Brits charge social media commenters after Woolwich outrage

Britain, like much of the West seems to have been unable to drag its way past political correctness to develop any meaningful way of dealing with Islamic hate preachers taking to the pulpits advocating violent responses to any perceived slight or grievance. 

It seems that while the local Deity can be mocked, the followers of foreign Deities have to be ‘respected’ or at least have their cultural barbarities treated with understanding.  This is especially the case where said Deity demands beheadings if offended.

On the other hand, authorities are willing to come down hard on anyone who responds to such acts as the disgusting and brutal butchery of Lee Rigby by Islamic Jihadists in a way deemed inappropriate: 

A 22-year-old man has been charged on suspicion of making malicious comments on Facebook following the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby.

Benjamin Flatters, from Lincoln, was arrested last night after complaints were made to Lincolnshire Police about comments made on Facebook, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.  He was charged with an offence of malicious communications this afternoon in relation to the comments, a Lincolnshire Police spokesman said. 

A second man was visited by officers and warned about his activity on social media, the spokesman added. … 

Flatters has been remanded in police custody and will appear before magistrates in Lincoln tomorrow.  The charge comes after two men were earlier released on bail following their arrest for making alleged offensive comments on Twitter about the murder. 

Complaints were made to Avon and Somerset Police about remarks that appeared on the social networking website, which were allegedly of a racist or anti-religious nature.

In the aftermath of such a sickening crime, it is only reasonable to expect a degree of public outrage and some of this will come out on Facebook, Twitter, and so on.

Attempts to silence such dissent defy the nature of the native born population who have good reason to be upset about it.  Caramelizing it is an outrage in itself in violating the right to freedom of speech, and regulating emotions to comply with those of the elite who really don’t care much for the feelings of the common herd, favoring their ideological positions instead.

Attempting to stifle discussion in the hope of denying oxygen to extremist groups other than radical Islam is only going to drive people toward such groups as the BNP.

Police ‘warning’ on 3D printed guns

It is difficult to judge from the NSW Police Commissioner’s warning on 3D printed guns whether he is trying to scare people out of using them, recommending them to criminals and terrorists, or trying to get something banned; probably the last.

First, he made mention of a ‘catastrophic misfire’ in one of the guns the police produced from online plans: 

The NSW Police revealed that the force has created and tested two 3D-printed firearms. The police used the Liberator pistol blueprints produced by US-firm Defense Distributed. The original plans for the gun were downloaded more than 100,000 times before the company pulled them from its site under pressure from the US State Department. 

Police believe that despite this, the files are still circulating. 

The commissioner said that a Liberator pistol had experienced a catastrophic misfire during testing. The failure would have been capable of seriously injuring the person using the firearm, the police chief said. 

One of the motivations for holding today's press conference was to warn of danger to the user if someone attempts to print, assemble and fire a Liberator out of curiosity.

There is of course no guarantee that the weapon was produced from the correct material, or along proper guidelines, nor any indication of the number of rounds fired prior to failure.  With a round like the .380 ACP you are putting a lot of pressure on a plastic barrel.

He then goes on to complain (or in the eyes of crims and terro’s), compliment) the cheapness of construction, power, and easy concealment capabilities of the weapon:

When the pistol successfully fired, it propelled a bullet with sufficient force to kill a target, the police revealed. When tested using a block of so-called ballistic soap – a block of gelatine used for firearms testing – the shot penetrated 17cm, which could be a fatal wound, the police said. … 

The police spent $35 on materials to create a Liberator and used a $1700 desktop 3D printer. The only metal parts used in the pistol's construction where the firing pin, created with a nail, and a .380 ACP calibre pistol cartridge. The all-plastic body means that the pistol is hard for security forces to detect. 

Inspector Wayne Hoffman said the creation of a pistol took the police around 27 hours. Assembling the pistol's 17 parts took around a minute. Hoffman said that the police had exactly followed the original instructions for creating the Liberator, with a number of modified versions of the file currently in circulation. … 

… The Liberator is "truly undetectable, untraceable, cheap and easy to make."

Then, the call for banning:

The government will have to consider whether regulating CAD files used to create 3D-printed firearms needs to be regulated, the commissioner said, but added he is "not sure that we're well placed globally to deal with he transfer and downloading of thee files" and that he doubts that regulations would be able to stop the files being shared and downloaded.

This idiot should have shut up after warning of the danger of weapon failure, rather than point out that the plans might still be available, and saying how effective it is.

Farewell Hazel Hawke

 Hazel Hawke, 1929 – 2013. 

Hazel was the former wife of former PM Bob Hawke, and was widely respected among even those who couldn’t stand Hawke himself.

An unpretentious person, she lent dignity, integrity, and a common touch to her position which made her widely loved, and may be part of the reason the Hawke government stayed in power as long as it did.

Wind Power Sucks Subsidies Instead of Turning Turbines

Media Statement by Viv Forbes

Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition. http://carbon-sense.com/

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian federal government and the opposition to abolish all renewable energy targets, certificates and subsidies.

The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that it was time for those who worship wind turbines to pay their full cost, and not force other electricity consumers and tax payers to pay for a costly, unreliable and obsolete method of generating electricity.

 “Wind power has been around since Don Quixote and it belongs in an industrial museum not in a modern economy.

 “For too much of the time, the wind just sucks subsidies when it should be turning turbines.

 “The 20% renewable energy target is unachievable without perpetual government mandates and subsidies and should be abolished.”

Quote: 


Green worshippers tell us “The wind is free.” But wind power is not free. All natural energy resources such as coal, wind and sun appear “free” – no one has to incur costs to create them. But turning a “free” resource into usable electricity costs money for collecting, generating and distributing that energy. To consumers and taxpayers, the real cost of wind power is very high, no matter how well it is hidden by politicians.

Cartoon Credit: Steve Hunter 

Reproduction by permission of the author.

Wind power is not reliable. No one can make the wind blow when the energy is needed – in fact, wind farms produce, on average, less than 30% of their nameplate capacity, often at times of low demand and low electricity prices. Not one conventional power plant has been replaced by wind – the old reliables stay there, incurring maintenance costs, because they are still needed as backup for the many times when there is zero wind power. In cold still weather, wind turbines actually consume power from the grid to keep them from freezing up – they are better at harvesting subsidies than harvesting wind. This unpredictable waxing and waning of the wind also increases the chances of sudden brownouts and surges on electricity networks.

Wind power harms the environment. Because of the large area of land needed to collect low-density wind energy, wind power requires more land-clearing, needs more transmission lines, kills more wildlife, lights more bushfires and uglifies more landscape per unit of electricity than conventional power. And the sub-sonic whine of the turbines drives neighbours batty and devalues local properties.

Like hydro-power, wind power is limited, with few suitable sites. And every wind turbine slows the wind, thus reducing the wind energy available to any downwind turbines. It is “renewable” but it is not unlimited.

Wind power is justified by claims that it reduces emissions and thus reduces global warming. However, when all the steel, concrete, construction, roads, transmission lines, backup, maintenance, replacement and rehabilitation are taken into account, wind power contributes nothing to reducing emissions or changing global climate.

However wind turbines DO change the local weather. Wind is the major component of weather. Winds bring moisture to the inland, dilute and clear pollution from the cities, and change air temperatures everywhere. Wind towers rob the wind of its energy, affecting local wind speeds and changing local weather patterns, and the more there are, the greater the effect.

Wind power is an expensive, intermittent and limited energy source that degrades the environment, kills birds, but does nothing to improve global climate.

There should be no special subsidies, tax breaks, market mandates or regulations for any energy technology – all should compete on an equal basis and all consumers should be free to choose their supplier.

Wind energy should be paid for by those who want it, not by captive taxpayers or electricity consumers.

Gillard/Swan loot pensioner’s bank account

Cartoon: By Pickering 

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. – Frederic Bastiat

For many years the federal government has claimed the right to seize the contents of bank accounts that have been inactive for more than seven years.  These funds go into general revenue and are spent, although there are provisions for it to be reclaimed by the owner.

Late last year with the budget in disarray, it was decided to loot any accounts that had not been accessed for three years.  This allows it to gain immediate access to any funds in such accounts four years earlier in bulk up to the seven-year mark including those that would have been accessed during that time.

This has been a disaster for 75-year-old pensioner, Adrian Duffy who with his wife saved up $22,616 in an account dedicated to future medical needs and left it there untouched until it was needed. Mr. Duffy had a heart bypass operation and after coming out of hospital, found that the government had stolen his money: 

The Australian Bankers' Association has accused the Government of putting its "own financial circumstances" ahead of customers' needs, leaving them facing "months of delays trying to reclaim their own money". 

ASIC says the money can be claimed "at any time by the rightful owner", but banks have pointed out the process can take as long as six weeks. 

Toowong resident Adrian Duffy is now looking at a lengthy battle to have his savings restored.  The 75-year-old spent 21 days in hospital following quintuple heart bypass surgery and a second operation in April.  When he and his wife, 57-year-old Mary-Jane, went to check their Suncorp account, they discovered their balance had plummeted from $22,616 to zero. A note on the May 1 entry read: "Closing WDL Govt unclaimed monies." 

The couple had saved for 14 years in preparation for major health-related costs.Suncorp claims a letter was sent at the end of March notifying the account - held in Mrs. Duffy's name - had been inactive for more than three years and would be closed if no action was taken.  It says attempts were made to call the couple on April 16, followed by an "account closed" letter on April 30. 

Mr and Mrs. Duffy are adamant they received no warnings of the closure of the account.  "I called it stealing," Mr Duffy said. 

"My understanding of the definition of stealing is to take something without somebody's knowledge and not tell them. As far as I'm concerned, that's exactly what happened - (the Government) took it without telling us." 

The couple are working to recover the money, but say they were lucky to have other savings.  "If we didn't have the money elsewhere, we would now have to be paying for cardiologists, visits to surgeons, ECGs, x-rays, whatever is involved in the follow up," he said. 

"We would have to find money to pay them, because those people aren't going to say to you, 'we'll wait six weeks'.

Ironically, the Treasury claims these ‘reforms’ were designed to "help reunite Australians with their lost money sooner, and protect them from being eroded by fees, charges and inflation." The spin team must have really pulled out all the stops to come up with that one.

The good news for the Duffy’s is that Suncorp has restored the account as a ‘one off’ action due to their circumstances and they’re being good customers over the years.  They will work with the Duffy’s to reclaim the original amount.

There was a time not so long ago, when you could leave your change on the bar while you went for a piss and could expect it to be there when you returned.  Those days are long gone, even in provincial towns.

In those days though, the law was there to protect your belongings from theft.  These days the law is there to do the stealing.

The moral of the story is “Keep your hand on your wallet if the government is around.”

The secret of efficient government?

Image: By The late Stan Cross

I just pinched this one off Ronnie Manners, it’s irresistible, (although a few Poms might disagree):

Julia Gillard met with the Queen in England . She asked her, "Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give to me?" 

"Well," said the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people." 

Julia frowned, and then asked, "But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?" 

The Queen took a sip of tea. "Oh, that's easy; you just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle." 

The Queen pushed a button on her intercom. 

"Please send David Cameron in here, would you?"David Cameron walked into the room and said, "Yes, Your Majesty?" 

The Queen smiled and said, "Answer me this please, David, your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is it?" 

Without pausing for a moment, David Cameron answered, "That would be me.""Yes! Very good," said the Queen. 

Julia went back home to Australia and asked Wayne Swan, her Deputy Prime Minister the same question.   "Wayne , answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It's not your brother and it's not your sister. Who is it?" 

"I'm not sure," said Wayne . "Let me get back to you on that one." He went to his advisors and asked everyone, but none could give him an answer. 

Finally, he ended up in the men's room and recognized Tony Abbott's shoes in the next stall. 

Wayne asked, "Tony, can you answer this for me? Your mother and Father have a child and it's not your brother or your sister. Who is it?" 

Tony yelled back, "That's easy, it's me!" 

Wayne smiled, and said, "Thanks!" Then, he went back to speak with Julia."Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It's Tony Abbott" 

Julia got up, stomped over to Swan, and angrily yelled into his face, "No, You idiot! It's the English Prime Minister, David Cameron!"

Sacked IRS chief gets grilled

It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well disposed, industrious, and decent men. – HL Menken

It was somewhat difficult to decide whether to use the Menken quote above, or Joseph Sobran’s “Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you.” 

American conservatives and libertarians are discovering just what excesses their government and it’s agencies is prepared to do to them in one of the latest scandals to hit the administration; the targeting of conservative PACs by the IRS.

 Rep Kelly (R-PA) while grilling former IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller, who appears to be the fall guy for that action stated what we have long believed, “This kind of reconfirms that, you know what! They [the IRS] can do almost anything they want to anybody they want anytime they want. This is very chilling for the American people:”