Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Monthly Archives: February 2008

How Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitler’s Rise to Power

A Very Detailed Story Here.

Summary Here.

There are several families and companies in the US that have a dark history of assisting the Nazi government in the 1930s and even into the 40s. The root of this story lies in what the Bush family might have done to assist with the development of horrors like Auschwitz.

The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war.

….

The petition to The Hague states: “From April 1944 on, the American Air Force could have destroyed the camp with air raids, as well as the railway bridges and railway lines from Hungary to Auschwitz. The murder of about 400,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims could have been prevented.”

The case is built around a January 22 1944 executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt calling on the government to take all measures to rescue the European Jews. The lawyers claim the order was ignored because of pressure brought by a group of big American companies, including BBH, where Prescott Bush was a director.

Lissmann said: “If we have a positive ruling from the court it will cause [president] Bush huge problems and make him personally liable to pay compensation.”

Wow. An acting President liable for war crimes. I honestly didn’t see that one coming.

Baby Held in Locked Room Dies

Story Here.

The mother, nurse and child were detained, but when they were, the baby, which was being brought from American Samoa to Hawaii for heart surgery, died while they were waiting in customs.

America The Police State

Story Here.

… it is no coincidence that the culture of fear, hate, prejudice, perversion and violence unleashed by the evil administration of one George W. Bush is largely to blame. The endemically corrupt GOP has ‘stunk up the place’ and no one is safe –not in your home, your car, your property! This is what it means to live in a police state.

How They Killed the Internet: Part I

The UK has disclosed a working document that calls for anyone caught downloading files illegally will have their internet cut off. Story here.
This is how it ends. This is how they’ll kill the internet.

Let’s face it: traditional media publishers (TV, print) are not big fans of the internet because it’s wreaking havoc on their bottom line. Content and, more importantly, using the illegal use of content as a central excuse, will be how they kill the internet.

In a few years, expect life online to be a bunch of dull ‘push only’ shows and crap that has no soul, no value and provides no tangible excitement for users.

Please say no to this nonsense.

UK Police Can Now Taser Children

Found here, research credit WRH

I’m sure there’s rock solid rationale as to why UK’s finest would want to taser kids. The question that keep popping into my mind is “why can’t they just turn down the juice” like the do in Star Trek. Put the tasers on stun instead of kill. Is that not a possibility? I can’t be the only one who’s thought of this.

FBI Deputizes Businesses?

Full story here

Reprint here

In the US, Infragard (www.infragard.net) deputies apparently have the right to “shoot to kill” in the event of the declaration of martial law in the US. The company and its deputies also seem to have access to information before the general public, giving organizations like the ACLU the willies because of the priority and elitism involved.

This program, according to the ACLU, is equivalent to a private TIPS campaign, where companies, having access to the information on millions of consumers, not only have the opportunity to spill it over to the FBI without question, but possibly also the obligation. From the ACLU:

“The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment,” says Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program. “There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there’s information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don’t they just share it with the public? That’s who their real ‘special relationship’ is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends. . . . This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery.”

RIAA to cut Artist Royalties

This comes from the ‘let them eat cake’ department:

http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/849/849695p1.html

Though the actual artists who make the music are presently entitled to just 13% of wholesale, the RIAA thinks they should receive only 9%.

Let’s not forget that ‘wholesale’ still means about $0.08 per song or CD.

As one user put it with the comments, “9% of a medium that costs bugger all to distribute?”

I wouldn’t be surprised if these folks started off with the argument that this is good because they will have more money to lobby governments to implement ISP-fee schemes, which will have two deliterious effects:

  1. Users will be paying for all content, regardless of whether they use it or not;
  2. This kind of monitoring will be a serious breach of privacy for online users.

10 Myths About Canadian Healthcare

This story was posted to a couple of locations:

Link 1

Link 2

I always get a little nervous when too many people compare the American ‘system’ to Canada’s health care program, mainly because it sometimes makes me think that we’re going to lose ours rather than Americans getting a new, wonderful program that will service anyone and everyone.

Seriously … which do you think is a more likely scenario? Especially when we have the Harpies who want to privatize everything?

While this is a fantastic review and I highly recommend reading it, what seems to be missing is a review of expenditures related to the health care program.

Roy Romanow wrote a review of Canada’s health care system that should be required reading for anyone investigating the ups and downs of what we’ve got compared to others.

In Canada, there’s suggestion that we’re moving away from both ‘health’ and ‘care’ (I know this to be false after a recent visit for some tests). The suggestion lies in the sheer numbers related to spending. In most cases, it’s not available, but one source, the Romanow review, outlines the main expenditures:

Total public/private expenditures on health care: approx $120 / year.

Pharma: Estimated annual spend on pharmaceuticals is about $1200 per person (in 2001), or about $40 billion per year. Provinces cover roughly half of this expense, so roughly $20 billion per year goes to companies who have profit maximization as their main goal.

Romanow recommends a National Drug Agency, which would cap these costs.

Hardware / equipment: Another massive cost related to our health care system is equipment. Estimates range from 25-35%, which means that Canadian public is investing about $40 billion per year in MRIs, CAT scans and other equipment that is used for diagnosis, treatment and post-op care.

It’s hard to conceive of a hospital running without the basics (tables, tools, machinery, etc), but the hard truth is that this expense is again a direct subsidy to multi-national suppliers that have profilitability as their first concern.

Administration: Many critics of the health care system point to unions and other expenses related to labour, but the reality is that a growing proportion of admin expenses go to high-level positions.

Again, a hospital without a head or a selection of well-qualified senior executives is no way to run a viable health care system, but at some point, we will have to focus on how to improve the ratio of doctors and nurses to bureaucrats.

Finally, prevention: before a couple of months ago, when I was treated exceptionally well by the staff in London, I believed that our system was not about prevention. I would suggest that we need to turn more focus to the causes of disease rather than just running for them. I think there’s a lot of ways that we could improve our health so that the cost isn’t as onerous, and most of my ideas usually centre around levies or ‘consumption taxes’ related to junk food, cigarettes, fast food and impulse items like $6 lattes.

The GST would have been a perfect tool for this. Reduce/eliminate it with goods that you want people to consume (bikes, fitness memberships, athletic equipment, running shoes) and hike it up to outrageous proportions on things mentioned above. It would force a drastic and yet simple shift to those things that will make our lives better.

It’s impossible to guage how much Canadians could save if they ran their health care system properly, but there’s one thing I know: if private service ever hits the blocks, I’ll invest enough money from my own pocket to send every Canadian MP a copy of Michael Moore’s SICKO.