DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

We have seen the future, and it sucks.

Archive for the 'Dystopia Watch' Category

The world is rapidly going downhill. Unfortunately, we can’t get off.

Gay activists shut down APA panel

2nd May 2008

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That ought to read “Gay Fascists Shut Down APA Panel”. Let’s call things by their right names.

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The future you save might be your own

1st May 2008

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The technology to convert coal to oil has not only existed for decades, it has continued to be developed and improved upon. Even today, The U.S. Air Force, not wanting to be caught short in wartime, has an ongoing program to supply itself with oil products resulting from coal-to-oil conversion. The only ones standing in the way of this solution to foreign oil dependence is ourselves. Remember what Pogo said “We have met the enemy and they is us.”

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Clipping, Scrimping, Saving

1st May 2008

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But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice. She’d already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her 2-year-old son, not for the whole family.

My, what a hardship. Cry me a river.

If the government weren’t requiring us to burn food, we wouldn’t have these problems.

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Best and Brightest, but Not the Nicest

1st May 2008

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I’m saying that sometimes some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to “do what is right.”

Hey, they’re just practicing for their bright future in the Overclass. Look at AlGore and Hillary for an example of the results.

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Clinton blasts Bush for not stopping a project Bill OK’d

1st May 2008

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What Clinton never includes in the oft-repeated tale is the role that prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company or that the sale was approved by her husband’s administration.

So I guess it wasn’t Bush’s fault after all…?

In response, the Clinton campaign said that Bill Clinton’s administration had gotten assurances at the time it approved the deal that production would remain inside the United States, and that the shift of jobs to China didn’t occur until under the Bush administration.

Huh. Perhaps it’s true that you can’t bullshit a bullshitter but apparently it is possible to lie successfully to a liar.

“Hillary Clinton must have been hoping we Hoosiers have short memories,” Ed Dixon of Valparaiso said in a letter to a local newspaper after a recent Clinton visit. “Her husband was president at the time and allowed this to happen.”

I suspect that Hillary Clinton, like her husband, is hoping that every voter in American has a short memory.

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Millionaire shot in bungled robbery

1st May 2008

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Neighbours said the house had been targeted by thieves several times in the past.

Guess he’s going to invest some of those millions in private bodyguards now, eh?

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

Kenyans live in squalor as government spends millions on ministries

1st May 2008

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According to the finance ministry, the expanded coalition needs an extra £125 million a month for nine new departments, in addition to the soaring cost of paying for its 93 ministers and their perks.

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500-year-old shipwreck found by diamond firm

30th April 2008

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The chief difficulty will be deciding which government will step in and confiscate the results of their labors — all in the name of the people, of course.

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Energy Independence Begins at Home

30th April 2008

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It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

An amazing world, in which we look to politicians to solve a problem that was entirely created by politicians in the first place.

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Shortages Threaten Farmers’ Key Tool: Fertilizer

30th April 2008

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Fertilizer companies are confident the shortage will be solved eventually, noting that they plan to build scores of new factories. But that will probably create fresh problems in the long run as the world grows more dependent on fossil fuels to produce chemical fertilizers. Intensified use of such fertilizers is certain to mean greater pollution of waterways, too.

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If You Don’t Show Up, Everybody Talks About You

30th April 2008

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The New York Times has been taking hits of late for its new policy of boycotting the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Would that Republican Presidents felt the same way. Why subject yourself to an evening devoted to being nice to people who spend the rest of the year being ugly to you? It’s not as if any of them voted for you, or support your policies. What a waste of time….

(Al Kamen’s Washington Post column is archly entitled “In the Loop” — and for good reason; I can’t think of a loopier person in modern “journalism”.)

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The Secret Chinese Fleet

30th April 2008

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Straw eco home handmade over five years

30th April 2008

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Fortunately, wolves have been extinct in Britain since the 18th century.

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UN task force to tackle food crisis

29th April 2008

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Oh, sure, that’ll help. When has the U.N. ever done anything other than waste money and bloviate?

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Woman trampled to death by cows

29th April 2008

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Well, don’t walk there. What kind of moron goes into a field with a bull in it? Sheesh.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

The CNN Model of Violent Conflict

28th April 2008

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Why do countries and groups within countries engage in large-scale violent conflict? Social scientists’ knee-jerk impulse is to look for objective conflict of interest: It’s about land, oil, or whatever. But if you watch a standard news channel like CNN, you get a very different explanation: Groups are fighting because they hate each other.

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Missing Teaspoons

28th April 2008

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Alternative title: Why Socialism Can’t and Won’t Ever Work.

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When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web

28th April 2008

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Then ask why the school system sucks. Gee, could it be the quality of the teachers?

One of the most popular objections to home-schooling is that “kids won’t be socialized properly unless they interact with their peers”.

The cure would appear to be worse than the disease.

Posted in Dystopia Watch | 1 Comment »

N.Va. Hit With Cost Of School Migration

28th April 2008

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Although couched in terms of “those mean policies impose a burden on others”, the real lesson to be learned here is “if things are made difficult for illegal immigrants, they’ll take their parasitical ways elsewhere.”

I guess enforcement works, after all.

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An Unusual Prosecution of a Way of Life

28th April 2008

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“We’re from the government, and we’re here to help. Stick your hands up.”

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America’s Most Hated City

28th April 2008

Steve Sailer pulls the curtain back on Los Angeles.

LA scored near the top only in “Luxury boutiques,” “Shoe-shopping,” and “Jewelry-shopping.”

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Regulatory Obstacles Impede Use Of Waste Heat For Electric Power

28th April 2008

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“We’re from the government, and we’re here to help. Stick your hands up.”

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Prison Experience Ended Robert Downey Jr.’s Liberalism

27th April 2008

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Perhaps that’s the answer.

Oh, wait … I keep forgetting that there aren’t any Republicans in prison. (Go ahead, ask them. They’re pretty much all Democrats.)

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Rev. Wright in Full, Unedited Context

27th April 2008

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See for yourself whether Wright is being “taken out of context”.

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Why Health Care Records Are So Low-Tech

27th April 2008

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Frequently, when a patient goes to see a specialist for the first time, none of the records kept by his primary care physician are accessible to the new doctor. The specialist will typically order a whole new series of diagnostic tests to ensure the file he starts contains records he can trust, even if the same tests were just performed at the request of the other physician. Not only is this duplication costly, it also undermines quality care, as the patient is in danger of getting conflicting treatment plans based on competing and incomplete patient records.

One of the major reasons health care costs are out of control is that it’s so labor-intensive. We’ve brought the efficiencies (and consequent cost savings) of automation to almost every area of human activity — with the glaring exception of health care and education. With health care, people aren’t willing to sacrifice quality, so the cost goes through the roof. With education, people aren’t willing to spend what it takes to ensure high quality, so quality goes in the toilet. The only way to fix these situations is automation. As with automation in the manufacturing sector, the chief obstacle to overcome isn’t technical, it’s social — primarily resistance on the part of the relevant unions (AMA and NEA, for example).

And, of course, the lack of a free market in both areas is crucial.

The primary payers of medical bills are not the consumers—that is, the patients—but rather insurance plans and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Consequently, the normal marketplace dynamic of suppliers competing with each other based on price and services is weak, almost nonexistent. Doctors and hospitals do not need to add convenient electronic information to their service provision because their payments will be the same either way. Indeed, most health insurers are mildly supportive of an improved HIT system—so long as they do not have to pay higher reimbursement rates for medical claims.

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SCIENCE AND THE LEFT

27th April 2008

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I’ve always wondered how regressives could claim to have some exclusive dedication to rationality and science and yet embrace some of the New Age bullshit that they do. Consider somebody with crystals hanging from their rearview mirror who reads the daily horoscope and gets a Tarot reading at life’s crisis points. Guess whether this person’s political views are “left” or “right”. The question answers itself.

Party of Science? Well, I suppose, for sufficiently flaky definitions of “science”.

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EU Corruption (yawn)

27th April 2008

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Terry Battersby, 53, from Manchester, has been removed from his job as head of information technology at the Brussels-based Centre for the Development of Enterprise (CDE) and placed on a short-term contract.

Battersby uncovered evidence that the agency’s former director, Hamed Sow, who is now the energy minister of the west African country of Mali, approved the award of lucrative European Union contracts to a company in which he had a financial interest.

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Look Who’s Talking about Change, Unity and Peace

27th April 2008

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As I get older, I become more convinced that hypocrisy and irony must be as blind as a bat, for those who practice it seem oblivious to the fact that they wear it like a clown suit at a formal wedding; plain as day, badly out of place and amusing to boot. This election year, we have provided with a classic example of this phenomenon, as evidenced by the Bobbsey Twins, Obama and Hillary, from here on referred to simply as OH for practicality, simplicity and accuracy.

He’s forgetting their older brother, John McCain.

Unity is another popular slogan but, if this pair is any indication, the only thing uniting liberals is their individual selfishness and arrogance undermining their collective interest and agenda. If too many cooks spoil the soup, then this soup has become a diluted, jumbled and highly intoxicating superficial stew.

He’s forgetting their older brother, John McCain, who likes to pee in the soup before serving it, just to show how much of a maverick he is.

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The Birdmen of Bognor – who try to fly off the pier – grounded after 30 years by the health and safety brigade

26th April 2008

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The Nanny State strikes again.

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America’s Power Paradox

25th April 2008

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But a vague commitment to multilateralism obscures one of the most difficult challenges the next president will face: While international institutions have never been more needed, they have seldom been less effective.

Well, that’s pretty plain: If international institutions suck (and they do), then it’s America’s fault.

Michael Gerson is obviously the Washington Post‘s idea of a conservative —  go ahead and criticize the left’s pets, so long as America ultimately takes the blame.

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Operation Chaos is Working

25th April 2008

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Notice how Democrats aren’t really all that keen on democracy when it impairs the chances of the Overclass to get and keep power.

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Applying Capitalism to Protect Dwindling Brazilian Forestland

25th April 2008

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President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government has supported environmental certification and carbon-trading programs, and last year offered land concessions throughout the Amazon to private logging companies that promised sustainable timber harvesting.

Apparently this eccentric definition of “capitalism” is what passes for science at the Washington Post.

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In Affluent New Ireland, Rural Pubs Are So Yesterday

25th April 2008

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Gee, it’s such a pity that Ireland is no longer the romantic  primitive backwater it used to be. Where will the Overclass go for its frisson of condescension now?

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The Greening of America

25th April 2008

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Trees are the new potholes.

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E. U. Plots to Destroy Britain – Again

24th April 2008

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Actually, it sort of looks like an AlGore map of Europe after Global Warming has melted all of the ice and driven up the sea levels.

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Dutch cyclists lobbying for external airbags on cars

24th April 2008

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And how about sidewalks? They ought to have air bags too!

I’ve got an idea: Require the cyclists to wear an airbag suit. That will cover all contingencies, and put the responsibility (and the cost) where it belongs.

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Asian Mercenaries in Zimbabwe

24th April 2008

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Wonder whether the Usual Suspects will take a break from protesting American involvement in Iraq to complain about Chinese involvement in Zimbabwe. Somehow I doubt it.

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Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Fears

23rd April 2008

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Be careful what you wish for….

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Supple-Side Economics

23rd April 2008

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Even Ruth Marcus can see that McCain doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to economics.

The only thing that saves him is that Hillary and Barack are even worse.

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What the Autism Studies Show Isn’t Reflected in What the Candidates Say

22nd April 2008

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Two leading presidential candidates have now wandered into an exceptionally emotional medical debate in which they have no known scientific expertise.

Huh? Seems to me that that’s what presidential candidates — hell, candidates at any level — do best.

This is news?

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The Ghost Subs Of Oz

22nd April 2008

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The Australian navy has been suffering from a serious geek shortage for several years now. With a total strength of 13,000, being short a few dozen people in some job categories can have serious repercussions, and that’s what happened to the submarine force. For example, the navy is short about a third of the marine engineering officers it needs. There are less serious shortages in officers specializing in electrical systems and weapons systems.  Australian warships have been active in the war on terror, resulting in many crews being away from home for up to six months at a time. There are shortages of both officers and sailors with technical skills. 

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Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned

22nd April 2008

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Odds that this is true: Very small.

Note how nobody seems interested in the little detail “captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002”. What was he doing there that led to him being captured?

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High Crop Prices Undermine Opposition To Plant Genetic Engineering

22nd April 2008

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Funny how the Overclass suddenly fudges its principles when there comes a pinch in the pocketbook — or the ol’ lifestyle.

Ever see AlGore ride a horse? Wouldn’t you pay for the privilege? I sure would.

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The man who invented Earth Day

22nd April 2008

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Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

I don’t mean to suggest, of course, that environmentalists are all a bunch of narcissistic sociopaths. No, I would never do that.

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The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox

21st April 2008

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I guess regressives are just as shallow as the rest of us.

As a charter member of the ‘attractive but unsociable’ set, I find this comforting. Not that I would ever go to one of these parties, but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to. Which I don’t.

Where have all the most appealing men gone? Married young, most of them—and sometimes to women whose most salient characteristic was not their beauty, or passion, or intellect, but their decisiveness.

Read ’em & weep, girls.

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Million dollar blocks

21st April 2008

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An innovative analysis by Eric Cadora highlights “million-dollar blocks” — individual city blocks where more than one million dollars per block per year are spent to incarcerate individuals from that block.

Care to guess how many People of Pallor live on such blocks?

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In 2007, Obama gave $26,270 to Rev. Wright’s church

19th April 2008

Steve Sailer is always worth reading.

The funny thing is that I bet Rev. Wright considers Obama an ungrateful tightwad. After all, Obama makes $3.9 million in one year off his two books, for one of which Wright’s “Audacity of Hope” sermon provides the title and for the other it provides the central climax.

Does Obama do the Christian thing and tithe? Hardly. Instead of 10%, Obama chips in 0.7% of his income.

Betrayed, I tell you. Betrayed.

On the other hand, it ought to come as a comfort to be shown that Senator Obama doesn’t falue race-hatred all that highly.

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Former ’60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago

18th April 2008

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Which shows you how far Chicago has degenerated.

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Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger

18th April 2008

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But never at the right people — the environmentalist wackos and the politicians who kiss their asses.

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Nobel Prize for Death

17th April 2008

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As a result of the DDT ban, more than 30 million children in Africa and Asia have died from DDT-preventable malaria, and an estimated 500 million adults are today chronically ill from this disease. The ban of DDT was the worst act of technological genocide in human history.

 Hundreds of millions of human beings live today on the very edge of existence — with all of their available resources consumed in the quest for food, shelter, and the minimum necessities of life. Without world technology and the energy that makes that technology possible, these people will slip from the lower rungs of human existence and will die. By abruptly lowering world hydrocarbon use, the human-caused global warmers are going to kill these people.

Politicians in the United States have given us a first taste of the horrible suffering of human beings that is to come. By responding to the myth of human-caused global warming by mildly diminishing American grain supplies — in a futile, politicized attempt to burn grain as fuel, American politicians have given the world a slight taste of the starvation and slaughter that is to come.

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