds of things are what they're thinking of. It's a different frame of mind, and pollsters have yet to define it."
Demographer Dan Weiser pointed to voter turnout in recent Dallas County elections and said that despite the poll's findings, Perry can hope for relatively little Hispanic support.
In the hotly contested 2008 presidential primary in Dallas County, 91 percent of Hispanics who participated cast a Democratic ballot, he said. Weiser, a longtime student of Dallas politics, projects countywide turnout among minorities by studying key precincts dominated by blacks or Hispanics.
He said that while almost 300,000 voters participated in Dallas County's presidential primary two years ago, only 12 percent were Hispanics. Of about 92,000 voters in the county's last GOP presidential primary, only 4 percent were Hispanics, Weiser said.
"Each time you think there will be a real increase in Hispanic votes, I don't find it," he said.
Frank Santos, the Austin lobbyist and consultant who commissioned the poll, conceded it's only a first attempt to grasp Hispanics' complex leanings.
The Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs, a group of Hispanic legislative leaders from 32 states, paid for the poll. It was supervised by Cristina Garcia, a California-based researcher who studies Hispanic civic engagement. There were telephone interviews with 502 registered Hispanic voters, conducted Jan. 27-31, in either English or Spanish, at the choice of the voter surveyed. The poll has an error margin of 4.4 percent, meaning results can vary by that much in either direction.
A wakeup call
"It's really a wakeup call for both parties," said Santos, the group's executive director. "Either [Hispanics] are being taken for granted by the Democratic Party or they're being ignored by the Republican Party."
He said that of about 3 million new people added to Texas' population between 2000 and 2008, 63 percent were Hispanic.
A majority said they're conservative, but a bigger share, 63 percent, said they identify most with the Democratic Party. And 70 percent approve of the job that President Barack Obama is doing. Meanwhile, 54 percent approve of Perry's performance as governor; and 58 percent, of Hutchison's as senator.
"What does that say?" Santos said. "It says they're a growing, developing and evolving electorate."
Flashback: Obama & Dems in 2005 Oppose Reconciliation!
VIDEO FLASHBACK: Obama & Dems in 2005: 51 Vote 'Nuclear Option' Is 'Arrogant' Power Grab...(Any bets on if they change their tune for the healthcare vote?) Only this time it will be done against the wishes of the public!!!
Biden: "I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don't make the kind of naked power gra...b you are doing."
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/
Biden: "I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don't make the kind of naked power gra...b you are doing."
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-dems-in-2005-51-vote-nuclear-option-is-arrogant-power-grab-against-the-founders-intent/
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Canadian Premier on US health procedure: 'This was my heart, my choice and my health'
Canadian Premier on US health procedure: 'This was my heart, my choice and my health'... "I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h0QC7bditrEb3wYz_6_b-gsGGDxA
'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgery
By Tara Brautigam (CP) – 19 hours ago
An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.
"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.
"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn't closing properly, creating a leakage.
He said he was told at the time that the problem was "moderate" and that he should come back for a checkup in six months.
Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.
His doctors in Canada presented him with two options - a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would've required breaking bones, he said.
He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador. He advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
That's where he was treated by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.
Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn't require any bone breakage.
"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.
Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.
"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.
"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."
Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.
"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.
"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."
He quipped that he had "a heart of a 40-year-old, so that gives me 20 years new life," and said he intends to run in the next provincial election in 2011.
"I'm probably going to be around for a long time, hopefully, if God willing," he said.
"God forbid for the Canadian public I won't be around longer than ever."
Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.
"If I'm entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would," he said.
"But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven't even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don't know what I'm entitled to, if anything, and if it's nothing, then so be it."
He is expected back at work in early March.
Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h0QC7bditrEb3wYz_6_b-gsGGDxA
'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending decision for U.S. heart surgery
By Tara Brautigam (CP) – 19 hours ago
An unapologetic Danny Williams says he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery earlier this month would spark outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a "minimally invasive" surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago, based on the advice of his doctors.
"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.
"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."
The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn't closing properly, creating a leakage.
He said he was told at the time that the problem was "moderate" and that he should come back for a checkup in six months.
Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.
His doctors in Canada presented him with two options - a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would've required breaking bones, he said.
He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador. He advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
That's where he was treated by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.
Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn't require any bone breakage.
"I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time," the premier said.
Williams said he didn't announce his departure south of the border because he didn't want to create "a media gong show," but added that criticism would've followed him had he chose to have surgery in Canada.
"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. ... I accept that. That's public life," he said.
"(But) this is not a unique phenomenon to me. This is something that happens with lots of families throughout this country, so I make no apologies for that."
Williams said his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system.
"I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador, but we are just over half a million people," he said.
"We do whatever we can to provide the best possible health care that we can in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Canadian health care system has a great reputation, but this is a very specialized piece of surgery that had to be done and I went to somebody who's doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week."
He quipped that he had "a heart of a 40-year-old, so that gives me 20 years new life," and said he intends to run in the next provincial election in 2011.
"I'm probably going to be around for a long time, hopefully, if God willing," he said.
"God forbid for the Canadian public I won't be around longer than ever."
Williams also said he paid for the treatment, but added he would seek any refunds he would be eligible for in Canada.
"If I'm entitled to any reimbursement from any Canadian health care system or any provincial health care system, then obviously I will apply for that as anybody else would," he said.
"But I wrote out the cheque myself and paid for it myself and to this point, I haven't even looked into the possibility of any reimbursement. I don't know what I'm entitled to, if anything, and if it's nothing, then so be it."
He is expected back at work in early March.
Copyright © 2010 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Secession: A Solution to the Washington Debt Threat
http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/secession-as-a-solution-to-the-washington-debt-threat/
Feb 12th, 2010 By Ron Holland
Frédéric Bastiat must have been looking toward the future of the United States today when he said, “When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.”
I fear the federal government will plunder much of our private wealth, retirement plans and personal savings through hyperinflation, financial controls and confiscatory tax rates all in the name of protecting the public from a future debt crisis unless the states can secede from the Union and the crushing Washington debt load.
The first actual secession following several attempts by the New England states took place in the South and it ended with the defeat of the Confederate States of America. Now secession is again in the news and this time it may be the only solution to surviving the coming Washington national debt crisis.
We need to forget the causes of the earlier War Between the States, regional differences, slavery, tariffs and other related issues. The new secession effort will be state-based but a national movement all across the United States ranging from Vermont to Georgia, Texas to Alaska etc. Economic survival and prosperity rather than regional issues will be motivating factor.
The first secession was a product of anti-southern tariff taxes resulting in the Southern states paying the majority of the revenue to fund the distant federal government. A mistaken defense of the dying institution of slavery by slaveholding elites in the South also contributed to the failed secession effort. Third, the advancement of corporate manufacturing profits and railroad expansionism by the Northeastern establishment elites were a major contributor. Finally the promotion of a conflict by the European Rothschild banking interests funding both the Northern abolitionists and the Southern secessionists guaranteed a violent breakup of what should have been a peaceful parting of the states.
Still the right of democratic state-by-state secession did not die at the point of a bayonet at Appomattox Court House in 1865. The belief in peaceful devolution of government powers and services to regions and local jurisdictions to allow citizens to control the power of politicians and government is a positive advancement for the 21st century. In addition, the right of devolution of states, geographic regions and groups around the world promotes competition and freedom.
I believe legal state secession from the Washington Empire just might become the only way for American citizens to escape the disastrous consequences from the coming global run to liquidate holdings of Washington treasury obligations and the dollar. Breaking free of the false chains that threaten our economic future from the likely Washington debt/dollar collapse might be our last chance to safeguard our financial security and liberty from the hyperinflation and crushing new tax increases to be forced on this and future generations from the bailouts and national debt.
Imagine no Washington income tax, no interference in the internal affairs of individual states, no involvement in perpetual wars around the world without a declaration of war, no Washington tax-feeding bureaucrats telling individual citizens, state legislatures or state agencies what to do.
Consider the benefits of sovereign states voluntarily participating in a decentralized republic or confederation, maybe like America’s first central government created by our patriot founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation. A decentralized nation where marriage, religious views, history, symbols, culture, abortion, gay rights etc. are determined on a state basis, Where citizens can eat, drink, smoke or do whatever with regulations and conduct governed by the norms of a state or locality rather than a distant federal government.
Can you envision a healthy economy, with minimal government debts combined with a rising standard of living and job growth guaranteed by low taxes, minimal regulations and currency competition? All of this without the Federal Reserve and Wall Street creating excessive bubbles followed by contraction and collapse and then demanding bailouts.
Imagine for a moment a people and sovereign states with future generations free from the illegitimate Washington national debt which threatens to destroy the prosperity, savings, housing values and jobs for our children and grandchildren. Review the US National Debt Clock which tells the entire story and our future. Today the official US National Debt breaks down to $40,079 per individual. Look at the clock link to see the increase per second.
Finally, when you consider the total unfunded liabilities of Washington (see the link above), the liability per American citizen is $177,515. Remember, none of the citizens of the individual states or America in general have had the opportunity to vote on the bailout or approve these debts most of which have gone to international corporations, Wall Street and world banking cartels. We, our children and future generations should not have to fund or pay off an illegitimate debt created just to bail out a few global corporations and wealthy special interests.
The Washington Empire is now run for the benefit of New York financial and economic interests who own and control most of Congress. Due to the recent bailouts and added debt which the majority of Americans opposed, the United States is now sadly on the path toward economic, debt and currency destruction.
Why should my state, South Carolina or other states join the federal government in future poverty, loss of freedoms and lagging economic prosperity with a dismal future determined by their foreign creditors? I say, it is time to free the states and citizens from the dark economic future which Washington and Wall Street have created. Just maybe we can finally be free at last from Washington’s national debt.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, from his I have a Dream speech said, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” To quote another Southerner, Jefferson Davis was right when he stated, “I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
I think it is time for Americans left and right to reconsider where our nation and the federal government have ended up. Few would question that the all-powerful Washington government living on borrowed debt and fake prosperity is a political model which has failed miserably.
Today the constitutional protections have become just another dead document through the actions of Bush and Obama. A recent, WSJ/NBC poll showed that only 3% of Americans believe the government is doing a good job. Given the margin of error in the poll, the real % could have been zero.
Let’s revisit the political wisdom of the original republic founded through the blood and sacrifice of our patriot founding fathers. Back to something like the original republic of sovereign state republics, the Articles of Confederation.
Today in 2010, join me in voting both for the dream of Dr. King and the vision of Jefferson Davis. It is time to replace the failed Washington leviathan with a new limited central government based on the original vision of sovereign states where we become again, “these United States” instead of “the United States.” I’m voting in 2010 and 2012 in support of the Tenth Amendment and for the right of nullification.
Finally, if necessary, I’ll support temporary secession efforts from the empire until we restore the original republic of our founding fathers. We must be free of an illegitimate national debt, an unconstitutional Federal Reserve and protected by currency competition and the choice of a currency based on the gold standard.
Feb 12th, 2010 By Ron Holland
Frédéric Bastiat must have been looking toward the future of the United States today when he said, “When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.”
I fear the federal government will plunder much of our private wealth, retirement plans and personal savings through hyperinflation, financial controls and confiscatory tax rates all in the name of protecting the public from a future debt crisis unless the states can secede from the Union and the crushing Washington debt load.
The first actual secession following several attempts by the New England states took place in the South and it ended with the defeat of the Confederate States of America. Now secession is again in the news and this time it may be the only solution to surviving the coming Washington national debt crisis.
We need to forget the causes of the earlier War Between the States, regional differences, slavery, tariffs and other related issues. The new secession effort will be state-based but a national movement all across the United States ranging from Vermont to Georgia, Texas to Alaska etc. Economic survival and prosperity rather than regional issues will be motivating factor.
The first secession was a product of anti-southern tariff taxes resulting in the Southern states paying the majority of the revenue to fund the distant federal government. A mistaken defense of the dying institution of slavery by slaveholding elites in the South also contributed to the failed secession effort. Third, the advancement of corporate manufacturing profits and railroad expansionism by the Northeastern establishment elites were a major contributor. Finally the promotion of a conflict by the European Rothschild banking interests funding both the Northern abolitionists and the Southern secessionists guaranteed a violent breakup of what should have been a peaceful parting of the states.
Still the right of democratic state-by-state secession did not die at the point of a bayonet at Appomattox Court House in 1865. The belief in peaceful devolution of government powers and services to regions and local jurisdictions to allow citizens to control the power of politicians and government is a positive advancement for the 21st century. In addition, the right of devolution of states, geographic regions and groups around the world promotes competition and freedom.
I believe legal state secession from the Washington Empire just might become the only way for American citizens to escape the disastrous consequences from the coming global run to liquidate holdings of Washington treasury obligations and the dollar. Breaking free of the false chains that threaten our economic future from the likely Washington debt/dollar collapse might be our last chance to safeguard our financial security and liberty from the hyperinflation and crushing new tax increases to be forced on this and future generations from the bailouts and national debt.
Imagine no Washington income tax, no interference in the internal affairs of individual states, no involvement in perpetual wars around the world without a declaration of war, no Washington tax-feeding bureaucrats telling individual citizens, state legislatures or state agencies what to do.
Consider the benefits of sovereign states voluntarily participating in a decentralized republic or confederation, maybe like America’s first central government created by our patriot founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation. A decentralized nation where marriage, religious views, history, symbols, culture, abortion, gay rights etc. are determined on a state basis, Where citizens can eat, drink, smoke or do whatever with regulations and conduct governed by the norms of a state or locality rather than a distant federal government.
Can you envision a healthy economy, with minimal government debts combined with a rising standard of living and job growth guaranteed by low taxes, minimal regulations and currency competition? All of this without the Federal Reserve and Wall Street creating excessive bubbles followed by contraction and collapse and then demanding bailouts.
Imagine for a moment a people and sovereign states with future generations free from the illegitimate Washington national debt which threatens to destroy the prosperity, savings, housing values and jobs for our children and grandchildren. Review the US National Debt Clock which tells the entire story and our future. Today the official US National Debt breaks down to $40,079 per individual. Look at the clock link to see the increase per second.
Finally, when you consider the total unfunded liabilities of Washington (see the link above), the liability per American citizen is $177,515. Remember, none of the citizens of the individual states or America in general have had the opportunity to vote on the bailout or approve these debts most of which have gone to international corporations, Wall Street and world banking cartels. We, our children and future generations should not have to fund or pay off an illegitimate debt created just to bail out a few global corporations and wealthy special interests.
The Washington Empire is now run for the benefit of New York financial and economic interests who own and control most of Congress. Due to the recent bailouts and added debt which the majority of Americans opposed, the United States is now sadly on the path toward economic, debt and currency destruction.
Why should my state, South Carolina or other states join the federal government in future poverty, loss of freedoms and lagging economic prosperity with a dismal future determined by their foreign creditors? I say, it is time to free the states and citizens from the dark economic future which Washington and Wall Street have created. Just maybe we can finally be free at last from Washington’s national debt.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, from his I have a Dream speech said, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” To quote another Southerner, Jefferson Davis was right when he stated, “I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
I think it is time for Americans left and right to reconsider where our nation and the federal government have ended up. Few would question that the all-powerful Washington government living on borrowed debt and fake prosperity is a political model which has failed miserably.
Today the constitutional protections have become just another dead document through the actions of Bush and Obama. A recent, WSJ/NBC poll showed that only 3% of Americans believe the government is doing a good job. Given the margin of error in the poll, the real % could have been zero.
Let’s revisit the political wisdom of the original republic founded through the blood and sacrifice of our patriot founding fathers. Back to something like the original republic of sovereign state republics, the Articles of Confederation.
Today in 2010, join me in voting both for the dream of Dr. King and the vision of Jefferson Davis. It is time to replace the failed Washington leviathan with a new limited central government based on the original vision of sovereign states where we become again, “these United States” instead of “the United States.” I’m voting in 2010 and 2012 in support of the Tenth Amendment and for the right of nullification.
Finally, if necessary, I’ll support temporary secession efforts from the empire until we restore the original republic of our founding fathers. We must be free of an illegitimate national debt, an unconstitutional Federal Reserve and protected by currency competition and the choice of a currency based on the gold standard.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Canadian Premier COMES TO USA for surgery!
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700
N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S.
Kenyon Wallace, National Post
Published: Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.
Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.
"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.
"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.
Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.
"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.
Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.
A popular Progressive Conservative premier, Mr. Williams has also seen his share of controversy. During the 2008 federal election, Mr. Williams vehemently opposed the Conservative government, launching his "Anything But Conservative" -- which has been credited with keeping the Tories from winning any seats in the province.
He's also drawn criticism for his support of the seal hunt.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700#ixzz0ePXdwhG3
The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
N.L. Premier Williams set to have heart surgery in U.S.
Kenyon Wallace, National Post
Published: Tuesday, February 02, 2010
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States.
Deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation or how it would be paid for.
"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.
"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."
Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.
"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.
Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.
"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.
Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.
A popular Progressive Conservative premier, Mr. Williams has also seen his share of controversy. During the 2008 federal election, Mr. Williams vehemently opposed the Conservative government, launching his "Anything But Conservative" -- which has been credited with keeping the Tories from winning any seats in the province.
He's also drawn criticism for his support of the seal hunt.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2510700#ixzz0ePXdwhG3
The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese
Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 1 February 2010
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".
The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.
It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.
The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.
The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"
Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.
Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.
"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."
In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.
Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.
Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.
"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.
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David King backs off on climate hacking
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7 Dec 2009The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it's working George Monbiot
23 Nov 2009Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see George Monbiot
16 Nov 2009Top 10 Tory bloggers disagree with David Cameron on climate change
17 Sep 2009China's top climatologist stays cool over 2C rise
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About this articleClose Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flawsThis article was published on guardian.co.uk at 21.00 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010. It was last modified at 22.46 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010. Latest from environmentMost viewed Latest Most commented Last 24 hours
1. Global deal on climate change in 2010 'all but impossible' 2. Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws 3. Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics 4. Rajendra Pachauri fails to get British support over 'unsubstantiated' climate report claims 5. David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails More top stories Chances of Copenhagen climate talks 'rematch' unlikely, say experts Leaked emails scientist 'hid' data flaws 'Climategate' claims based on lies All today's storiesLast 24 hours
1. Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics (786 comments) 2. James Delingpole leads Telegraph into vicious climate over email George Monbiot (330) 3. Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws (270) 4. How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies Fred Pearce (134) 5. David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails (84) Green shopping Choc-Affair Orange Chocolate
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Fred Pearce
guardian.co.uk,
Monday 1 February 2010
Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based.
A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced.
Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming – a hotly contested issue.
Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".
The revelations on the inadequacies of the 1990 paper do not undermine the case that humans are causing climate change, and other studies have produced similar findings. But they do call into question the probity of some climate change science.
The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.
Wang was cleared of scientific fraud by his university, but new information brought to light today indicates at least one senior colleague had serious concerns about the affair.
It also emerges that documents which Wang claimed would exonerate him and Jones did not exist.
The revelations come at a torrid time for climate science, with the IPPC suffering heavy criticism for its use of information that had not been rigorously checked – in particular a false claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035 – and UEA having been criticised last week by the deputy information commissioner for refusing valid requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act.
The Guardian has learned that of 105 freedom of information requests to the university concerning the climatic research unit (CRU), which Jones headed up to the end of December, only 10 had been released in full.
The temperature data from the Chinese weather stations measured the warming there over the past half century and appeared in a 1990 paper in the prestigious journal Nature, which was cited by the IPCC's latest report in 2007.
Climate change sceptics asked the UEA, via FOI requests, for location data for the 84 weather stations in eastern China, half of which were urban and half rural.
The history of where the weather stations were sited was crucial to Jones and Wang's 1990 study, as it concluded the rising temperatures recorded in China were the result of global climate changes rather the warming effects of expanding cities.
The IPCC's 2007 report used the study to justify the claim that "any urban-related trend" in global temperatures was small. Jones was one of two "coordinating lead authors" for the relevant chapter.
The leaked emails from the CRU reveal that the former director of the unit, Tom Wigley, harboured grave doubts about the cover-up of the shortcomings in Jones and Wang's work. Wigley was in charge of CRU when the original paper was published. "Were you taking W-CW [Wang] on trust?" he asked Jones. He continued: "Why, why, why did you and W-CW not simply say this right at the start?"
Jones said he was not able to comment on the story.
Wang said: "I have been exonerated by my university on all the charges. When we started on the paper we had all the station location details in order to identify our network, but we cannot find them any more.
"Some of the location changes were probably only a few metres, and where they were more we corrected for them."
In an interview with the Observer on Sunday Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, warned of the danger of a public backlash against mainstream climate science over claims that scientists manipulated data. He declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans. "It's right that there's rigour applied to all the reports about climate change, but I think it would be wrong that when a mistake is made it's somehow used to undermine the overwhelming picture that's there," he said.
Last week the Information Commissioner's Office – the body that administers the Freedom of Information Act – said the University of East Anglia had flouted the rules in its handling of an FOI request in May 2008.
Days after receiving the request for information from the British climate change sceptic David Holland, Jones asked Prof Mike Mann of Pennsylvania State University in the United States: "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise.
"Can you also email Gene [Eugene Wahl, a paleoclimatologist in Boulder, Colorado] and get him to do the same ... We will be getting Caspar [Ammann, also from Boulder] to do the same."
The University of East Anglia says that no emails were deleted following this exchange.
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+44 (0)20 3353 2000 Advertising guide License/buy our content EnvironmentClimate change · Climate change scepticism ScienceClimate change UK newsWorld newsMore news More on this storyMoving weather posts and a scientist under siege
Fred Pearce: How 'climategate' scandal is bogus
David King backs off on climate hacking
Related
7 Dec 2009The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it's working George Monbiot
23 Nov 2009Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see George Monbiot
16 Nov 2009Top 10 Tory bloggers disagree with David Cameron on climate change
17 Sep 2009China's top climatologist stays cool over 2C rise
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+44 (0)20 3353 2000 Advertising guide License/buy our content
About this articleClose Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flawsThis article was published on guardian.co.uk at 21.00 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010. It was last modified at 22.46 GMT on Monday 1 February 2010. Latest from environmentMost viewed Latest Most commented Last 24 hours
1. Global deal on climate change in 2010 'all but impossible' 2. Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws 3. Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics 4. Rajendra Pachauri fails to get British support over 'unsubstantiated' climate report claims 5. David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails More top stories Chances of Copenhagen climate talks 'rematch' unlikely, say experts Leaked emails scientist 'hid' data flaws 'Climategate' claims based on lies All today's storiesLast 24 hours
1. Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics (786 comments) 2. James Delingpole leads Telegraph into vicious climate over email George Monbiot (330) 3. Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws (270) 4. How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies Fred Pearce (134) 5. David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails (84) Green shopping Choc-Affair Orange Chocolate
These chocolate are individually wrapped, and elegantly presented in a reusable jar.
Heat sensitive CO2 Mug
The colours change to reveal the world's most severe carbon footprint offenders!
Most viewed on guardian.co.uk24 hours 7 days 24 hours1. US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles 2. Transfer deadline day - as it happened! 3. Charlie Brooker iPad therefore iWant? Probably. Why? iDunno 4. How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power 5. Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit More top stories 7 days1. US raises stakes on Iran by sending in ships and missiles 2. Transfer deadline day - as it happened! 3. The boy who paints like an old master 4. How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power 5. The Apple tablet: the experts' view More top stories Free P&P at the Guardian bookshop Natural Hazards£42.99 with free UK delivery Global Warming£24.99 with free UK deliveryBrowse more nature and science books Buy books from the Guardian Bookshop Sponsored features UK USA UK Browse environment jobs
Senior Environmental Consultantallen & york.
uae.
£4724 - £5906 or 28000AED - 35000AED.
Green Infrastructure Consultantthe environment partnership llp.
north west england.
Negotiable.
Health & Safety Managerallen & york.
our client is a large corporate with interests thr….
£30k - £33k.
USA Browse environment jobs
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Emerging Leaders in Science Program — R&D Pipeline Optimization and Improvement s Emerging Leaders in Science PhD Rotational Program... to work in a heavily matrixed, team-based environment. Ability and willingness to relocate. Desired... MO
Emerging Leaders in Science Program — Genomics Strategies for Crop Improvement s Emerging Leaders in Science PhD Rotational Program... and desire to work in a heavily matrixed, team-based environment. Ability and willingness to relocate... MO
Emerging Leaders in Science Program — Application of Engineering for Crop Improvement s Emerging Leaders in Science PhD Rotational Program... production, and growing environments. This includes knowledge of field environment technologies such as... MO
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Related informationEnvironmentClimate change · Climate change scepticism ScienceClimate change UK newsWorld news
'If the governments sleep, let the people rise'
14 Dec 2009:
Green visions video: Dr Vandana Shiva in Copenhagen: Organic farming can play a key role in protecting the planet
More video
25 Jun 2009Climate science is by nature uncertain Adam Corner
20 May 2009George Monbiot: Price of doing nothing costs the earth
27 Apr 2009John Theodore Houghton: The truth about climate change
11 Aug 2008Letter: Denial lies at the heart of climate change policy
Monbiot's royal flush: Cut out and keep climate change denier cards
9 Mar 2009:
George Monbiot's top 10 climate change deniers - in cut out and keep card form
More galleries
License/buy our content Privacy policy Terms & conditions Advertising guide Accessibility A-Z index Inside guardian.co.uk blog About guardian.co.uk Join our dating site today
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Go to: guardian.co.uk home UK news World news Comment is free blog Newsblog Sport blog Arts & Entertainment blog Audio & podcasts In pictures Video Archive search Arts & entertainment Books Business EducationGuardian.co.uk Environment Film Football Jobs Katine appeal Life & style MediaGuardian.co.uk Money Music The Observer Politics Science Shopping SocietyGuardian.co.uk Sport Talk Technology Travel Been there Subscription services Email services Special reports The Guardian The Northerner The Wrap Advertising guide Compare finance products Crossword Feedback Garden centre GNM Press Office Graduate Bookshop Guardian Ecostore Guardian Films Headline service Help / contacts Information Living our values Newsroom Notes & Queries Promotions Reader Offers Readers' editor Soulmates dating Style guide Syndication services Travel offers TV listings Weather Working for us Guardian Weekly Public Learn Guardian back issues Observer back issues Guardian Professional
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
SCIENTISTS IN STOLEN EMAIL SCANDAL HID CLIMATE DATA
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7004936.ece
From The Times
January 28, 2010
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, and Jonathan Leake
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.
The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.
The stolen e-mails , revealed on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, showed how the university’s Climatic Research Unit attempted to thwart requests for scientific data and other information, and suggest that senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests. It is not known who stole the e-mails.
Professor Phil Jones, the unit’s director, stood down while an inquiry took place. The ICO’s decision could make it difficult for him to resume his post.
Details of the breach emerged the day after John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, warned that there was an urgent need for more honesty about the uncertainty of some predictions. His intervention followed admissions from scientists that the rate of glacial melt in the Himalayas had been grossly exaggerated.
In one e-mail, Professor Jones asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also told a colleague that he had persuaded the university authorities to ignore information requests under the act from people linked to a website run by climate sceptics.
A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.
The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory that the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.
In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”
He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.”
Mr Holland said: “There is an apparent Catch-22 here. The prosecution has to be initiated within six months but you have to exhaust the university’s complaints procedure before the commission will look at your complaint. That process can take longer than six months.”
The university said: “The way freedom of information requests have been handled is one of the main areas being explored by Sir Muir Russell’s independent review. The findings will be made public and we will act as appropriate on its recommendations.”
From The Times
January 28, 2010
Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data
Ben Webster, Environment Editor, and Jonathan Leake
The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny.
The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.
The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach.
The stolen e-mails , revealed on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, showed how the university’s Climatic Research Unit attempted to thwart requests for scientific data and other information, and suggest that senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests. It is not known who stole the e-mails.
Professor Phil Jones, the unit’s director, stood down while an inquiry took place. The ICO’s decision could make it difficult for him to resume his post.
Details of the breach emerged the day after John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser, warned that there was an urgent need for more honesty about the uncertainty of some predictions. His intervention followed admissions from scientists that the rate of glacial melt in the Himalayas had been grossly exaggerated.
In one e-mail, Professor Jones asked a colleague to delete e-mails relating to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He also told a colleague that he had persuaded the university authorities to ignore information requests under the act from people linked to a website run by climate sceptics.
A spokesman for the ICO said: “The legislation prevents us from taking any action but from looking at the emails it’s clear to us a breach has occurred.” Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine.
The complaint to the ICO was made by David Holland, a retired engineer from Northampton. He had been seeking information to support his theory that the unit broke the IPCC’s rules to discredit sceptic scientists.
In a statement, Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner at the ICO, said: “The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation. Section 77 of the Act makes it an offence for public authorities to act so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information.”
He added: “The ICO is gathering evidence from this and other time-barred cases to support the case for a change in the law. We will be advising the university about the importance of effective records management and their legal obligations in respect of future requests for information.”
Mr Holland said: “There is an apparent Catch-22 here. The prosecution has to be initiated within six months but you have to exhaust the university’s complaints procedure before the commission will look at your complaint. That process can take longer than six months.”
The university said: “The way freedom of information requests have been handled is one of the main areas being explored by Sir Muir Russell’s independent review. The findings will be made public and we will act as appropriate on its recommendations.”
Sunday, January 17, 2010
VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ ORDERS NATIONALIZATION OF EXITO, OWNED BY FRENCH COMPANY
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100117-703649.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesEurope
CARACAS (Dow Jones)--President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain on accusations that it raised prices after Venezuela devalued the currency by half.
"Until when are we going to allow this to happen?" Chavez asked during his Sunday television program in reference to the alleged price hike by Almacenes Exito SA (EXITO.BO), headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino
CARACAS (Dow Jones)--President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain on accusations that it raised prices after Venezuela devalued the currency by half.
"Until when are we going to allow this to happen?" Chavez asked during his Sunday television program in reference to the alleged price hike by Almacenes Exito SA (EXITO.BO), headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Global coolng may set in for 20-30 years!
UN scientist admits 'global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling'...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html
The mini ice age starts here
By David Rose
Last updated at 11:17 AM on 10th January 2010
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.
They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.
This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.
However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.
Last week, as Britain froze, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband maintained in a parliamentary answer that the science of global warming was ‘settled’.
Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.
Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.
He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.
Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.
'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.
‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’
As Europe, Asia and North America froze last week, conventional wisdom insisted that this was merely a ‘blip’ of no long-term significance.
Though record lows were experienced as far south as Cuba, where the daily maximum on beaches normally used for winter bathing was just 4.5C, the BBC assured viewers that the big chill was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming.
The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.
On the one hand, it is true that the current freeze is the product of the ‘Arctic oscillation’ – a weather pattern that sees the development of huge ‘blocking’ areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to the south.
Meteorologists say that this is at its strongest for at least 60 years.
As a result, the jetstream – the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain – is currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar.
However, according to Prof Latif and his colleagues, this in turn relates to much longer-term shifts – what are known as the Pacific and Atlantic ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs).
For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming.
But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles.
'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries.
'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’
Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures.
But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise.
Many of the consequences of the recent warm mode were also observed 90 years ago.
For example, in 1922, the Washington Post reported that Greenland’s glaciers were fast disappearing, while Arctic seals were ‘finding the water too hot’.
It interviewed a Captain Martin Ingebrigsten, who had been sailing the eastern Arctic for 54 years: ‘He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, and since that time it has gotten steadily warmer.
'Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended into the sea they have entirely disappeared.’
As a result, the shoals of fish that used to live in these waters had vanished, while the sea ice beyond the north coast of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean had melted.
Warm Gulf Stream water was still detectable within a few hundred miles of the Pole.
In contrast, Prof Tsonis said, last week 56 per cent of the surface of the United States was covered by snow.
‘That hasn’t happened for several decades,’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while.’
He recalled that towards the end of the last cold mode, the world’s media were preoccupied by fears of freezing.
For example, in 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’
Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’
Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles.
'This isn't just a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while'
But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.
'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’
Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’.
He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’
He said he also received hate mail from climate change sceptics, accusing him of not going far enough to attack the theory of man-made warming.
The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much?
Tsonis did not give a figure; Latif suggested it could be anything between ten and 50 per cent.
Other critics of the warming orthodoxy say the role played by MDOs is even greater.
William Gray, emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, said that while he believed there had been some background rise caused by greenhouse gases, the computer models used by advocates of man-made warming had hugely exaggerated their effect.
According to Prof Gray, these distort the way the atmosphere works. ‘Most of the rise in temperature from the Seventies to the Nineties was natural,’ he said. ‘Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.’
But last week, die-hard warming advocates were refusing to admit that MDOs were having any impact.
In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.
Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual £10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.
'This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’
The longer the cold spell lasts, the harder it may be to persuade the public of that assertion.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html
The mini ice age starts here
By David Rose
Last updated at 11:17 AM on 10th January 2010
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.
They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.
This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.
However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.
Last week, as Britain froze, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband maintained in a parliamentary answer that the science of global warming was ‘settled’.
Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.
Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.
He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.
Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.
'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.
‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’
As Europe, Asia and North America froze last week, conventional wisdom insisted that this was merely a ‘blip’ of no long-term significance.
Though record lows were experienced as far south as Cuba, where the daily maximum on beaches normally used for winter bathing was just 4.5C, the BBC assured viewers that the big chill was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming.
The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.
On the one hand, it is true that the current freeze is the product of the ‘Arctic oscillation’ – a weather pattern that sees the development of huge ‘blocking’ areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to the south.
Meteorologists say that this is at its strongest for at least 60 years.
As a result, the jetstream – the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain – is currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar.
However, according to Prof Latif and his colleagues, this in turn relates to much longer-term shifts – what are known as the Pacific and Atlantic ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs).
For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming.
But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles.
'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries.
'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’
Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures.
But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise.
Many of the consequences of the recent warm mode were also observed 90 years ago.
For example, in 1922, the Washington Post reported that Greenland’s glaciers were fast disappearing, while Arctic seals were ‘finding the water too hot’.
It interviewed a Captain Martin Ingebrigsten, who had been sailing the eastern Arctic for 54 years: ‘He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, and since that time it has gotten steadily warmer.
'Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended into the sea they have entirely disappeared.’
As a result, the shoals of fish that used to live in these waters had vanished, while the sea ice beyond the north coast of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean had melted.
Warm Gulf Stream water was still detectable within a few hundred miles of the Pole.
In contrast, Prof Tsonis said, last week 56 per cent of the surface of the United States was covered by snow.
‘That hasn’t happened for several decades,’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while.’
He recalled that towards the end of the last cold mode, the world’s media were preoccupied by fears of freezing.
For example, in 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’
Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’
Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles.
'This isn't just a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while'
But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.
'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’
Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’.
He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’
He said he also received hate mail from climate change sceptics, accusing him of not going far enough to attack the theory of man-made warming.
The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much?
Tsonis did not give a figure; Latif suggested it could be anything between ten and 50 per cent.
Other critics of the warming orthodoxy say the role played by MDOs is even greater.
William Gray, emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, said that while he believed there had been some background rise caused by greenhouse gases, the computer models used by advocates of man-made warming had hugely exaggerated their effect.
According to Prof Gray, these distort the way the atmosphere works. ‘Most of the rise in temperature from the Seventies to the Nineties was natural,’ he said. ‘Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.’
But last week, die-hard warming advocates were refusing to admit that MDOs were having any impact.
In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.
Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual £10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.
'This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’
The longer the cold spell lasts, the harder it may be to persuade the public of that assertion.
Chavez Orders Currency Devaluation By 50%; Says He'll Seize Businesses That Raise Prices, Nat'l. Guard To Enforce!
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN096521320100109
Chavez orders currency devaluation by 50% in Venezuela...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTtr11jqdrdM
Chavez Says He’ll Seize Businesses That Raise Prices
By Daniel Cancel
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that businesses have no reason to raise prices following the devaluation of the bolivar and that the government will seize any entity that boosts its prices.
Chavez said he’ll create an anti-speculation committee to monitor prices after private businesses said that prices would double and consumers rushed to buy household appliances and televisions. The government is the only authority able to dictate price increases, he said.
“The bourgeois are already talking about how all prices are going to double and they’re closing their businesses to raise prices,” Chavez said in comments on state television during his weekly “Alo Presidente” program. “People, don’t let them rob you, denounce it, and I’m capable of taking over that business.”
Chavez devalued the bolivar as much as 50 percent on Jan. 8 for the first time in almost 5 years, as last year’s decline in oil revenue caused the economy to contract an estimated 2.9 percent, its first recession since 2003. The government set a multi-tiered currency system that Chavez says will stimulate national production by making imports more expensive.
Inflation Outlook
The devaluation may add to inflation by 3 percent to 5 percent this year, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said. The government forecast an inflation rate of 20 percent to 22 percent this year, after consumer prices rose 25 percent, according to the National Consumer Price Index.
The government also will “attack” the so-called parallel exchange rate, which Chavez called “illegal.”
Venezuelans turn to the parallel rate when they can’t get government authorization to buy dollars at the official exchange rate. The bolivar traded at 6.25 per dollar on Jan. 8, traders said.
“They put the value of the dollar at more than 6 in an arbitrary and illegal manner,” Chavez said. “We have to organize to reduce and attack that speculative, illegal dollar that hurts the Venezuelan economy so much.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Cancel in Caracas at dcancel@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 10, 2010 13:15 EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1012995920100110?type=usDollarRpt
Chavez warns business after Venezuela devaluation
3:08pm EST
* Chavez orders National Guard to stop price rises
By Frank Jack Daniel
CARACAS, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Venezuela's Hugo Chavez ordered soldiers to seek out businesses that raise prices after a sharp devaluation of the bolivar currency last week, saying his government will not tolerate price gouging.
"Right now, there is absolutely no reason for anybody to be raising prices of absolutely anything," he said on his weekly TV show, two days after announcing a dual exchange system for the fixed rate bolivar.
"I want the National Guard on the streets with the people to fight against speculation," he said to applause. "Publicly denounce the speculator and we will intervene in any business of any size."
The socialist Chavez believes the state should have a hefty role in managing the economy. During his 11 years in office he has nationalized most heavy industries, while business and finance are tightly regulated.
The former paratrooper says the devaluation will help make Venezuelan companies more competitive but he warned the government would take over shops and give them to their workers if price rises were discovered.
After browbeating firms that might raise prices, Chavez announced a $1 billion fund for credits and subsidies to help diversify the economy and get industry back on its feet. He invited businessmen to round-table talks with the government.
"A billion dollars for the substitution of imports, starting with food," he said.
Venezuela's economy is largely dependent on oil exports and slipped into recession last year as crude prices fell and manufacturing and industry output crashed.
PROTECT THE POOR
South America's top oil exporter imports most consumer products. Under the new system, food and medicines will be imported at an exchange rate of 2.6 bolivars to the dollar while non-essential goods will be bought at a rate of 4.3 per dollar. Since 2005 the bolivar had been fixed at 2.15.
Venezuelans packed electrical goods stores on Saturday, fearing prices will double as the cost of imports rise.
Some analysts say the price impact of the devaluation will not be so severe, pointing out that in reality much of Venezuela's imports are already paid for with dollars bought on a semi-legal black market, where the bolivar is worth about a third of its official rate. It closed at 6.15 on Friday.
Other top officials have said in recent days that Venezuela's inflation, already the highest in the Americas at 25 percent last year, will be pushed up by the devaluation.
Chavez said the measures would make businesses and farmers more competitive and help wean the country off imported goods.
"This is going to mean more economic and financial strength for the government, for the oil industry, which belongs to us all, and therefore fiscal strength. We are going to have more resources for social investment," Chavez said on Saturday.
Chavez said subsidies introduced by his government, along with the stronger exchange rate for food and medicine would protect the poor from a bump in inflation.
"This government protects and will continue to protect the weakest with investment and with special attention," he said.
The devaluation is a relief for state oil company PDVSA, which has struggled to pay service providers and meet social spending requirements since crude prices dropped last year.
Holders of Venezuela's foreign debt are also pleased, since the devaluation improves government finances and lessens the need to issue more bonds.
Last month, BMO Capital Markets cut ratings on Colgate-Palmolive Co, Avon Products Inc and Kimberly-Clark Corp to "market perform" saying a possible devaluation in Venezuela could hurt the U.S. consumer goods makers' profits. (Additional reporting by Patricia Rondon, Editing by Sandra Maler)
Chavez orders currency devaluation by 50% in Venezuela...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTtr11jqdrdM
Chavez Says He’ll Seize Businesses That Raise Prices
By Daniel Cancel
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that businesses have no reason to raise prices following the devaluation of the bolivar and that the government will seize any entity that boosts its prices.
Chavez said he’ll create an anti-speculation committee to monitor prices after private businesses said that prices would double and consumers rushed to buy household appliances and televisions. The government is the only authority able to dictate price increases, he said.
“The bourgeois are already talking about how all prices are going to double and they’re closing their businesses to raise prices,” Chavez said in comments on state television during his weekly “Alo Presidente” program. “People, don’t let them rob you, denounce it, and I’m capable of taking over that business.”
Chavez devalued the bolivar as much as 50 percent on Jan. 8 for the first time in almost 5 years, as last year’s decline in oil revenue caused the economy to contract an estimated 2.9 percent, its first recession since 2003. The government set a multi-tiered currency system that Chavez says will stimulate national production by making imports more expensive.
Inflation Outlook
The devaluation may add to inflation by 3 percent to 5 percent this year, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said. The government forecast an inflation rate of 20 percent to 22 percent this year, after consumer prices rose 25 percent, according to the National Consumer Price Index.
The government also will “attack” the so-called parallel exchange rate, which Chavez called “illegal.”
Venezuelans turn to the parallel rate when they can’t get government authorization to buy dollars at the official exchange rate. The bolivar traded at 6.25 per dollar on Jan. 8, traders said.
“They put the value of the dollar at more than 6 in an arbitrary and illegal manner,” Chavez said. “We have to organize to reduce and attack that speculative, illegal dollar that hurts the Venezuelan economy so much.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Cancel in Caracas at dcancel@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: January 10, 2010 13:15 EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1012995920100110?type=usDollarRpt
Chavez warns business after Venezuela devaluation
3:08pm EST
* Chavez orders National Guard to stop price rises
By Frank Jack Daniel
CARACAS, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Venezuela's Hugo Chavez ordered soldiers to seek out businesses that raise prices after a sharp devaluation of the bolivar currency last week, saying his government will not tolerate price gouging.
"Right now, there is absolutely no reason for anybody to be raising prices of absolutely anything," he said on his weekly TV show, two days after announcing a dual exchange system for the fixed rate bolivar.
"I want the National Guard on the streets with the people to fight against speculation," he said to applause. "Publicly denounce the speculator and we will intervene in any business of any size."
The socialist Chavez believes the state should have a hefty role in managing the economy. During his 11 years in office he has nationalized most heavy industries, while business and finance are tightly regulated.
The former paratrooper says the devaluation will help make Venezuelan companies more competitive but he warned the government would take over shops and give them to their workers if price rises were discovered.
After browbeating firms that might raise prices, Chavez announced a $1 billion fund for credits and subsidies to help diversify the economy and get industry back on its feet. He invited businessmen to round-table talks with the government.
"A billion dollars for the substitution of imports, starting with food," he said.
Venezuela's economy is largely dependent on oil exports and slipped into recession last year as crude prices fell and manufacturing and industry output crashed.
PROTECT THE POOR
South America's top oil exporter imports most consumer products. Under the new system, food and medicines will be imported at an exchange rate of 2.6 bolivars to the dollar while non-essential goods will be bought at a rate of 4.3 per dollar. Since 2005 the bolivar had been fixed at 2.15.
Venezuelans packed electrical goods stores on Saturday, fearing prices will double as the cost of imports rise.
Some analysts say the price impact of the devaluation will not be so severe, pointing out that in reality much of Venezuela's imports are already paid for with dollars bought on a semi-legal black market, where the bolivar is worth about a third of its official rate. It closed at 6.15 on Friday.
Other top officials have said in recent days that Venezuela's inflation, already the highest in the Americas at 25 percent last year, will be pushed up by the devaluation.
Chavez said the measures would make businesses and farmers more competitive and help wean the country off imported goods.
"This is going to mean more economic and financial strength for the government, for the oil industry, which belongs to us all, and therefore fiscal strength. We are going to have more resources for social investment," Chavez said on Saturday.
Chavez said subsidies introduced by his government, along with the stronger exchange rate for food and medicine would protect the poor from a bump in inflation.
"This government protects and will continue to protect the weakest with investment and with special attention," he said.
The devaluation is a relief for state oil company PDVSA, which has struggled to pay service providers and meet social spending requirements since crude prices dropped last year.
Holders of Venezuela's foreign debt are also pleased, since the devaluation improves government finances and lessens the need to issue more bonds.
Last month, BMO Capital Markets cut ratings on Colgate-Palmolive Co
Friday, January 08, 2010
Gov't. Run Programs - A History Of Failure!
The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
Social Securitywas established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CAREYSTEM??
Social Securitywas established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars
AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CAREYSTEM??
Thursday, January 07, 2010
stats comparing gov't. vs. private sector
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-59.pdf
From a new Cato report on "Employee Compensation in State and Local Governments":
The study's author, Chris Edwards, found that the wage premium for public sector employees was about 34 percent and for benefits about 70 percent.
One way to assess whether overall public sector compensation is too high is to look at voluntary job quit rates. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the average quit rate in the state and local workforce is just one-third the rate in the private sector.5 That suggests that state and local pay is higher than needed to attract qualified workers.
-----------------
Excessive Retirement Benefits
Table 1 indicated that state and local workers have very generous defined-benefit (DB) pension plans compared to private sector workers. These plans have been overpromised and underfunded, which has created huge long-term gaps in government budgets. Indeed, these gaps are not reflected in the Table 1 data, and thus the ultimate costs of DB plans will be higher than indicated.
From a new Cato report on "Employee Compensation in State and Local Governments":
The study's author, Chris Edwards, found that the wage premium for public sector employees was about 34 percent and for benefits about 70 percent.
One way to assess whether overall public sector compensation is too high is to look at voluntary job quit rates. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that the average quit rate in the state and local workforce is just one-third the rate in the private sector.5 That suggests that state and local pay is higher than needed to attract qualified workers.
-----------------
Excessive Retirement Benefits
Table 1 indicated that state and local workers have very generous defined-benefit (DB) pension plans compared to private sector workers. These plans have been overpromised and underfunded, which has created huge long-term gaps in government budgets. Indeed, these gaps are not reflected in the Table 1 data, and thus the ultimate costs of DB plans will be higher than indicated.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Venezuela begins 2010 with electricity rationing
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.227e6a4e11ba39c08630e5729d693330.9e1&show_article=1
Jan 2 04:35 PM US/Eastern
Oil-rich Venezuela ushered in 2010 with new measures rationing electricity use in malls, businesses and billboards, as Hugo Chavez's government aimed to save power amid a crippling drought.
The new regulations came into effect January 1, with businesses required to comply with reduced consumption limits and authorities warning of forced power cuts and rate hikes if the measures are not followed.
A decree published on Christmas Eve states that commercial centers may operate from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm on the electricity grid, but beyond that establishments would have to operate off-grid, using their own generators.
Venezuela is flush with oil -- the country's primary export -- and natural gas, but relies mainly on hydroelectric generation to meet domestic energy demand.
With the country in a widespread drought, late last year Chavez announced a sweeping campaign to reduce widespread energy "waste," stressing that rationing was necessary to avoid a systemic "collapse."
Shopping centers in Caracas Saturday opened at the appointed new hour, although industry representatives called for extending the time frame, arguing that night-time energy consumption is less than 10 percent of the total.
The power crunch is expected to have an impact on a wide variety of businesses, including cinemas, casinos and bingo halls.
Establishments failing to comply with the measures could face outages for a period of 24 hours, and up to 72-hour suspensions "in case of recidivism," according to the decree.
The regulation also orders businesses to institute savings plans aimed at shedding consumption by at least 20 percent, a measure that will be evaluated monthly by the newly-created ministry of electricity.
Tariff surcharges of up to 20 percent could be imposed on violators.
Rationing is also to apply to lighted advertisements.
Introductory measures were evident in Caracas last month, with the neon signs that traditionally welcome Christmas left unlit.
The state-controlled aluminum and steel industries halted some of their production lines in order to reduce energy consumption by some 560 megawatts (MW).
Electricity demand in Venezuela is more than 16,500 MW, far higher than what is currently generated. Experts say the power sector requires 18 billion dollars in investment through 2014.
In 2009 there were four nationwide blackouts, with daily failures common in several cities.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Jan 2 04:35 PM US/Eastern
Oil-rich Venezuela ushered in 2010 with new measures rationing electricity use in malls, businesses and billboards, as Hugo Chavez's government aimed to save power amid a crippling drought.
The new regulations came into effect January 1, with businesses required to comply with reduced consumption limits and authorities warning of forced power cuts and rate hikes if the measures are not followed.
A decree published on Christmas Eve states that commercial centers may operate from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm on the electricity grid, but beyond that establishments would have to operate off-grid, using their own generators.
Venezuela is flush with oil -- the country's primary export -- and natural gas, but relies mainly on hydroelectric generation to meet domestic energy demand.
With the country in a widespread drought, late last year Chavez announced a sweeping campaign to reduce widespread energy "waste," stressing that rationing was necessary to avoid a systemic "collapse."
Shopping centers in Caracas Saturday opened at the appointed new hour, although industry representatives called for extending the time frame, arguing that night-time energy consumption is less than 10 percent of the total.
The power crunch is expected to have an impact on a wide variety of businesses, including cinemas, casinos and bingo halls.
Establishments failing to comply with the measures could face outages for a period of 24 hours, and up to 72-hour suspensions "in case of recidivism," according to the decree.
The regulation also orders businesses to institute savings plans aimed at shedding consumption by at least 20 percent, a measure that will be evaluated monthly by the newly-created ministry of electricity.
Tariff surcharges of up to 20 percent could be imposed on violators.
Rationing is also to apply to lighted advertisements.
Introductory measures were evident in Caracas last month, with the neon signs that traditionally welcome Christmas left unlit.
The state-controlled aluminum and steel industries halted some of their production lines in order to reduce energy consumption by some 560 megawatts (MW).
Electricity demand in Venezuela is more than 16,500 MW, far higher than what is currently generated. Experts say the power sector requires 18 billion dollars in investment through 2014.
In 2009 there were four nationwide blackouts, with daily failures common in several cities.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
Thursday, December 31, 2009
No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091230184221.htm
ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.
However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.
However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.
Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.
To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.
In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Carbon Claim: Pets worse than SUVS
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091220/sc_afp/lifestyleclimatewarminganimalsfood
by Isabelle Toussaint and Jurgen Hecker Isabelle Toussaint And Jurgen Hecker
Sun Dec 20, 3:23 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.
But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.
The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.
To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.
"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.
Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.
Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.
But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.
"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.
"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"
Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.
"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.
"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.
And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.
With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.
Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.
And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.
But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.
"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.
"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."
Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.
As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.
But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.
"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.
by Isabelle Toussaint and Jurgen Hecker Isabelle Toussaint And Jurgen Hecker
Sun Dec 20, 3:23 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.
But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.
The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.
To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.
"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.
Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.
Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.
But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.
"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.
"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"
Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.
"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.
"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.
And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.
With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.
Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.
And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.
But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.
"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.
"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."
Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.
As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.
But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.
"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.
Banks with political ties got bailouts, study shows
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2124009320091221?type=marketsNews
Mon, Dec 21 2009
* Banks with influence got access to bailouts, more money
* Lobbying, political expenses coincided with bailouts
By Steve Eder
NEW YORK, Dec 21 (Reuters) - U.S. banks that spent more money on lobbying were more likely to get government bailout money, according to a study released on Monday.
Banks whose executives served on Federal Reserve boards were more likely to receive government bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the study from Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, professors at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Banks with headquarters in the district of a U.S. House of Representatives member who serves on a committee or subcommittee relating to TARP also received more funds.
Political influence was most helpful for poorly performing banks, the study found.
"Political connections play an important role in a firm's access to capital," Sosyura, a University of Michigan assistant professor of finance, said in a statement.
Banks with an executive who sat on the board of a Federal Reserve Bank were 31 percent more likely to get bailouts through TARP's Capital Purchase Program, the study showed. Banks with ties to a finance committee member were 26 percent more likely to get capital purchase program funds.
As of late September, nearly 700 financial institutions had received bailouts of $205 billion under the capital purchase program, the study said.
The banking industry has long been criticized for using political influence to obtain bailouts.
Scott Talbott, a senior vice president with industry lobbying group The Financial Services Roundtable, said the study was skewed because it did not exclude nine of the largest banks that were "strongly asked" by the government to take bailouts.
Those banks included Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co , and Morgan Stanley -- all of which repaid their bailouts in June.
Bank of America Coand Citigroup Inc more recently announced plans to pay back taxpayers.
Talbott also noted that $116 billion has been repaid with interest.
"This demonstrates the banks were excellent stewards of the taxpayer's money," Talbott said.
But a watchdog for the government's bailout, the special inspector general for TARP, said last month that the broader $700 billion bailout program "almost certainly" will result in an overall loss for taxpayers.
President Obama said in October that despite the bailout, there was still too little credit flowing to small businesses. (Reporting by Steve Eder; Editing by Gary Hill)
Mon, Dec 21 2009
* Banks with influence got access to bailouts, more money
* Lobbying, political expenses coincided with bailouts
By Steve Eder
NEW YORK, Dec 21 (Reuters) - U.S. banks that spent more money on lobbying were more likely to get government bailout money, according to a study released on Monday.
Banks whose executives served on Federal Reserve boards were more likely to receive government bailout funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the study from Ran Duchin and Denis Sosyura, professors at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.
Banks with headquarters in the district of a U.S. House of Representatives member who serves on a committee or subcommittee relating to TARP also received more funds.
Political influence was most helpful for poorly performing banks, the study found.
"Political connections play an important role in a firm's access to capital," Sosyura, a University of Michigan assistant professor of finance, said in a statement.
Banks with an executive who sat on the board of a Federal Reserve Bank were 31 percent more likely to get bailouts through TARP's Capital Purchase Program, the study showed. Banks with ties to a finance committee member were 26 percent more likely to get capital purchase program funds.
As of late September, nearly 700 financial institutions had received bailouts of $205 billion under the capital purchase program, the study said.
The banking industry has long been criticized for using political influence to obtain bailouts.
Scott Talbott, a senior vice president with industry lobbying group The Financial Services Roundtable, said the study was skewed because it did not exclude nine of the largest banks that were "strongly asked" by the government to take bailouts.
Those banks included Goldman Sachs Group Inc
Bank of America Co
Talbott also noted that $116 billion has been repaid with interest.
"This demonstrates the banks were excellent stewards of the taxpayer's money," Talbott said.
But a watchdog for the government's bailout, the special inspector general for TARP, said last month that the broader $700 billion bailout program "almost certainly" will result in an overall loss for taxpayers.
President Obama said in October that despite the bailout, there was still too little credit flowing to small businesses. (Reporting by Steve Eder; Editing by Gary Hill)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
UK HEALTH CARE: Babies put at risk by understaffed wards, sinking into chaos. Mothers drugged to keep them quiet...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1235921/Midwives-meltdown-A-NHS-worker-reveals-understaffed-maternity-wards-sinking-chaos.html
NHS maternity services in meltdown: A former midwife reveals how understaffed wards are sinking into chaos
By Verena Burns
Last updated at 1:21 AM on 16th December 2009
Clutching her husband's hand and with agony and exhaustion etched on her face, a young woman struggled into a room in the maternity unit where I worked.
She was in the early stages of labour with her first baby, she was terrified, in excruciating pain and desperate for any crumb of support.
Helpless beside her, her overnight bag in his hand, her poor husband looked equally traumatised.
My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do. With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and didn't have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.
I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.
Just half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. 'Would you like a painkiller?' I asked.
Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she'd given birth.
Her baby was healthy, but I knew I'd let her down.
As I watched her being wheeled into the ward, I felt eaten up with guilt. She'd effectively been ignored from the moment she turned up until the moment she gave birth.
Plonked on an antenatal ward until her time came, with no one to reassure her during what was most likely the most terrifying moment of her life.
No woman should have to give birth in these conditions - let alone in a modern hospital with professional staff at hand.
Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs.
When I read about newly qualified midwife Theresa Naish, who hanged herself in January after a premature baby died on her shift, I couldn't help wondering if she, too, was a victim of the over-worked and under-resourced labour wards I have experienced.
Her father Thomas told the inquest into her death: 'Like all NHS staff, she was over-worked, doing too many hours in a department that was understaffed.'
Although the child had little chance of survival, poor Theresa spent weeks torturing herself that she was to blame, before killing herself.
I don't want to alarm people for, of course, the vast majority of babies are born healthy and safe, but I think it's time we admit what is happening in our hospitals.
Driven by targets and mired in red tape, our NHS maternity wards are becoming baby-producing factories where mothers' needs come very low on the agenda.
The quicker midwives turn out babies, the more successful everyone tells us that we are. We might as well be producing sausages. It's utter madness.
I started working as a midwife in Basildon in 1995. I left to work as an independent midwife in January last year because I simply could not bear to let any more women down.
During a typical 12-hour shift, I could be the sole midwife in charge of six women in the antenatal ward - some in early labour - or one of two qualified midwives running a postnatal ward with up to 32 women.
If I was in the delivery unit, I would assist in the births of up to three babies a shift.
Obviously, if there was a crisis during a woman's labour - such as a sudden need for an emergency Caesarean - there was always a surgical team on call, and there would be an anaesthetist available to administer epidurals and so on.
But in terms of the normal care through labour, that was all down to the midwives.
Although we were under huge stress even back in 1995, current cutbacks mean fewer and fewer midwives are caring for more and more women.
No wonder new mothers are encouraged to leave hospital just hours after giving birth.
When I started in the mid-Nineties, there were 35,000 midwives working in Britain. A year or two ago, that number had fallen to 25,000, more than half of whom were part-time.
So, how bad did it get? Take one typical day I remember a few years ago. I found myself with up to six patients to look after at once and no back-up.
From the moment I stepped into the admissions ward, the area was crammed with women clamouring for attention.
Two women were in early labour. I longed to reassure them. But my stress levels rocketed when I saw the dramas that lay ahead.
One young woman, expecting her second baby in three months, had arrived in an ambulance with high blood pressure.
She had been sent by her GP, who feared that her life and her baby's were in danger.
High blood pressure is often a symptom of pre-eclampsia - one of the most serious risks facing a pregnant woman and one of the most difficult to detect.
Terrified she was going to lose her baby, or die, or both, she was frightened. I tried to reassure her.
All the while, half my brain was on the screams of the two women in early labour a few doors away.
Did they need more pain relief? When would they need to go into the delivery suite?
I had to check my new patient's blood pressure every 15 minutes as well as taking blood samples to be sent for analysis to see exactly what the problem was.
It was a race against time because if her blood pressure carried on rising I'd have to ensure she was whisked off for emergency surgery.
As I ran between her bed and the two women in early labour, I barely had time to greet another patient.
She was in floods of tears. Her baby was due in a month. He had stopped moving and she was convinced he was dead.
Strapping her up to a monitor to check the baby's heartbeat, I tried to calm her. But I didn't even have time to offer her a cup of tea before rushing to another new arrival.
She'd arrived in an ambulance after her waters broke while she was out shopping. The baby wasn't due for another week. Again, her unborn baby had to be urgently monitored.
I was frantically checking my watch to ensure I remembered my patient with high blood pressure when a young woman, hair matted with sweat and eyes wild with fear, staggered towards me.
'I can't take any more,' she said, gripping my hand. 'You've got to help me.' She'd been in labour for five hours and the pain was excruciating. I knew she'd be happier in a delivery room - which is more comfortable and has better specialist equipment - rather than a bed on the ward, but my heart sank. There was no room.
I felt sick with guilt as I led her back to her bed. She was in agony, but she'd have to wait.
It was an hour before she was wheeled into the labour room. And in between nursing, I had to write up notes on each patient.
There were days when I barely had time to go to the toilet.
In the 13 years since I joined the NHS, conditions have deteriorated. Starting from the moment they arrive through the hospital doors, birth plans tucked neatly in their overnight bags, women are being betrayed.
There is reams of evidence to prove that a woman's labour is likely to be shorter and she runs less chance of needing medical intervention if she feels calm and relaxed in the early stages. It's not rocket science.
Yet because midwives don't have time to sit with women in early labour for more than a few minutes at most, we are encouraged to do the next best thing.
We offer them strong painkilling drugs such as pethidine or diamorphine - which is a form of heroin.
Drugs keep the mother nice and quiet which, of course, suits staff.
But they also likely to make her and her unborn baby terribly sleepy.
Although these drugs can sometimes increase contractions, they all too often slow them down.
The end result at the woman will need more drugs, not fewer, and labour will take longer.
But, of course, we don't explain of that as we dole out our pain killers. Besides, on a busy ward, what's the alternative?
Once a woman is in full labour, you'd thought we'd put her needs first. But I'm embarrassed to admit that, all too often, we were not allowed to.
Most hospitals rigidly enforce the rule that, once in labour, a woman's canal must dilate at the rate of 1cm an hour.
If that isn't happening, midwives are encouraged to tell the her that her baby may be getting in distress - even if that isn't the case.
Terrified and exhausted by a haze of drugs, the woman agrees to anything which is offered.
In practice, this means we give her extra drugs to intensify the contractions and so speed the arrival of the child.
Her pain levels increase and she'll need an epidural injection in her spine to numb the pain around her groin.
It's a vicious circle. I felt terribly mean persuading women to go along with it. I knew I wasn't always acting in their best interests. But what could I do?
It's a joke to say women have choices over how they give birth. The truth is - thanks to the drive to cut costs and improve efficiency - births are turning into conveyer-belt productions.
Women dream of having a natural birth and there is often no medical reason why they can't.
Instead, they leave the delivery room with a healthy baby, but feeling like a failure because they have used drugs.
Some are on such heavy drugs they don't remember giving birth at all. It's heartbreaking.
I also get very angry when I hear NHS authorities extolling the virtues of breastfeeding.
According to the NHS website, it's the 'best start in life'. I couldn't agree more.
But the truth is that breastfeeding rates are plummeting in the hospitals I've worked in.
The reason is simple. Midwives don't have the time to spend helping mothers to feed properly.
And without that vital support in the early days, women give up. With three women arriving on a ward at any one time, and three ready to leave, how could I possibly sit for an hour and help a new mother?
It's physically impossible, particularly as we are encouraged to rush women home as soon as they are on their feet.
It's to save money, but it does at least reduce the risk of the new mums and their babies picking up an infection.
It's no news that hospitals are often dirty. By the time I left, I was almost inured to the filth around me.
With so many women and too little time, it was impossible to keep the wards spotless.
I regularly found myself wiping off blood which had been missed by the cleaners in their rush.
It's a huge relief to have left the NHS. As an independent midwife in Northwich, Cheshire, I am finally able to help women the way they deserve.
Calm, supported and not rushed, my mothers give birth in six to seven hours. In the units where I worked, the average labour was ten to 14 hours.
I feel guilty about the women I let down as an NHS midwife. Weak and in pain, they don't have the knowledge or strength to stand up for themselves.
Instead, they end up being patronised by doctors and bullied by midwives into taking drugs they don't want.
But what makes me most sad and angry is that those hospital staff - everyone from managers down - are taking advantage of women when they are at their most vulnerable.
Interview: TESSA CUNNINGHAM
NHS maternity services in meltdown: A former midwife reveals how understaffed wards are sinking into chaos
By Verena Burns
Last updated at 1:21 AM on 16th December 2009
Clutching her husband's hand and with agony and exhaustion etched on her face, a young woman struggled into a room in the maternity unit where I worked.
She was in the early stages of labour with her first baby, she was terrified, in excruciating pain and desperate for any crumb of support.
Helpless beside her, her overnight bag in his hand, her poor husband looked equally traumatised.
My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do. With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and didn't have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.
I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.
Just half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. 'Would you like a painkiller?' I asked.
Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she'd given birth.
Her baby was healthy, but I knew I'd let her down.
As I watched her being wheeled into the ward, I felt eaten up with guilt. She'd effectively been ignored from the moment she turned up until the moment she gave birth.
Plonked on an antenatal ward until her time came, with no one to reassure her during what was most likely the most terrifying moment of her life.
No woman should have to give birth in these conditions - let alone in a modern hospital with professional staff at hand.
Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs.
When I read about newly qualified midwife Theresa Naish, who hanged herself in January after a premature baby died on her shift, I couldn't help wondering if she, too, was a victim of the over-worked and under-resourced labour wards I have experienced.
Her father Thomas told the inquest into her death: 'Like all NHS staff, she was over-worked, doing too many hours in a department that was understaffed.'
Although the child had little chance of survival, poor Theresa spent weeks torturing herself that she was to blame, before killing herself.
I don't want to alarm people for, of course, the vast majority of babies are born healthy and safe, but I think it's time we admit what is happening in our hospitals.
Driven by targets and mired in red tape, our NHS maternity wards are becoming baby-producing factories where mothers' needs come very low on the agenda.
The quicker midwives turn out babies, the more successful everyone tells us that we are. We might as well be producing sausages. It's utter madness.
I started working as a midwife in Basildon in 1995. I left to work as an independent midwife in January last year because I simply could not bear to let any more women down.
During a typical 12-hour shift, I could be the sole midwife in charge of six women in the antenatal ward - some in early labour - or one of two qualified midwives running a postnatal ward with up to 32 women.
If I was in the delivery unit, I would assist in the births of up to three babies a shift.
Obviously, if there was a crisis during a woman's labour - such as a sudden need for an emergency Caesarean - there was always a surgical team on call, and there would be an anaesthetist available to administer epidurals and so on.
But in terms of the normal care through labour, that was all down to the midwives.
Although we were under huge stress even back in 1995, current cutbacks mean fewer and fewer midwives are caring for more and more women.
No wonder new mothers are encouraged to leave hospital just hours after giving birth.
When I started in the mid-Nineties, there were 35,000 midwives working in Britain. A year or two ago, that number had fallen to 25,000, more than half of whom were part-time.
So, how bad did it get? Take one typical day I remember a few years ago. I found myself with up to six patients to look after at once and no back-up.
From the moment I stepped into the admissions ward, the area was crammed with women clamouring for attention.
Two women were in early labour. I longed to reassure them. But my stress levels rocketed when I saw the dramas that lay ahead.
One young woman, expecting her second baby in three months, had arrived in an ambulance with high blood pressure.
She had been sent by her GP, who feared that her life and her baby's were in danger.
High blood pressure is often a symptom of pre-eclampsia - one of the most serious risks facing a pregnant woman and one of the most difficult to detect.
Terrified she was going to lose her baby, or die, or both, she was frightened. I tried to reassure her.
All the while, half my brain was on the screams of the two women in early labour a few doors away.
Did they need more pain relief? When would they need to go into the delivery suite?
I had to check my new patient's blood pressure every 15 minutes as well as taking blood samples to be sent for analysis to see exactly what the problem was.
It was a race against time because if her blood pressure carried on rising I'd have to ensure she was whisked off for emergency surgery.
As I ran between her bed and the two women in early labour, I barely had time to greet another patient.
She was in floods of tears. Her baby was due in a month. He had stopped moving and she was convinced he was dead.
Strapping her up to a monitor to check the baby's heartbeat, I tried to calm her. But I didn't even have time to offer her a cup of tea before rushing to another new arrival.
She'd arrived in an ambulance after her waters broke while she was out shopping. The baby wasn't due for another week. Again, her unborn baby had to be urgently monitored.
I was frantically checking my watch to ensure I remembered my patient with high blood pressure when a young woman, hair matted with sweat and eyes wild with fear, staggered towards me.
'I can't take any more,' she said, gripping my hand. 'You've got to help me.' She'd been in labour for five hours and the pain was excruciating. I knew she'd be happier in a delivery room - which is more comfortable and has better specialist equipment - rather than a bed on the ward, but my heart sank. There was no room.
I felt sick with guilt as I led her back to her bed. She was in agony, but she'd have to wait.
It was an hour before she was wheeled into the labour room. And in between nursing, I had to write up notes on each patient.
There were days when I barely had time to go to the toilet.
In the 13 years since I joined the NHS, conditions have deteriorated. Starting from the moment they arrive through the hospital doors, birth plans tucked neatly in their overnight bags, women are being betrayed.
There is reams of evidence to prove that a woman's labour is likely to be shorter and she runs less chance of needing medical intervention if she feels calm and relaxed in the early stages. It's not rocket science.
Yet because midwives don't have time to sit with women in early labour for more than a few minutes at most, we are encouraged to do the next best thing.
We offer them strong painkilling drugs such as pethidine or diamorphine - which is a form of heroin.
Drugs keep the mother nice and quiet which, of course, suits staff.
But they also likely to make her and her unborn baby terribly sleepy.
Although these drugs can sometimes increase contractions, they all too often slow them down.
The end result at the woman will need more drugs, not fewer, and labour will take longer.
But, of course, we don't explain of that as we dole out our pain killers. Besides, on a busy ward, what's the alternative?
Once a woman is in full labour, you'd thought we'd put her needs first. But I'm embarrassed to admit that, all too often, we were not allowed to.
Most hospitals rigidly enforce the rule that, once in labour, a woman's canal must dilate at the rate of 1cm an hour.
If that isn't happening, midwives are encouraged to tell the her that her baby may be getting in distress - even if that isn't the case.
Terrified and exhausted by a haze of drugs, the woman agrees to anything which is offered.
In practice, this means we give her extra drugs to intensify the contractions and so speed the arrival of the child.
Her pain levels increase and she'll need an epidural injection in her spine to numb the pain around her groin.
It's a vicious circle. I felt terribly mean persuading women to go along with it. I knew I wasn't always acting in their best interests. But what could I do?
It's a joke to say women have choices over how they give birth. The truth is - thanks to the drive to cut costs and improve efficiency - births are turning into conveyer-belt productions.
Women dream of having a natural birth and there is often no medical reason why they can't.
Instead, they leave the delivery room with a healthy baby, but feeling like a failure because they have used drugs.
Some are on such heavy drugs they don't remember giving birth at all. It's heartbreaking.
I also get very angry when I hear NHS authorities extolling the virtues of breastfeeding.
According to the NHS website, it's the 'best start in life'. I couldn't agree more.
But the truth is that breastfeeding rates are plummeting in the hospitals I've worked in.
The reason is simple. Midwives don't have the time to spend helping mothers to feed properly.
And without that vital support in the early days, women give up. With three women arriving on a ward at any one time, and three ready to leave, how could I possibly sit for an hour and help a new mother?
It's physically impossible, particularly as we are encouraged to rush women home as soon as they are on their feet.
It's to save money, but it does at least reduce the risk of the new mums and their babies picking up an infection.
It's no news that hospitals are often dirty. By the time I left, I was almost inured to the filth around me.
With so many women and too little time, it was impossible to keep the wards spotless.
I regularly found myself wiping off blood which had been missed by the cleaners in their rush.
It's a huge relief to have left the NHS. As an independent midwife in Northwich, Cheshire, I am finally able to help women the way they deserve.
Calm, supported and not rushed, my mothers give birth in six to seven hours. In the units where I worked, the average labour was ten to 14 hours.
I feel guilty about the women I let down as an NHS midwife. Weak and in pain, they don't have the knowledge or strength to stand up for themselves.
Instead, they end up being patronised by doctors and bullied by midwives into taking drugs they don't want.
But what makes me most sad and angry is that those hospital staff - everyone from managers down - are taking advantage of women when they are at their most vulnerable.
Interview: TESSA CUNNINGHAM
Saturday, December 12, 2009
United Nations International Health Organization Stats On Healthcare:
This article is from the "Investor's Business Daily." It provides some very interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations International Health Organization.
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada .
Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S. 65%
England 46%
Canada 42%
Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S. 93%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S. 90%
England 15%
Canada 43%
Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S. 77%
England 40%
Canada 43%
Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S. 71
England 14
Canada 18
Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in "excellent health":
U.S. 12%
England 2%
Canada 6%
I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" comparable to England or Canada .
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