Former CBS News president Richard Salant (1961 - 64 and 1966 - 79) explained the major media's role: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ...and to this very day most Americans haven't noticed they're being brained washed! ~ N. Hooben
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Panetta The National Security Threat...yes he is! (see also:'Obama's Global Warming Fantasies')
This climate change thing just won't go away...now we have Obama's sycophant, Leon Panetta, fertilizing the falsehood with so much 'BS' that it may require all the king's horses and all the king's men to save the world from itself. A national security threat? Gimme a break! The only national security threat comes from the king and all the king's men sitting in the White House. Whether its Cass Sunstein who wants your dog to be able to sue you, Zbigniew Brzezinski who would just as soon kill you than to control you, or John Holdren who, not only wants to control the climate, he wants to control the world's population Leon Panetta is just another Communist ideologue who promotes the United Nations desire for an income producing source that, like the income tax will start small, grow bigger, and stay with us forever. Remember, the United Nations started this scare mongering years ago and over time convinced the Gore-like politicians to try to convince you that we can do something about climate change by simply taxing you while Mother Nature does what she does irregardless of how many dollars you contribute...and its not nice to fool around with Mother Nature. You can't make it rain by throwing dollars at the clouds but Leon Panetta would have you believe otherwise. ~ Norman E. Hooben
Panetta: Climate change a national security threat
by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
(from The Washington Examiner H-T to T. Hilla)
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared global warming a national security threat yesterday during a speech before an environmentalist group in Washington, D.C.
"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security," Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."
The Defense Secretary must have missed Examiner Columnist Mona Charen's recent piece on how symbols of global warming aren't working out the way environmentalists predicted.
For instance, The United Nations climate change panel "admitted that the melting Himalayas prediction was not based on science but on a 1999 media interview given by one scientist," Charen observed. "They said they regretted the error. Now, a study in nature, based on satellite imagery, has shown that some melting of lower altitude glaciers is taking place but that higher glaciers have been adding ice."
With reference to the story of an apparently-marooned polar bear floating on an ice floe -- puzzling, as polar bears can swim for hundreds of miles -- Charen cited a new Canadian study showing that the polar bear population is on the rise.
Following the above story we have a rebuttal from a United States Senator...
from CNS News
Senator: Panetta Wasting His Time Promoting 'Obama's Global Warming Fantasies;' 'He Has A Real War To Win'
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) says Defense Sec. Panetta has more important things to do than "waste his time" promoting "Pres. Obama's global warming fantasies."
Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Senior Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today responded to remarks made this week by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at an event sponsored by a far-left environmental group.
Secretary Panetta reportedly said, “In the 21st century, reality is that there are environmental threats that constitute threats to our national security” and vowed that the Pentagon will take a leading role in shifting the way the U.S. uses energy.
"I've always thought a lot of Secretary Panetta – therefore, I can't believe he caved in to President Obama in trying to legitimize global warming alarmism,” Senator Inhofe said. “Every assertion he made is right out of Al Gore's now debunked science fiction movie.
In his response, Sen. Inhofe says the true threat to national security is the administration's efforts to reduce the ability of the U.S. to defend itself - and that the Defense secretary shouldn't be wasting his time waging a war on affordable energy:
“The real threat to national security are policies that force DoD to expend increasing amounts of its scare resources on extremely expensive alternative energy, when President Obama has gutted the defense budget by a half trillion dollars over the next ten years.
"DoD is already drastically cutting its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft. It is cutting or postponing programs such as the C-27, Global Hawk Block 30, C-130 avionics modernization, the F-35, the littoral combat ship, the next generation ballistic missile submarine, and ground combat vehicles. Forcing DoD to expend more money on expensive alternative fuels further exacerbates its budget issues.
“The far-left green energy agenda being carried out at the Pentagon by the Obama administration is clearly in need of Congressional oversight. In the coming days and weeks, I will be working to put the spotlight on this radical agenda, which further drains our defense budget and puts our military at risk.
“I don't mind President Obama writing press releases for the rest of his lackeys but Secretary Panetta has an important job and doesn't need to waste his time trying to perpetrate President Obama’s global warming fantasies or his ongoing war on affordable energy. He has a real war to win."
Panetta: Climate change a national security threat
by Joel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer
(from The Washington Examiner H-T to T. Hilla)
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared global warming a national security threat yesterday during a speech before an environmentalist group in Washington, D.C.
"The area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security," Panetta told the Environmental Defense Fund last night. "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."
The Defense Secretary must have missed Examiner Columnist Mona Charen's recent piece on how symbols of global warming aren't working out the way environmentalists predicted.
For instance, The United Nations climate change panel "admitted that the melting Himalayas prediction was not based on science but on a 1999 media interview given by one scientist," Charen observed. "They said they regretted the error. Now, a study in nature, based on satellite imagery, has shown that some melting of lower altitude glaciers is taking place but that higher glaciers have been adding ice."
With reference to the story of an apparently-marooned polar bear floating on an ice floe -- puzzling, as polar bears can swim for hundreds of miles -- Charen cited a new Canadian study showing that the polar bear population is on the rise.
"Oh, and the
scientist for the Department of the Interior whose 2004 work on drowning polar
bears inspired Al Gore and others has been placed on administrative leave for
unspecified wrongdoing," she added.
Following the above story we have a rebuttal from a United States Senator...
from CNS News
Senator: Panetta Wasting His Time Promoting 'Obama's Global Warming Fantasies;' 'He Has A Real War To Win'
Inhofe, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Senior Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today responded to remarks made this week by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at an event sponsored by a far-left environmental group.
Secretary Panetta reportedly said, “In the 21st century, reality is that there are environmental threats that constitute threats to our national security” and vowed that the Pentagon will take a leading role in shifting the way the U.S. uses energy.
"I've always thought a lot of Secretary Panetta – therefore, I can't believe he caved in to President Obama in trying to legitimize global warming alarmism,” Senator Inhofe said. “Every assertion he made is right out of Al Gore's now debunked science fiction movie.
In his response, Sen. Inhofe says the true threat to national security is the administration's efforts to reduce the ability of the U.S. to defend itself - and that the Defense secretary shouldn't be wasting his time waging a war on affordable energy:
“The real threat to national security are policies that force DoD to expend increasing amounts of its scare resources on extremely expensive alternative energy, when President Obama has gutted the defense budget by a half trillion dollars over the next ten years.
"DoD is already drastically cutting its personnel, the number of brigade combat teams, tactical fighters, and airlift aircraft. It is cutting or postponing programs such as the C-27, Global Hawk Block 30, C-130 avionics modernization, the F-35, the littoral combat ship, the next generation ballistic missile submarine, and ground combat vehicles. Forcing DoD to expend more money on expensive alternative fuels further exacerbates its budget issues.
“The far-left green energy agenda being carried out at the Pentagon by the Obama administration is clearly in need of Congressional oversight. In the coming days and weeks, I will be working to put the spotlight on this radical agenda, which further drains our defense budget and puts our military at risk.
“I don't mind President Obama writing press releases for the rest of his lackeys but Secretary Panetta has an important job and doesn't need to waste his time trying to perpetrate President Obama’s global warming fantasies or his ongoing war on affordable energy. He has a real war to win."
________________________________
Friday, May 4, 2012
Shedding some truth behind Obama's lies
It's pretty well known that Bill Clinton lied quite frequently...that would be once or twice daily, but the ole Arkansas Alynskyite cannot be in the same ballpark as his friend and narcissist in chief (not my term...stole it from the article below) Barack Husein Obama. The Kenyan Alynskyite lies almost every time he opens his mouth! Mr. Massie, the author, sheds the truth behind some Obamanations (really, really big lies) recently told to a handpicked audience...and there's the rub! It's those handpicked audiences that will NEVER hear the truth... OK maybe not NEVER...maybe one or two might come across this post. But will they recognize the truth? I doubt it. Getting the truth out to Obama fans is just about impossible now-a-days; he has them brainwashed more than Mao's Little Red Book ever anticipated! Why does Obama lie? He anticipates that America will succumb to his Marxist ideology. What's that line about waking a sleeping giant? ~ Norman E. Hooben
NARCISSIST IN CHIEF ~ from World Net Daily
More evidence Obama's a depraved liar
Exclusive: Mychal Massie explains BHO's mocking of GOP members of Congress
Mychal
Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black
Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in
Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by
the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. He is a nationally recognized
political activist, pundit and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel,
CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk-radio programming nationwide. A
former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Massie's website is mychal-massie.com.
Speaking at the Carmichael Arena, in Chapel Hill, N.C., last Tuesday, Obama displayed not just his commonality, he purposefully lied to a handpicked audience of students. And as he always does, he was belittling someone else to make himself look good. Said behavior is typical of someone who carries the scars of the type of parents he had, but such behavior isn’t the character trait of an emotionally stable leader.
In boasting about his plans to keep student interest rates on federal loans from doubling, he said: “One Republican congresswoman said just recently – I am going to quote this because I know you guys will think I’m making this up. She said she had very little tolerance for people who tell [her] they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.” He mockingly continued: “I am just quoting here, she said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity dumped in [their] lap.” He finished with: “Now can you imagine saying something like that?”
Actually, Barry, what we have difficulty with is your dishonesty. The congresswoman he was referencing is Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and her exact words were: “I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society, and people are forgetting that. I remind folks that the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don’t sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap.”
Rep. Foxx, unlike Obama and his wife, didn’t have her education handed to her because she was Kenyan, black, Muslim, or because the school needed another black to make its quota. She worked as a janitor, and it took her seven years to get her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she graduated debt-free.
The next day, Obama swaggered up to another microphone with the same toothy leer and reprised his role as liar-in-chief. At the University of Iowa, he said: “You’ve got one member of Congress who compared these student loans [and] I’m not kidding here – to a stage-three cancer of socialism.” With a condescending grin, and preening before the handpicked crowd, he continued: “Stage-three cancer? I don’t know where to start. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Come on. Just when you think you’ve heard it all in Washington, somebody comes up with a new way to go off the deep end.”
I’ll tell you what I’m talking about Barry. I’m talking about you being a depraved liar. You were referring to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who in response to the student loan issue had harshly criticized the government’s taking over college loans.
Akin’s exact words were: “America has got the equivalent of the stage-three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats did to get rid of the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong. It was a lousy bill. That’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.” I’d say that is hugely different than what Obama claimed.
In an August of 2011 column, “Nero in the White House,” I wrote: “Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides … [but] in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn’t only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. … His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.”
The tragedy is that many of those students believed what he was saying, and others didn’t care one way or the other, as long as he was promising them something. In Chapel Hill, a girl seated behind Obama shook her head in disgust, wrongly believing his lies about Foxx.
But that student probably wasn’t thinking about finishing school with $25,000-$200,000 in student loan debt alone. Nor was she likely thinking about the credit-card debt and car payments she was going to have on top of that student loan debt.
In that same column, I wrote: “Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.”
Let me remind me you of something else I’ve been saying. Extending the lowered student loan interest rate is setting up another financial bubble because there is no way to pay for it.
But don’t look for Romney to bring relief to this madness – he agrees with Obama that the plan should be extended another year. But hey, like they say, anybody but Obama.
NARCISSIST IN CHIEF ~ from World Net Daily
More evidence Obama's a depraved liar
Exclusive: Mychal Massie explains BHO's mocking of GOP members of Congress
Mychal
Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black
Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in
Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by
the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. He is a nationally recognized
political activist, pundit and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel,
CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk-radio programming nationwide. A
former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Massie's website is mychal-massie.com.Speaking at the Carmichael Arena, in Chapel Hill, N.C., last Tuesday, Obama displayed not just his commonality, he purposefully lied to a handpicked audience of students. And as he always does, he was belittling someone else to make himself look good. Said behavior is typical of someone who carries the scars of the type of parents he had, but such behavior isn’t the character trait of an emotionally stable leader.
In boasting about his plans to keep student interest rates on federal loans from doubling, he said: “One Republican congresswoman said just recently – I am going to quote this because I know you guys will think I’m making this up. She said she had very little tolerance for people who tell [her] they graduate with debt because there’s no reason for that.” He mockingly continued: “I am just quoting here, she said students who rack up student loan debt are just sitting on their butts, having opportunity dumped in [their] lap.” He finished with: “Now can you imagine saying something like that?”
Actually, Barry, what we have difficulty with is your dishonesty. The congresswoman he was referencing is Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and her exact words were: “I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt, because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society, and people are forgetting that. I remind folks that the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don’t sit on your butt and have it dumped in your lap.”
Rep. Foxx, unlike Obama and his wife, didn’t have her education handed to her because she was Kenyan, black, Muslim, or because the school needed another black to make its quota. She worked as a janitor, and it took her seven years to get her undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But she graduated debt-free.
The next day, Obama swaggered up to another microphone with the same toothy leer and reprised his role as liar-in-chief. At the University of Iowa, he said: “You’ve got one member of Congress who compared these student loans [and] I’m not kidding here – to a stage-three cancer of socialism.” With a condescending grin, and preening before the handpicked crowd, he continued: “Stage-three cancer? I don’t know where to start. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Come on. Just when you think you’ve heard it all in Washington, somebody comes up with a new way to go off the deep end.”
I’ll tell you what I’m talking about Barry. I’m talking about you being a depraved liar. You were referring to Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who in response to the student loan issue had harshly criticized the government’s taking over college loans.
Akin’s exact words were: “America has got the equivalent of the stage-three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in. So first, to answer your question precisely, what the Democrats did to get rid of the private student loans and take it all over by the government was wrong. It was a lousy bill. That’s why I voted no. The government needs to get its nose out of the education business.” I’d say that is hugely different than what Obama claimed.
In an August of 2011 column, “Nero in the White House,” I wrote: “Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides … [but] in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn’t only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. … His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.”
The tragedy is that many of those students believed what he was saying, and others didn’t care one way or the other, as long as he was promising them something. In Chapel Hill, a girl seated behind Obama shook her head in disgust, wrongly believing his lies about Foxx.
But that student probably wasn’t thinking about finishing school with $25,000-$200,000 in student loan debt alone. Nor was she likely thinking about the credit-card debt and car payments she was going to have on top of that student loan debt.
In that same column, I wrote: “Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.”
Let me remind me you of something else I’ve been saying. Extending the lowered student loan interest rate is setting up another financial bubble because there is no way to pay for it.
But don’t look for Romney to bring relief to this madness – he agrees with Obama that the plan should be extended another year. But hey, like they say, anybody but Obama.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Cass Sunstein Gets A Brain Cramp...it's pathological
by Norman E. Hooben
A must see video follows the commentary!
click on picture to enlarge
Suppose you wrote a research paper which was designed to
promote an agenda that was contrary to popular thought...and a lot of time and
effort went into the carefully crafted words so as to not be immediately
identified as some kind of nut case. This
undertaking would result in a 29 page (pdf format) document with 86 footnotes. Obviously this project would require lots of
reading and cross-referencing before you finalized it for publication.
After completion a number of like-minded associates and or politicians
accepted your premise and reflected ideology and thus appointed you in a
prestigious position of power within the United States government. Now remember, this paper is controversial…so
much so, that it contradicts the thought process of most Americans and directly
confronts the U. S Constitution. With
that said the question is, “Do you remember writing such a paper? Not if you’re Cass Sunstein! (A must see video below) ~ Norman E. Hooben
The following from: The Excavator
Obama Information Czar Cass Sunstein
Confronted on Cognitive Infiltration of Conspiracy Groups
Cass Sunstein gets a brain cramp when
trying to answer Luke's question and forgets that he wrote a paper in 2008 that
suggested the U.S. government should "employ teams of covert agents and
pseudo-"independent" advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and
websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein
deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government." (From Glenn Greenwald's
article, 'Obama
confidant’s spine-chilling proposal').
_________________________________
Other stuff you should be familar with can be found here, here, here, and here.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
What's so 'great' about Great Britain?
Back in the day when FDR was giving everybody jobs through such government programs as the Workman's Progress Administration the joke of the times was, "What does WPA stand for?" And of course the answer was, "We Ponder Around" and that usually got a laugh from somebody. I actually pulled the joke on my dad for he was a product of that generation and he obviously knew the correct answer...and he certainly understood the "We ponder around." line as his laugh was instant and hearty. I'm not sure of the exact origin of the 'ponder' quote but it was understood that if you had one of those government jobs there was a lot of 'standing around' time...and in some cases just sitting around doing nothing. Picture a group of guys all standing around with shovels in their hands and no-one is working...that's pondering! Well now comes the question of Great Britain, "What's so great about Great Britain?" There's plenty to ponder over in the following collection of not so great stuff about the formerly prim and proper capital of the world. ~ Norman E. Hooben
'Welcome to 'rabbit hutch Britain'. Homes in Britain have the smallest rooms in western Europe, with the average floor space almost a quarter smaller than in Denmark, which boasts western Europe's most spacious living accommodation. The rooms in newly built private housing are so small that close to half of buyers find their kitchens are so cramped they cannot cook properly for their families, according to the survey by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.' (more)
See also: 'Britain tops DNA log league' / The Scotsman
'The proportion of British citizens whose details are logged on a DNA database whether or not they have been convicted of a crime is the highest in the world, a House of Lords report reveals today.' (more) '[The cross-party report also records that] Britain is the world's biggest user of CCTV with an estimated 4 million cameras in operation' / Bloomberg (more)
View: 'Our safety-first culture [isn't] building a good society but a sick one. This government clings to the fantasy that rules can eliminate risk. They can't, but they can destroy our faith in one another. European countries haven't chosen this path of endless suspicion. Why have we?' / Jenni Russell, The Guardian
Society: UK
retains EU cocaine abuse title / Guardian
'The UK remains at the top of the European "league table" for cocaine abuse for the fifth consecutive year, according to the annual report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Britain's continuing position at top of the table of 27 EU countries is based on the fact that 12.7% of young adults aged 15 to 34 have used the drug.' (more)
Economy: 'UK energy bills rise twice as fast as EU average' / BBC
'Energy prices in the UK have increased twice as fast as the European Union average, according to latest figures. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics showed gas and electricity bills rose 29.7% in the past year compared with 15% in the EU. Government watchdog Consumer Focus said UK customers were being hit "faster and harder" than those in Europe' (more)
Economy:
'Britain has worst and most expensive fruit and veg in Europe'
/ Belfast Telegraph
'Britain has the worst supply of fruit and vegetables in the EU, a new Eurostat report [pdf] claims, putting the UK on a par with Lithuania when it comes to the availability of fresh produce. The findings – which also demonstrate that British fruit and vegetables are among the most expensive in Europe – point to the failure of a series of government initiatives to increase our consumption of fruit and vegetables.'
See also: 'UK food prices rising faster than most of the rest of Europe' / Guardian
Society:
'Britain detains more children than any other country in Western Europe'
/ The Times
'Britain detains more children than any other country in Western Europe, with 2,900 under18s locked up in the past year. The four Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland have issued a report for the United Nations condemning the punitive youth justice system and the vilification of teenagers as yobs. The report also questioned whether enough was being done to end child poverty. Poor families pay out a bigger proportion of their income in tax than richer families and punitive prepay tariffs often mean that they pay much higher prices for gas and electricity.' (more)
See also: '"It's a moral disgrace that we still have one of the worst child poverty records in Europe," said Kate Green, Child Poverty Action Group's chief executive. "Other countries do better, so why should British children suffer? We can end our child poverty shame and we must." The Independent (more)
Education: 'English school pupils are amongst the most tested in the world' / HoC May
'Many witnesses argue that..repeated testing has a negative effect on children, leading to demotivation. Teaching to the test and narrowing of the curriculum are also thought to have a negative effect on children. The resulting lack of creativity in teaching impacts on children’s enjoyment of a subject and their motivation to learn.'
House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee report Testing and assessment [pdf]
See also: 'Truancy rate 'highest since 1997' / BBC News (more)
View: 'A fear of paedophilia as morphed into a general panic about adult-child relations. [In schools] the priority isn't pupils' wellbeing but to protect teachers from any accustations' / Jenni Russell, The Guardian
Transport: 'UK
roads more congested than any major EU country' / Policy Exchange
'In no other major European country are roads as congested as in the UK. On every kilometre of Britain’s road network more than 1.6 million passenger kilometres are travelled every year – more than twice the European average.* It has been estimated that traffic congestion costs the UK economy as much as £21 billion per year.' (more)
* Calculated using data from Panorama of Transport, Eurostat, 2007
[See also:'Huge rise in traffic choking the roads' / The Times
'Motorists are using cars more and more despite record fuel prices, higher vehicle taxes, and entreaties by the Government for greater use of public transport. Traffic has risen sharply in the past decade in almost every part of England except Inner London.The figures, published in a written parliamentary answer yesterday, show that across England road traffic rose by 12 per cent between 1997 and 2006.' (more)]
Economy: 'UK
bottom of the league for holiday entitlement' / BBC News
'The UK is set to stay at the bottom of the league for holiday entitlement in the EU even after a rise to 28 days in April 2009, a survey warns. A change in EU rules means the UK will have to stop counting its eight public holidays towards the EU 20-day minimum. But Incomes Data Services says the UK will still lag entitlement elsewhere, which ranges from 28-29 days in the Netherlands to 39.5 days in Denmark. (more)
Society: 'UK
jobless households highest in Europe' / The Times
'Britain has the highest number of children in Europe with no working parent, a European Commission report says. Two million live in “jobless households” on state benefits. The 16.2% of under-18s with no working parent at home is far higher than both the EU average of 9.5% and the general unemployment rate of 4.8%. The figure reflects the concentration of poverty in parts of Britain as well as the high level of one-parent families, experts say.' (more)
Health: 'UK women officially the fattest in Europe' / Daily Mail
'The scale of the obesity crisis was laid bare last night when an alarming report revealed Britons are the fattest people in Europe. The authoritative Eurostat yearbook places Britain at the top of a chart of obesity of the EU's 27 member countries. Second and third place are taken by Germany and Malta. British women head the EU league, with 23 per cent clinically obese, and men fare little better, with 22.3 per cent classified as obese -behind only Malta.' (more)
Source UK Shamed Again
Society:
British homes have smallest rooms in Western Euorpe' / The Guardian
'Welcome to 'rabbit hutch Britain'. Homes in Britain have the smallest rooms in western Europe, with the average floor space almost a quarter smaller than in Denmark, which boasts western Europe's most spacious living accommodation. The rooms in newly built private housing are so small that close to half of buyers find their kitchens are so cramped they cannot cook properly for their families, according to the survey by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.' (more)
Society:
'British tourists named the worst behaved in Europe' / Expedia
British tourists have been named as the worst behaved in Europe,
according to new research out today. For the third year running, Europeans have
also voted the Brits messy, bad tippers and very likely to complain. The Expedia
Best Tourist Index, running annually since 2002, gauges the opinions of over
4,500 hoteliers worldwide to rank different nationalities on their behaviour
abroad - everything from spending habits to their willingness to try and speak
the local language.' (more)
Society: 'UK is the violent crime capital of Europe' / Daily Telegraph
'The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital of Europe and has one of the highest rates of violence in the world according to new research. The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa. The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927 - and the highest absolute number of burglaries, with double the number of offences recorded in Germany and France. (more)
Society: 'Britain is UN's 'cocaine capital of Europe'' / The Independent
'Britain is the cocaine capital of Europe with more than one million regular users of the drug, according to a United Nations report. The report states that the UK "continues to be – in absolute numbers – Europe's largest cocaine market, with its second-highest cocaine use prevalence rate."' (more)
Economy: 'UK leads Europe on food price rises' / Daily Mail
'Food price inflation in the UK is almost four times higher than in the rest of Europe. Figures from the OECD show that UK food inflation las year was 8.6%, compared to an average of 2.2% for the EU. In Germany there was a fall of 0.7%, while in France prices rose just 0.8%.' (more)
Society: 'UK is the violent crime capital of Europe' / Daily Telegraph
'The United Kingdom is the violent crime capital of Europe and has one of the highest rates of violence in the world according to new research. The total number of violent offences recorded compared to population is higher than any other country in Europe, as well as America, Canada, Australia and South Africa. The UK had a greater number of murders in 2007 than any other EU country – 927 - and the highest absolute number of burglaries, with double the number of offences recorded in Germany and France. (more)
Society: 'Britain is UN's 'cocaine capital of Europe'' / The Independent
'Britain is the cocaine capital of Europe with more than one million regular users of the drug, according to a United Nations report. The report states that the UK "continues to be – in absolute numbers – Europe's largest cocaine market, with its second-highest cocaine use prevalence rate."' (more)
Economy: 'UK leads Europe on food price rises' / Daily Mail
'Food price inflation in the UK is almost four times higher than in the rest of Europe. Figures from the OECD show that UK food inflation las year was 8.6%, compared to an average of 2.2% for the EU. In Germany there was a fall of 0.7%, while in France prices rose just 0.8%.' (more)
Society:
'Britain has the lowest rape conviction rate in Europe' / The Times
'Rape victims are to be asked why they feel that they are being failed by the criminal justice system as new research suggests that Britain has the lowest conviction rates in Europe. Britain came bottom of 33 countries in the study, which is based on 1,100 case files and takes account of varying official definitions of rape, as well as the different legal processes. The first Europe-wide study of rape conviction rates found that the conviction rate in England & Wales has fallen to 6.5% (from 19% two decades ago); France, by contrast, had a conviction rate of 25% in 2006.' (more)
'Rape victims are to be asked why they feel that they are being failed by the criminal justice system as new research suggests that Britain has the lowest conviction rates in Europe. Britain came bottom of 33 countries in the study, which is based on 1,100 case files and takes account of varying official definitions of rape, as well as the different legal processes. The first Europe-wide study of rape conviction rates found that the conviction rate in England & Wales has fallen to 6.5% (from 19% two decades ago); France, by contrast, had a conviction rate of 25% in 2006.' (more)
Health: 'UK
has worst cancer survival rate in Western Europe' / Daily Mail
'Britain has the worst cancer survival record in Western Europe. Survival rates are on a par with Poland and the Czech Republic, even though they spend two-thirds less on cancer. A damning league table shows that Britain is 16th out of 19 countries surveyed. Patients in some European countries are 15% more likely to be alive 5 years after diagnosis. The figures come from the hugely respected Eurocare-4 study, which compared the five-year survival rates of 2.7million adult patients up to 2004.' (more)
Society: 'Britons least likely to intervene' / The Independent
'Research by the think-tank Reform [The Lawful Society report] found that British people are the least likely of all Europeans to step in if they witness a crime. Three-quarters of Britons – as opposed to 45% of French or Germans – think it's the responsibility of the police and courts to confront anti-social behaviour. The idea that intervention is an individual's responsibility seems to be falling away in the UK.' (more)
Environment: 'UK tops league for toxic traffic funes' / Sunday Times
'Britain has the worst cancer survival record in Western Europe. Survival rates are on a par with Poland and the Czech Republic, even though they spend two-thirds less on cancer. A damning league table shows that Britain is 16th out of 19 countries surveyed. Patients in some European countries are 15% more likely to be alive 5 years after diagnosis. The figures come from the hugely respected Eurocare-4 study, which compared the five-year survival rates of 2.7million adult patients up to 2004.' (more)
Society: 'Britons least likely to intervene' / The Independent
'Research by the think-tank Reform [The Lawful Society report] found that British people are the least likely of all Europeans to step in if they witness a crime. Three-quarters of Britons – as opposed to 45% of French or Germans – think it's the responsibility of the police and courts to confront anti-social behaviour. The idea that intervention is an individual's responsibility seems to be falling away in the UK.' (more)
Environment: 'UK tops league for toxic traffic funes' / Sunday Times
Britain suffers from the most widespread levels of dangerous traffic
fumes in Europe, posing a serious risk to health, according to a government
report. Hundreds of local authorities breach EU limits for nitrogen dioxide
(NO2), which has been linked to asthma, stunted lung growth in children and
premature death. The fumes on certain stretches of roads breach safety levels in
95% of cities and regions in the UK, compared with 82% in Austria, 52% in
Germany and 21% in France.' (more)
Society:
'British children worst in Europe for cannabis use' / Daily Telegraph
Children in Britain are the worst in Europe for cannabis abuse,
after UN [International Narcotics Control Board] researchers found that almost half of youngsters admitted having used the
drug. Some 44% of 15-16 year-olds said they had tried the drug. In comparison
countries such as Norway, Sweden and Greece found less than 10 per cent of their
youngsters used the drug. Its use by adults in Britain was also among the
highest in Europe.' (more)
Transport: 'British rail prices highest in Europe / AFP
'Rail fares are on average at least 50% higher in Britain than in the rest of Europe, a study by customer watchdog Passenger Focus for the government showed. The report found that in Britain, long-distance turn-up-and-go fully flexible return fares to the principal city (London) were 1.87 times more expensive than in Germany, the next most-expensive country surveyed, and 3.31 times more expensive than in the cheapest country, the Netherlands. British annual season tickets for journeys of up to 25 miles were 1.88 times pricier than the next most-expensive country, France, and 4.19 times more expensive than Italy, the cheapest country.' (more)
Transport: 'British rail prices highest in Europe / AFP
'Rail fares are on average at least 50% higher in Britain than in the rest of Europe, a study by customer watchdog Passenger Focus for the government showed. The report found that in Britain, long-distance turn-up-and-go fully flexible return fares to the principal city (London) were 1.87 times more expensive than in Germany, the next most-expensive country surveyed, and 3.31 times more expensive than in the cheapest country, the Netherlands. British annual season tickets for journeys of up to 25 miles were 1.88 times pricier than the next most-expensive country, France, and 4.19 times more expensive than Italy, the cheapest country.' (more)
Society:
'British youths are most alienated in Europe' / Daily Telegraph
'British youths feel more alienated than those in any other European country, according to a new happiness league table. Interviews with more than 40,000 people across the continent found that 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK have the lowest levels of trust and belonging. Among adults, only those in Slovakia and Bulgaria felt more isolated and distrustful of others. Britons are also less likely to be close to their neighbours than anyone else in Europe, with just 42 per cent claiming to feel community spirit. Among young people this figure falls to less than a third.' (more)
See also: 'New research commissioned by the BBC suggests life in UK 'has become lonelier', with traditional community life fading away.' BBC News
'British youths feel more alienated than those in any other European country, according to a new happiness league table. Interviews with more than 40,000 people across the continent found that 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK have the lowest levels of trust and belonging. Among adults, only those in Slovakia and Bulgaria felt more isolated and distrustful of others. Britons are also less likely to be close to their neighbours than anyone else in Europe, with just 42 per cent claiming to feel community spirit. Among young people this figure falls to less than a third.' (more)
See also: 'New research commissioned by the BBC suggests life in UK 'has become lonelier', with traditional community life fading away.' BBC News
See also: 'Britain tops DNA log league' / The Scotsman
'The proportion of British citizens whose details are logged on a DNA database whether or not they have been convicted of a crime is the highest in the world, a House of Lords report reveals today.' (more) '[The cross-party report also records that] Britain is the world's biggest user of CCTV with an estimated 4 million cameras in operation' / Bloomberg (more)
View: 'Our safety-first culture [isn't] building a good society but a sick one. This government clings to the fantasy that rules can eliminate risk. They can't, but they can destroy our faith in one another. European countries haven't chosen this path of endless suspicion. Why have we?' / Jenni Russell, The Guardian
Society:
'Britain on top in casual sex league / Sunday Times
'A new study has found the British are the most promiscuous western nation. In an international index measuring one-night stands, total numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex, Britain comes out ahead of Australia, the US, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.' (more)
[See also: 'The number of women having an abortion in England and Wales exceeded 200,000 for the first time last year. Britain's termination rate is already the highest in Western Europe.' / Daily Mail (more)]
'A new study has found the British are the most promiscuous western nation. In an international index measuring one-night stands, total numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex, Britain comes out ahead of Australia, the US, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany.' (more)
[See also: 'The number of women having an abortion in England and Wales exceeded 200,000 for the first time last year. Britain's termination rate is already the highest in Western Europe.' / Daily Mail (more)]
Economy:
'Free-spending Brits have highest credit card debt' / Forbes
'Free-spending Britons have the highest credit card debt of 14
European countries studied by the Datamonitor research group. [Their] propensity
to pay for everything from washing machines to weddings on their credit cards
has led to the average person having 1,349 euros worth of outstanding credit
card debt as of the end of last year. That compares to an average outstanding
credit card debt level of just 156 euros in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.'
(more)
'The UK remains at the top of the European "league table" for cocaine abuse for the fifth consecutive year, according to the annual report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Britain's continuing position at top of the table of 27 EU countries is based on the fact that 12.7% of young adults aged 15 to 34 have used the drug.' (more)
Economy: 'UK energy bills rise twice as fast as EU average' / BBC
'Energy prices in the UK have increased twice as fast as the European Union average, according to latest figures. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics showed gas and electricity bills rose 29.7% in the past year compared with 15% in the EU. Government watchdog Consumer Focus said UK customers were being hit "faster and harder" than those in Europe' (more)
Education:
'British primary schools offer least PE in EU' / Independent on Sunday
'In a league table of time spent on physical education in primary
and secondary schools, Britain came 15th out of 27 EU nations. In primary
schools, some pupils aged between five and 11 are offered just 30 minutes of PE
a week – which, together with Ireland, is the lowest in the EU. Schoolchildren
in France have four hours a week of PE.' (more)
Transport: 'UK motorists pay more than European neighbours for fuel' / uSwitch
'An in-depth study of petrol and diesel prices in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK over the past 8 years shows that every time a British driver fills up, they are paying an average of 12% more than their European neighbours. In fact, since the year 2000, UK motorists have consistently paid 20% more for their petrol and diesel compared to drivers from the other four largest European countries. In contrast, the Spanish pay 16% less for petrol than anyone else at just 96p per litre.' (more)
Health: 'Britain has highest rates of gullet (oesophageal) cancer in Europe' / Daily Telegraph
'Britain now has the highest rates of gullet (oesophageal) cancer in Europe, leading Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, to issue a "public alert" [in his annual report] urging doctors to look out for the condition, which is declining in other parts of Europe. In Britain cases of oesophageal cancer have risen by 87% in men and 40% in women causing more than 6,000 deaths a year, twice the European average.' (more)
Transport: 'UK motorists pay more than European neighbours for fuel' / uSwitch
'An in-depth study of petrol and diesel prices in France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK over the past 8 years shows that every time a British driver fills up, they are paying an average of 12% more than their European neighbours. In fact, since the year 2000, UK motorists have consistently paid 20% more for their petrol and diesel compared to drivers from the other four largest European countries. In contrast, the Spanish pay 16% less for petrol than anyone else at just 96p per litre.' (more)
Health: 'Britain has highest rates of gullet (oesophageal) cancer in Europe' / Daily Telegraph
'Britain now has the highest rates of gullet (oesophageal) cancer in Europe, leading Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, to issue a "public alert" [in his annual report] urging doctors to look out for the condition, which is declining in other parts of Europe. In Britain cases of oesophageal cancer have risen by 87% in men and 40% in women causing more than 6,000 deaths a year, twice the European average.' (more)
'Britain has the worst supply of fruit and vegetables in the EU, a new Eurostat report [pdf] claims, putting the UK on a par with Lithuania when it comes to the availability of fresh produce. The findings – which also demonstrate that British fruit and vegetables are among the most expensive in Europe – point to the failure of a series of government initiatives to increase our consumption of fruit and vegetables.'
See also: 'UK food prices rising faster than most of the rest of Europe' / Guardian
'Britain detains more children than any other country in Western Europe, with 2,900 under18s locked up in the past year. The four Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland have issued a report for the United Nations condemning the punitive youth justice system and the vilification of teenagers as yobs. The report also questioned whether enough was being done to end child poverty. Poor families pay out a bigger proportion of their income in tax than richer families and punitive prepay tariffs often mean that they pay much higher prices for gas and electricity.' (more)
See also: '"It's a moral disgrace that we still have one of the worst child poverty records in Europe," said Kate Green, Child Poverty Action Group's chief executive. "Other countries do better, so why should British children suffer? We can end our child poverty shame and we must." The Independent (more)
Education: 'English school pupils are amongst the most tested in the world' / HoC May
'Many witnesses argue that..repeated testing has a negative effect on children, leading to demotivation. Teaching to the test and narrowing of the curriculum are also thought to have a negative effect on children. The resulting lack of creativity in teaching impacts on children’s enjoyment of a subject and their motivation to learn.'
House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee report Testing and assessment [pdf]
See also: 'Truancy rate 'highest since 1997' / BBC News (more)
View: 'A fear of paedophilia as morphed into a general panic about adult-child relations. [In schools] the priority isn't pupils' wellbeing but to protect teachers from any accustations' / Jenni Russell, The Guardian
Education: 'UK
schools worst in Europe for bullying' / The Guardian
'Bullying in
secondary schools is worse in the UK than the rest of Europe, a new British
Council survey has found. The study, published today, found that nearly half of
UK secondary school pupils (46%) think that bullying is a problem in their
school. The situation is perceived to be worse in England, where 48% of pupils
think bullying is a problem in school, compared to 43% of pupils in Scotland and
32% in Wales. But more UK students (42%) said they were happier in school most
of the time than on average in the rest of Europe (33%).' (more)
Health: 'UK's teenagers most likely to be heavy drinkers' / BMA
"The British Medical Association is very worried about alcohol consumption among young people, particularly young girls. It is shocking that, in Europe, the UK's teenagers are most likely to be heavy drinkers," Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of science and ethics, said. The BMA report called for a raft of measures to be introduced and pointed to alarming statistics on how much youngsters, particularly teenage girls, drink. It said UK teenagers are among the most likely in Europe to admit heavy drinking and being intoxicated.' (more)
See also: 'Britons drink more heavily that Russians' / Sunday Times
'Britons are heavier drinkers than the Russians, according to official data from the World Health Organisation. Alcohol consumption per head is greater in the UK, and England on its own tops the European table for child and teenage drunkenness.' (more)
See also: Swimming with Crocodiles - The Culture of Extreme Drinking / Ed. by Marjana Martinic, Fiona Measham. Routledge (more)
Health: 'UK's teenagers most likely to be heavy drinkers' / BMA
"The British Medical Association is very worried about alcohol consumption among young people, particularly young girls. It is shocking that, in Europe, the UK's teenagers are most likely to be heavy drinkers," Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of science and ethics, said. The BMA report called for a raft of measures to be introduced and pointed to alarming statistics on how much youngsters, particularly teenage girls, drink. It said UK teenagers are among the most likely in Europe to admit heavy drinking and being intoxicated.' (more)
See also: 'Britons drink more heavily that Russians' / Sunday Times
'Britons are heavier drinkers than the Russians, according to official data from the World Health Organisation. Alcohol consumption per head is greater in the UK, and England on its own tops the European table for child and teenage drunkenness.' (more)
See also: Swimming with Crocodiles - The Culture of Extreme Drinking / Ed. by Marjana Martinic, Fiona Measham. Routledge (more)
'In no other major European country are roads as congested as in the UK. On every kilometre of Britain’s road network more than 1.6 million passenger kilometres are travelled every year – more than twice the European average.* It has been estimated that traffic congestion costs the UK economy as much as £21 billion per year.' (more)
* Calculated using data from Panorama of Transport, Eurostat, 2007
[See also:'Huge rise in traffic choking the roads' / The Times
'Motorists are using cars more and more despite record fuel prices, higher vehicle taxes, and entreaties by the Government for greater use of public transport. Traffic has risen sharply in the past decade in almost every part of England except Inner London.The figures, published in a written parliamentary answer yesterday, show that across England road traffic rose by 12 per cent between 1997 and 2006.' (more)]
Society:
'Britain rated worst in Europe for protecting privacy' / Guardian
'Britain, the country with the world's biggest network of
surveillance cameras, has the worst record in Europe for the protection of
privacy, according to a report from a London-based international watchdog. The UK is
billed as "an endemic surveillance society" alongside Russia, the US, Singapore
and China in the survey of 47 countries by Privacy International (PI). Britain
is bottom in Europe because of its cameras, ID card plans and lack of government
accountability.' (more)
Society:
'Britain stuck at bottom of social mobility league' / Reuters
'Social mobility has not improved in Britain in 30 years with bright children from poor families being overtaken by less able youngsters from rich homes by the age of seven, a report [says]. The findings show that the academic progress of children is still overwhelmingly linked to parental income, providing few opportunities to close the wealth gap, said the Sutton Trust charity which commissioned the study [pdf]. "Shamefully, Britain remains stuck at the bottom of the international league tables when it comes to social mobility," said Peter Lampl, the trust's chairman. "It is appalling that young people's life chances are still so tied to the fortunes of their parents, and that this situation has not improved over the last three decades." (more)
[See also: How equal are educational opportunities? Family background and student achievement in Europe and the US / Ludger Woessmann, CESIFO Working Paper No. 1162 [pdf]:
'The results of this paper are generally in line with the broad pattern of the existing crosscountry evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility, which found that the United States and the United Kingdom appear to be relatively immobile societies']
Economy: UK still setting the pace on personal debt / Financial Markets
'The UK is now responsible for a third of all unsecured debt in Western Europe
- average consumer debt in the UK: £3,008
- average consumer debt for Western Europe: £1,558' (more)
'Social mobility has not improved in Britain in 30 years with bright children from poor families being overtaken by less able youngsters from rich homes by the age of seven, a report [says]. The findings show that the academic progress of children is still overwhelmingly linked to parental income, providing few opportunities to close the wealth gap, said the Sutton Trust charity which commissioned the study [pdf]. "Shamefully, Britain remains stuck at the bottom of the international league tables when it comes to social mobility," said Peter Lampl, the trust's chairman. "It is appalling that young people's life chances are still so tied to the fortunes of their parents, and that this situation has not improved over the last three decades." (more)
[See also: How equal are educational opportunities? Family background and student achievement in Europe and the US / Ludger Woessmann, CESIFO Working Paper No. 1162 [pdf]:
'The results of this paper are generally in line with the broad pattern of the existing crosscountry evidence on intergenerational earnings mobility, which found that the United States and the United Kingdom appear to be relatively immobile societies']
Economy: UK still setting the pace on personal debt / Financial Markets
'The UK is now responsible for a third of all unsecured debt in Western Europe
- average consumer debt in the UK: £3,008
- average consumer debt for Western Europe: £1,558' (more)
Economy:
Britain retains European shoplifting supremacy / Times
'Britain is the shoplifting capital of Europe, with more than £1.5 billion worth of products a year being stolen by customers. The annual Global Retail Theft Barometer [compiled by the Centre for Retail Research in Nottingham and Checkpoint Systems] looked at more than 800 retail giants, covering 32 countries, and responsible for £447 billion worth of sales every year and found that Britain had the worst record for what it refers to as “shrinkage”. It has topped the table for the past three years in Europe.' (more)
'Britain is the shoplifting capital of Europe, with more than £1.5 billion worth of products a year being stolen by customers. The annual Global Retail Theft Barometer [compiled by the Centre for Retail Research in Nottingham and Checkpoint Systems] looked at more than 800 retail giants, covering 32 countries, and responsible for £447 billion worth of sales every year and found that Britain had the worst record for what it refers to as “shrinkage”. It has topped the table for the past three years in Europe.' (more)
Environment:
'UK still top of the rubbish heap' / EDIE
'The UK is the "dustbin of Europe" and dumps more household waste into landfill than any other EU country, the Local Government Association has said. More than 22.6m tonnes of UK rubbish was buried in landfill in 2005 - the same amount of rubbish as the 18 EU countries with the lowest landfill rates combined, although together they have almost twice the population of the UK.' (more)
Transport: 'UK motorway network bottom of the European league' / Road Users' Alliance
'Decades of under-investment have placed the UK motorway network at the bottom of the EU–25. Road File 2007/08, the annual compilation of road statistics published today by the Road Users’ Alliance (RUA), reveals that Britain has more cars per motorway mile than any EU-25 nation. Far from competing with Germany or France, Britain’s roads languish on a par with Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary.' (more)
Society: 'Britons have worst state pension in EU' / Daily Mail
'Millions of Britons are being condemned to poverty in old age by the worst state pension in the EU, a study shows. The basic state pension of £87.30 a week is equivalent to just 17 per cent of the average wage, it found. This figure rises to 30 per cent once pension payments related to earnings are taken into account. But this is still only half the EU average of 60 per cent, the financial firm Aon Consulting said. Its study concluded: "The inadequacy of the state system is beyond question." (more)
'The UK is the "dustbin of Europe" and dumps more household waste into landfill than any other EU country, the Local Government Association has said. More than 22.6m tonnes of UK rubbish was buried in landfill in 2005 - the same amount of rubbish as the 18 EU countries with the lowest landfill rates combined, although together they have almost twice the population of the UK.' (more)
Transport: 'UK motorway network bottom of the European league' / Road Users' Alliance
'Decades of under-investment have placed the UK motorway network at the bottom of the EU–25. Road File 2007/08, the annual compilation of road statistics published today by the Road Users’ Alliance (RUA), reveals that Britain has more cars per motorway mile than any EU-25 nation. Far from competing with Germany or France, Britain’s roads languish on a par with Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary.' (more)
Society: 'Britons have worst state pension in EU' / Daily Mail
'Millions of Britons are being condemned to poverty in old age by the worst state pension in the EU, a study shows. The basic state pension of £87.30 a week is equivalent to just 17 per cent of the average wage, it found. This figure rises to 30 per cent once pension payments related to earnings are taken into account. But this is still only half the EU average of 60 per cent, the financial firm Aon Consulting said. Its study concluded: "The inadequacy of the state system is beyond question." (more)
Health:
'British are the fattest in Europe, says Government' / The Independent
'British people are the fattest in Europe, drink more alcohol, eat less fruit and vegetables and are more likely to die from smoking than the average across the European Union. Despite declining teenage pregnancy rates, the UK still has the highest proportion of births to under-20s compared with other western European countries. The figures are set out in the Health Profile for England 2007, published by the Department of Health yesterday.' (more)
'British people are the fattest in Europe, drink more alcohol, eat less fruit and vegetables and are more likely to die from smoking than the average across the European Union. Despite declining teenage pregnancy rates, the UK still has the highest proportion of births to under-20s compared with other western European countries. The figures are set out in the Health Profile for England 2007, published by the Department of Health yesterday.' (more)
Society:
Britain still top for teenage pregnancies / Daily Telegraph
'Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, according to a worldwide report into sexual and reproductive health risks to women. The authors of the report A Measure of Survival: Calculating Women's Sexual and Reproductive Risk [released by Population Action International] warned that teenagers, whose pregnancies were often unplanned, run a higher risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth.' (more)
Health:
'Britain the worst for deaths from strokes' / The Times
'Patients who suffer strokes receive worse treatment in Britain than anywhere else in Western Europe. More die and more are left disabled, a leading expert says in this week’s British Medical Journal, even though Britain spends [at least as much as] other countries on stroke care. The gap is wide, according to Hugh Markus, of St George’s University of London medical school. One study showed that 15 to 30% more stroke patients were left dead or disabled in Britain than in other countries'. In many countries in Europe, and in North America and Australia, 20 to 30% of patients get [clot-busting] drugs. In Britain the figure is less than 1%. Britain also treats fewer patients in dedicated stroke units than other countries, though setting up such units costs nothing and there is abundant evidence that they improve outcomes.' (more)
'Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe, according to a worldwide report into sexual and reproductive health risks to women. The authors of the report A Measure of Survival: Calculating Women's Sexual and Reproductive Risk [released by Population Action International] warned that teenagers, whose pregnancies were often unplanned, run a higher risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth.' (more)
'Patients who suffer strokes receive worse treatment in Britain than anywhere else in Western Europe. More die and more are left disabled, a leading expert says in this week’s British Medical Journal, even though Britain spends [at least as much as] other countries on stroke care. The gap is wide, according to Hugh Markus, of St George’s University of London medical school. One study showed that 15 to 30% more stroke patients were left dead or disabled in Britain than in other countries'. In many countries in Europe, and in North America and Australia, 20 to 30% of patients get [clot-busting] drugs. In Britain the figure is less than 1%. Britain also treats fewer patients in dedicated stroke units than other countries, though setting up such units costs nothing and there is abundant evidence that they improve outcomes.' (more)
'The UK is set to stay at the bottom of the league for holiday entitlement in the EU even after a rise to 28 days in April 2009, a survey warns. A change in EU rules means the UK will have to stop counting its eight public holidays towards the EU 20-day minimum. But Incomes Data Services says the UK will still lag entitlement elsewhere, which ranges from 28-29 days in the Netherlands to 39.5 days in Denmark. (more)
Society:
'British teens the worst behaved in Europe' / Daily Mail
'British teenagers are the worst behaved in Europe, a report has revealed. They are more likely to binge-drink, take drugs, have sex at a young age and start fights. The IPPR report found that 44% of British youngsters had been involved in a physical fight in the previous year against 28% in Germany, 36% in France and 38% in Italy. 38% confessed to under-age sex, almost double the French figure. The same percentage had tried cannabis, more than five times the rate in Sweden. Our teenagers are also bigger drinkers, with 27 per cent admitting to getting drunk regularly. In Italy, the figure is five per cent and in France it is just three per cent. The researchers found that UK children rarely talk in any depth to their parents or sit down to family meals. The IPPR also says British adults areless likely than our European counterparts to confront teenagers about antisocial behaviour and vandalism.' (more)
Education: 'British students are laziest in Europe' / The Times
'British students are the laziest in Europe, according to a survey of how much time they devote to their course. Undergraduates across the UK confessed to putting in an average 32-hour week during term-time, including lectures, seminars, library time and working at home. The British performance was some way below the European average of 39 hours, and ten hours a week behind the French, according the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market at Maastricht University. The survey [also] indicated that British students were the least likely to carry on with their studies at a higher level. Only 5 per cent of British students took up postgraduate study compared with the European level of 18 per cent.' (more)
'British teenagers are the worst behaved in Europe, a report has revealed. They are more likely to binge-drink, take drugs, have sex at a young age and start fights. The IPPR report found that 44% of British youngsters had been involved in a physical fight in the previous year against 28% in Germany, 36% in France and 38% in Italy. 38% confessed to under-age sex, almost double the French figure. The same percentage had tried cannabis, more than five times the rate in Sweden. Our teenagers are also bigger drinkers, with 27 per cent admitting to getting drunk regularly. In Italy, the figure is five per cent and in France it is just three per cent. The researchers found that UK children rarely talk in any depth to their parents or sit down to family meals. The IPPR also says British adults areless likely than our European counterparts to confront teenagers about antisocial behaviour and vandalism.' (more)
Education: 'British students are laziest in Europe' / The Times
'British students are the laziest in Europe, according to a survey of how much time they devote to their course. Undergraduates across the UK confessed to putting in an average 32-hour week during term-time, including lectures, seminars, library time and working at home. The British performance was some way below the European average of 39 hours, and ten hours a week behind the French, according the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market at Maastricht University. The survey [also] indicated that British students were the least likely to carry on with their studies at a higher level. Only 5 per cent of British students took up postgraduate study compared with the European level of 18 per cent.' (more)
Society:
'British more dependent on cars than any other European nation' / The
Times
'Despite being less likely to own a car, Britons rely on them more heavily. They are reluctant to catch buses and will leave their cars behind only if there is a convenient train. Only the Portuguese walk less, a survey has found. The Government's Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) studied travel patterns in major European countries to learn how to reduce congestion and improve quality of life. The starkest difference between Britain and the rest of Europe was in the level of cycling. The CfIT study found that the average Briton cycled 75km (46 miles) a year, while the average European cycled almost three times as far, covering 18km.' (more)
See also: 'Britons rely on their cars for 80% of travel' / Guardian
"UK citizens know the transport system lags behind those in Europe. The UK's congested network would do better with a dose of European medicine, showing how to run a truly joined-up transport system." (more)
Economy: 'British hotel prices the highest in Europe' / The Times
'Hotels in Britain are the costliest in Europe, with the price of an overnight stay in London rising by 22 per cent last year. The overall average cost of a night in a British hotel is £98. Bath, at an average of £114 per night, offers the nation’s most expensive lodging. The figures are compiled from data gathered from millions of travellers who book accommodation via the website hotels.com, which lists 20,000 hotels in more than a thousand locations worldwide.' (more)
'Despite being less likely to own a car, Britons rely on them more heavily. They are reluctant to catch buses and will leave their cars behind only if there is a convenient train. Only the Portuguese walk less, a survey has found. The Government's Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) studied travel patterns in major European countries to learn how to reduce congestion and improve quality of life. The starkest difference between Britain and the rest of Europe was in the level of cycling. The CfIT study found that the average Briton cycled 75km (46 miles) a year, while the average European cycled almost three times as far, covering 18km.' (more)
See also: 'Britons rely on their cars for 80% of travel' / Guardian
"UK citizens know the transport system lags behind those in Europe. The UK's congested network would do better with a dose of European medicine, showing how to run a truly joined-up transport system." (more)
Economy: 'British hotel prices the highest in Europe' / The Times
'Hotels in Britain are the costliest in Europe, with the price of an overnight stay in London rising by 22 per cent last year. The overall average cost of a night in a British hotel is £98. Bath, at an average of £114 per night, offers the nation’s most expensive lodging. The figures are compiled from data gathered from millions of travellers who book accommodation via the website hotels.com, which lists 20,000 hotels in more than a thousand locations worldwide.' (more)
'Britain has the highest number of children in Europe with no working parent, a European Commission report says. Two million live in “jobless households” on state benefits. The 16.2% of under-18s with no working parent at home is far higher than both the EU average of 9.5% and the general unemployment rate of 4.8%. The figure reflects the concentration of poverty in parts of Britain as well as the high level of one-parent families, experts say.' (more)
Health: 'UK women officially the fattest in Europe' / Daily Mail
'The scale of the obesity crisis was laid bare last night when an alarming report revealed Britons are the fattest people in Europe. The authoritative Eurostat yearbook places Britain at the top of a chart of obesity of the EU's 27 member countries. Second and third place are taken by Germany and Malta. British women head the EU league, with 23 per cent clinically obese, and men fare little better, with 22.3 per cent classified as obese -behind only Malta.' (more)
Society:
'Britain's children unhappiest in Western world' / The Times
'Britain’s children are the unhappiest in the West, according to a Unicef study of 21 industrialised countries. Not only do they drink the most, smoke more and have more sex than their peers, they rate their health as the poorest, dislike school more and are among the least satisfied with life. Their relative poverty, the lack of time spent eating meals with their parents and mistrust of classmates mean that Britain languishes at the bottom of the wellbeing league table.' (more)
'Britain’s children are the unhappiest in the West, according to a Unicef study of 21 industrialised countries. Not only do they drink the most, smoke more and have more sex than their peers, they rate their health as the poorest, dislike school more and are among the least satisfied with life. Their relative poverty, the lack of time spent eating meals with their parents and mistrust of classmates mean that Britain languishes at the bottom of the wellbeing league table.' (more)
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The free and open Internet will not be around forever.
"Ideas are incredibly powerful, and today we are in the middle of a global information war. Use the Internet to make a difference while you can, because the free and open Internet will not be around forever. Already the elite* are taking steps to clamp down on it. That is why you hear so much chatter about SOPA and ACTA and CISPA. The powers that be do not like what the Internet has turned into and they want to get it under control." (*see who they are at bottom of this page)
How Will History Remember You? ~ Source The American Dream
How are you going to spend your life? When it is all said and done, how will
history remember you? Unfortunately, these days most people do not spend much
time thinking about those kinds of questions. Most people just kind of stumble
through life without any clear direction or meaning. Sadly, our society makes
it far too easy to remain "comfortably numb" the vast majority of the time. We
are absolutely addicted to entertainment and there is more of it available today
than ever before - television, movies, music, video games, sports events, food,
gambling, shopping - the outlets for feeding our addictions are seemingly
endless. But do you really want to spend your life feeding your addictions and
keeping yourself entertained as much as possible? The following is a saying
that has stayed with me my entire life: "Life is like a coin - you can spend it
any way that you want, but you can only spend it once." If the fact that we are
all hurtling through space on this giant rock is just some kind of cosmic
accident and life really does not have any meaning, then yes it would make sense
to fill up our lives with as much pleasure as possible before we die. But if
life really does have meaning and the things that we do today can have a
permanent impact on the future, then perhaps many of us need to start thinking
about what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind once we are gone.
Most people don't think too much about this, but the reality is that we all have the privilege to be living during one of the most amazing times in all of human history.
For decades, it has seemed as though history has been slowly building toward some sort of crescendo. The pace of change just keeps getting faster and faster and faster, and our world is becoming incredibly unstable.
Just look around you. Virtually everything that can be shaken is being shaken.
The economy is falling apart, the fabric of society is starting to come apart at the seams, war in the Middle East could erupt at any moment and the planet itself is shaking in unprecedented ways.
All you have to do is look at a population chart to realize that we are living during an absolutely unprecedented time....
Back in 1800, there were about 1 billion people in the world. Today, there are about 7 billion.
Do you know what that means?
It means that we potentially have the opportunity to touch more lives than anyone else ever has before.
The amount of suffering in the world today is absolutely mind blowing.
Did you know that 3 billion people survive on the equivalent of $2.50 or less every single day?
There are hundreds of millions of people that do not have enough to eat today.
There are hundreds of millions of people that do not have clean water.
All over the globe children will go digging around in public trash dumps today to try to find something to eat or something to sell.
Countless numbers of other children have been sold into slavery and live every day without hope.
In some areas of the globe, children are purposely blinded with acid by their masters so that they will make more money for them begging on the streets.
Other children are chained to beds as an endless parade of sick perverts pay to have sex with them.
When you start realizing the horrors that are going on in our world, it makes it a bit more difficult to live your life only for yourself.
Tonight, there will be millions upon millions of people all over the globe on the verge of suicide because they think that life is hopeless.
Do you ever think about them?
Tonight, there will be millions upon millions of children all over the globe that will be abused by their parents or by close relatives.
Do you ever say a prayer for them?
There are so many people out there that could use a little love. Millions are rotting away their lives in prisons - including a lot of people that are completely innocent. Millions spend lonely day after lonely day in "retirement homes" without anyone ever coming to visit them.
This very night there will be families sleeping on the streets of every major American city.
Do you ever think about them while you are sleeping in your warm bed?
In North Korea, it is estimated that somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people are incarcerated in nightmarish gulags. In many cases, entire families have been imprisoned because one family member said or did something that a government official took the wrong way. In order to survive, many of the prisoners eat "plants, grass, bark, rats, snakes, the food-stuffs of the labor camp farm animals."
But it is not just North Korea that is sick and twisted.
The truth is that the entire global system is deeply corrupt and this has caused massive amounts of suffering all over the globe.
So instead of living your life selfishly, why don't you make your life something to remember?
Decide to be a light in the darkness.
Thanks to technology, it is easier for the average person to make a difference than ever before.
In the old days, the elite pretty much had a monopoly on mass communication. But today the Internet has totally changed that.
Something that you post on the Internet today could end up being seen by tens of millions of people.
Without ever leaving the comfort of your own home, you could literally change lives on the other side of the world.
Ideas are incredibly powerful, and today we are in the middle of a global information war. Use the Internet to make a difference while you can, because the free and open Internet will not be around forever. Already the elite are taking steps to clamp down on it. That is why you hear so much chatter about SOPA and ACTA and CISPA. The powers that be do not like what the Internet has turned into and they want to get it under control.
Even now, everything that you do on the Internet is being watched by governments all over the world. But that is no reason to quit spreading the truth. Perhaps some of the "watchers" will even be persuaded by what you have to say.
It is when times are the darkest that the greatest heroes are needed. The world has become a very dark place and things are going to get a lot darker before it is all said and done.
But that just means that we need as many heroes as possible.
The great war between good and evil is reaching a climax. Do you want to spend your life doing things that will make a permanent difference or do you want to spend your life on your couch staring at your television?
History is not going to care how much stuff you were able to accumulate.
But if you are able to make a true difference in the lives of others that will definitely count for something.
When people tell me that they are "bored", that just blows me away because I honestly don't know how anyone could be bored in this day and age.
We live during one of the most exciting times in all of human history, and I know that I could easily fill up three or four times as many hours in the day.
There is always more that could be learned and more that could be done.
All over the world, the darkness is growing, and it is going to continue to grow.
You can choose to curse the darkness, or you can choose to shine your light in that darkness.
The choice is up to you.
You don't need to be famous to make a difference.
Neither do you need an audience of thousands upon thousands of people.
The truth is that every single person that is reading this has the ability to make a difference.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In a previous article, I listed some of the things that you can do right now to start making a difference....
Talk to your family.
Talk to your friends.
Share the truth on Facebook.
Share the truth on Twitter.
Join an organization.
Go on a march.
Write a letter to the editor.
Write a letter to your representatives in Congress.
Run for office.
Start a blog.
Start a website.
Make YouTube videos.
Make new friends.
Connect with new people.
Feed the homeless.
Visit those who are hurting.
Give to someone in need.
Volunteer for a cause.
Pass out fliers.
Pass out books.
Pass out DVDs.
Give a speech.
Send out emails.
Write a book.
Make a movie.
In the Declaration of Independence we find the following statement....
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
All men, women and children (including the unborn) all over the planet were created equal. They all deserve to be loved and protected.
Unfortunately, we live in a world that is becoming very, very cold. All throughout society, people have become greedy, selfish, boastful, proud, abusive, disrespectful, hateful, unforgiving and cruel. People have become addicted to pleasure and to all of the good things that our debt-fueled prosperity can buy.
Where are all of the strong men and women that are willing to put God, family and country before themselves?
Where are all of the strong men and woman that are willing to stand up for what is right even if it is going to cost them everything?
The years ahead are going to be incredibly hard. Millions of those that are living only for themselves are going to have their lives absolutely shattered by what is coming.
But if you have a purpose that is bigger than yourself, you will likely find that the years ahead will be absolutely teeming with meaning and adventure.
So how will history remember you?
Hopefully it will remember you as someone of great love. Hopefully it will you as someone that loved God, family and country. Hopefully it will remember you as someone that made a difference in the lives of others.
You only have one life.
Spend it wisely.
"Life is like a coin - you can spend it any way that you want, but you can only spend it once."
______________________
The Politic Elite
