Obama's Fiscal Cliff Is Permanent

America will be on a fiscal cliff no matter what agreements are reached between Democrats and Republicans.

The damage done by the Obama administration to the economy is too deep to be saved by last-minute deals.

Tax increases on the rich have virtually no impact on the reduction of the US national deficit, and are imposed for ideological, not practical, reasons.

The type of measures that could be most effective, reducing public spending, are exactly what Obama does not want to do. He did not pursue that policy in his first term and is unlikely to do it now, after being re-elected.

The Democrats, as they have done many times before (http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51958#When:22:20:54Z), make promises that they will not maintain, in order to deceive Republicans and lead them to make concessions.

Harvard professor and chairman of the Economics Department at Harvard University Greg Mankiw explains why this policy of tax increases on the rich will not solve the debt problem and will only lead to more, never-ending tax hikes:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-neverending-quest-for-more.html?m=1

He also explains why taxing 'the rich', which is already done anyway since one third of their income is taken in tax - despite the media's generous coverage of unenlightening anecdotes about unrepresentative cases of tax avoidance -, cannot mathematically solve the problem of the government's overspending on entitlements. So the choice can only be between drastically reducing the welfare system expenditure or increasing taxes on the middle class (Mankiw obiously does not consider the possibility of robbing the rich of all or most of their money, although Obama and his comrades might):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/business/on-middle-class-tax-rates-too-much-wishful-thinking.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

The current policy is lunacy and Obama has dragged American economy into a vicious, self-perpetuating circle of ever-increasing poverty and on a road to communism not through revolution but by stealth, piecemeal, a bit of redistributive tax hike at a time.

Africa Energy Consumption Growing Fastest in the World

The continent of Africa, home to 15 percent of the globe's population, has the fastest-growing energy consumption in the world.

http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2013/0101/Africa-s-energy-consumption-growing-fastest-in-world

This is part of the explanations of why attempts to reduce carbon emissions are irrational and destructive.

If you exclude Third World countries from restrictions in their use of fossil fuels, as the Kyoto Protocol does, even by the calculation of those who believe in anthropogenic global warming you have no impact whatsoever on the reduction of warming.

If, on the other hand, you impose those restrictions on developing countries as well, the effect on global warming is minimal, merely delaying it by something like 5 years, while there is no question that you deliver a blow to the world's poorest nations' possibilities of economic development.

Racism and Sexism Exist

Do I believe that racism and sexism exist?

Yes, I do. Here I'll give one clear example of each.

Racism is when a public figure, a high-profile black woman like Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen, explaining the reasons why she chose to bury him in Jamaica rather than the UK, says:

'Then again, I don't think the country [Britain] deserves to have his body there anyway because they took his life'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082024/Stephen-Lawrences-final-resting-place-revealed.html

Who is 'they'? All the British people? This sweeping generalization, this condemnation of a whole country - which accepted and gave a lot to this immigrant family in search of a better life, although all the good things, all the immense benefits that European countries shower on Third World immigrants of their own free will, without any reason in the world to do so except their traditionally Christian generosity, are taken for granted as if they were entitlements, 'rights' - because of what was done by one or very few individuals is racist.

Sexism is when women, as is generally the case in Western countries, are treated more leniently than men for the same offenses by courts.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311004/Judges-ordered-mercy-women-criminals-deciding-sentences.html

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/116/articles/mansnerus.htm

The most glaring examples of this kind of sexism are those of women acquitted of infanticide and murder for hormonal reasons like post-natal depression and pre-menstrual syndrome, whereas hormonal factors are not commonly used to excuse and justify criminal behaviours in men.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198590/Mother-suffocated-baby-guilty-murder-suffering-postpartum-psychosis.html

http://www.angelfire.com/realm3/jtest28/Double_Standards.html

http://www.oddee.com/item_97028.aspx

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/158/articles/dershowitz1.htm

US Anti-Gun Democratic Senator Shoots Intruders

A USA Democratic Senator who has long been campaigning for gun control pulled a gun on two people who had broken into his home and shot one.

http://newrepublicoftexas.com/news/anti-gun-senator-shoots-home-intruders/