Farewell, England, we scarcely knew ye

.

Alternative headline: Alternative fuel source gets a foothold in British hospitals


England of Magna Carta, ending slave trade and ending worldwide tyranny via WW I and WW II fame has appeared to step aside and say, “Ya know, eff it. We’re done here”.

This is what the self-revocation process looks like for a member in good standing of Western Civilization.


Via KT of the Scratching Post who had this to say with respect to the following: “.... it turns out there was no reason to Bomben auf Engelend after all. The British lion would eventually see the light.


From the Telegraph:

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.

One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’
Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.

They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich Hospital itself disposes of remains by cremation.

“This practice is totally unacceptable,” said Dr Poulter.

“While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay.”

“totally unacceptable”... “Human Tissue Authority”

Charmed, we’re sure.

We’re sure the global community will get properly exercised only when the British Health Ministry declares that the resulting embryonic tissue particulate is carcinogenic and a global-warming contributor as well



The second item as evidence of England stepping down from the world stage relates to Sharia law now being codified into British law and in this instance with respect to the writing of wills.


Also, from the Telegraph:

Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether.

The documents, which would be recognised by Britain’s courts, will also prevent children born out of wedlock – and even those who have been adopted – from being counted as legitimate heirs.

Anyone married in a church, or in a civil ceremony, could be excluded from succession under Sharia principles, which recognise only Muslim weddings for inheritance purposes.

Nicholas Fluck, president of The Law Society, said the guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.

Because Balkanizing your country absolutely demands “good practice”.



Western Civilization with it’s freedom of speech and religion, its property rights and equality-for-all features had a pretty good run and at one time Great Britain was at the forefront of that novel and rebellious movement.


All movements, however, have their arc and it would appear the fat and sclerotic Brits are exhibiting some defense-of-culture laziness and hastening the demise of its imperfect yet better-than-the-rest culture.


We are not fans of anti-Sharia legislation that we have seen pop up from time to time over the years. Like ridiculous flag-burning amendments, it comes across as cheap pandering.


Do we not have a culturally-approved standing code of laws as it is? And did we not fight a civil war for the fair and equal treatment of all citizens and then have it out all over again some 100 years later to further enhance civil rights guarantees. Did we not get this all straightened out?


However, when reality knocks and our English-speaking cousins are setting up a shadow or parallel legal system to the one that already exists, is anti-Sharia legislation worth a second look?


As it stands, right now, peace out, our cousins across the pond.

O Glorious Day.

A winter-like storm had blown through the region just a few days before leaving cool, brisk and breezy conditions in its wake… perfect for getting out for a drive or a hike. Since hiking was like so last week, we hopped in the truck and headed up to the Mt. Soledad War Memorial to hang out, take some pictures and just relax… should be pretty quiet up there… nothing going on – its Memorial Day weekend – everybody’s out of town. Nothing happening except the Memorial Day ceremony. Please enjoy the pictures of the monument and people that were taken before the ceremony started. (Click on the photos to enlarge).




The entrance to the Memorial which was closed to thru-traffic.














....Because any event worth going to is worth tail-gating at. These are our people!





























A look at the Memorial from the lower parking lot.

































It remains unfathomable to us that there are people out there whose existence has been consumed with destroying this Memorial.

































Jerry Coleman (on left): Marine Aviator in both WW II and Korea, former Yankee player and current San Diego Padre radio broadcaster and all around great guy and gentleman. Now that's a life lived.














Members of the Buffalo Soldiers















I looked for an 82nd Airborne banner but couldn't find one, 'Dawg. Sorry.















Gentlemen here are from the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association. There are 3200 plaque locations at the monument, 2500 of which have been filled.


































And what better way to end the day than with some vino, a few ice cold Sierra Nevadas and a real-life American hero. Worried that the war would be over before he and his buddies from western PA got over there to take care of business, Bob Callahan enlisted in 1943 at the age of 18 and saw action in both Italy and France as part of the 3rd Infantry Division. Bob is a two-time Purple Heart recipient and this post is dedicated to him. God Bless you, Bob and thank you for your service and devotion to this country.

We're gonna let Ray bring it home this evening. Any objections...? Didn't think so.

WW()D?

Hey, do you remember when they told us that if we voted for McCain, it would just mean a continuation of policies designed to invade our privacy? Well, they were right.

The (Bush) administration is proposing to scale back a long-standing ban on tracking how people use government Internet sites with "cookies" and other technologies, raising alarms among privacy groups.

A two-week public comment period ended Monday on a proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget to end a ban on federal Internet sites using such technologies and replace it with other privacy safeguards. The current prohibition, in place since 2000, can be waived if an agency head cites a "compelling need."

Supporters of a change say social networking and similar services, which often take advantage of the tracking technologies, have transformed how people communicate over the Internet, and (Bush’s) aides say those services can make government more transparent and increase public involvement.

We’d be a little less skeptical of this attempt at “transparency” if the knuckleheads in the (Bush) administration hadn’t solicited information from their followers regarding those who dare oppose the administrations policies with the use of a snitch site at whitehouse.gov. As it is, there’s no way we are buying into this.

WW()D?

and more Friday evening dumpage...

We go rafting up on the Lower Kern over the weekend and come home to find out that in addition to passing cap and trade late Friday (which included a 300 page un-read (un-readable?) amendment), the most ethical Congress ever found time to squeeze in a moment-of-silence tribute to an alleged child molester on the House floor during the debate on that same piece of, uhh, legislation.

Also, taken out with the trash right before the weekend was the fact that (President Bush) was, in seeking to avoid a battle with Congress over the closing of Club Gitmo, crafting language that would re-assert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinetely.

Recall that (President Bush) criticized the previous administration for its policies regarding the long-term detention of detainees and insisted that any detention program must include Congressional and judicial oversight.

With the flurry of activity that went down in D.C. going into the weekend, we're relieved to learn that despite all the flailing and posturing some things never change.

WW()D?

After early pledges by President Obama that he would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policy on immigration enforcement, his administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.

This really shouldn’t come as any surprise because it was part of the Amnesty formula triangulated by the Bush administration. After the pummeling Congress took from their constituents three years ago and which is similar to the beating they are taking now with respect to health care, our governing elites in D.C. claimed they “got the message” on executing what was heretofore thought to be extra-Constitutional duties by, you know, enforcing the border.

This sovereign-state policy has been all the rage with the townies for years but had apparently fell out of favor with our dear leaders in recent times.

Anyway, the triangulation involved claiming they got the message, executing some high profile work-place raids and generally behaving like they actually were concerned with border security and then saying, “O.K. We did that whole enforcement thing you were screaming for – time for Amnesty. We held up our end of the bargain, now it’s time for you to do the same”.

How do we know it’s going down like this? Because Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security said so:

Ms. Napolitano and other administration officials argue that no-nonsense immigration enforcement is necessary to persuade American voters to accept legislation that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, a measure they say Mr. Obama still hopes to advance late this year or early next.

See? Enforce now. Amnesty later. For an administration that has been woefully lacking in transparency of any shape or form, we’re glad to see they have no compunction towards actually enforcing the law once they make a show of enforcing it for the time being.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Dusting off the old playbook

When you lose the L.A. Times:

President Obama last week decided to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other accused Sept. 11 conspirators before a military commission in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than in a civilian court in the United States. It's the latest example of Obama, who was acidly critical of George W. Bush's policies in the war on terror, embracing those policies or acquiescing in their continuation. Explanations abound: an assertive Congress, a lack of public support, a seductive bureaucracy or a change in Obama's thinking from candidate to president. Each example tells a different story, but the end result is disappointing. And the responsibility ultimately lies with the president.

A while back, we had a series titled "WW( )D?" that chronicled, against all the conventional wisdom of what we were told, just how similar were the policy positions and governing styles of Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush.

We stopped because we just became exhausted by the repetition of it all. It seemed like we were doing one a week such was the numbing and dogged consistency in which Team O pursued the Bush presidential template.

Anyway, not having fully recovered from this stupor, we're not sure we will resurrect the series but to pick up the slack while we clear the cobwebs from our alleged mind, B-Daddy ticks off the laundry list of items that now make-up Bush 2.0.

WW()D?

President (Bush) is coming under pressure from Democrats and civil liberties groups for failing to fill positions on an oversight panel formed in 2004 to make sure the government does not spy improperly on U.S. citizens.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was recommended initially by the bipartisan September 11 commission as an institutional voice for privacy inside the intelligence community. Its charter was to recommend ways to mitigate the effects of far-reaching surveillance technology that the federal government uses to track terrorists.

The panel was established in 2004 under the (Bush) administration as part of the executive office of the president. Its independence was unclear for several years. Congress responded by increasing the board's budget, expanding its powers and moving it outside the presidential executive office in 2007.

Since taking office, Mr. (Bush) has allowed the board to languish. He has not even spent the panel's allocation from the fiscal 2010 budget.

Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, New Jersey Republican, said the civil liberties board "had disappeared." He added, "We have now a massive capacity in this country to develop data on individuals, and the board should be the champion of seeing that collection capabilities do not intrude into privacy and civil liberties."

The (Bush) administration's inaction contradicts the White House's public message of being a civil liberties champion. In the first two days of the (Bush) administration, the White House outlawed enhanced interrogation that was not enumerated in the Army Field Manual and vowed to close the terrorist detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, though it has not met its deadline.

Trust us. We're just as confused as you are.

WW()D?

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the (Bush) administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."

We audibly groaned when we read this news piece. Does this mean we’re going to have to do another one of those posts?

We enjoy doing them but we’re thinking that after a time, the novelty sort of wears off.

Please let us know what you think because we’re kind of 50/50 at this point. Part of us thinks it’s important to keep pointing out the hollow sophistry of Hope and Change for record keeping purposes but part of us also thinks that we’ve pretty well established how faithfully the Obama administration has cleaved to the Bush playbook. After all, with respect to this, isn’t the science settled?

Feel free to chime in. Thanks.

WW()D?

Hey, do you remember when they told us that a vote for John McCain would just be a continuation of the Bush era policies of giving out fat no-bid contracts to cronies for the express purpose of war-profiteering? Well, they were right.

Despite President Obama’s long history of criticizing the Bush administration for “sweetheart deals” with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide “rule of law stabilization services” in war-torn Afghanistan.

A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will “train the next generation of legal professionals” throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby “develop the capacity of Afghanistan’s justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair.”

The legality of the arrangement as a “sole source,” or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. “They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year,” a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.

“That’s kind of weird,” said another source, who has worked on “rule of law” issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, about the no-bid contract to Checchi & Company. “There’s lots of companies and non-governmental organizations that do this sort of work.”

It’s a double-whammy: a no-bid contract… for lawyers.

Full disclosure: We aren’t expressly objectionable to no-bid contracts. During the Balkan crisis in the 90s, President Clinton re-upped Haliburton’s contract (yes, that Haliburton) without an open compete. Federal acquisition rules almost guarantee a long drawn-out process and switching horses in midstream for an outfit that was providing housing, food, transportation and other logistical support for our troops (and by all accounts was performing admirably) may not have been such a great idea.

Full disclosure II: Tough. Alinsky’s rules for radicals dictate that you hold the opposition to their own standards. Remember this guy?



H/T: Hot Air

Now that was a Life Lived

William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, passed away today in the study of his home at the age of 82.

The man nearly single-handedly coalesced and synthesized the various factions of the post-WW II conservative movement while simultaneously marginalizing some of its less-savory elements. Elevating the discourse above the imagery of mere flag-waving and gun racks, Buckley provided the language and intellectual heft to the conservative movement it lacked before his arrival.

The architect of fusionism that made possible the Reagan presidency also provided the cafeteria conservatism at which the BwD staff slops.

We’ll be raising a glass of 1921 later on this evening in honor of his life and his accomplishments.

R.I.P.

Joe Lieberman's thoughts on the man here as well as the Godfather's here.

Just a reminder...

... of what we're up against.

Here's Keith Ellison (D-MN) going all John Lennon at something called the Network of Spiritual Progressives conference this past June.


"And God willing, one day the border will become an irrelevancy."





"... equity, generosity and engagement in our relations with other nations."


Because it was that and gift baskets that defeated Nazi Germany and saved Europe back in WW II.


Keith Ellison is a silly man. Unfortunately, because he is part of the law-making body of this country, he is a silly and dangerous man.

For nearly two years there have been "extremists" protesting and demonstrating for fiscal discipline and recognition of constitutional checks on the power of government that have been called out by the media and even elected representatives of the government. How is it then, that this guy and his pie-in-sky lefty utopianism gets a pass?

As idiotic as he sounds, because of the position he holds, he cannot be ignored.

Again, with respect to comprehensive immigration reform, this is the face of the opposition of which we find very little common ground which to negotiate.

They talk of compassion for the millions of people "living in the shadows" when the end game is no borders at all and a pathway not to citizenship but rather a chaotic, grievance-based, anti-American, 3rd world socialism.

What Would Bush Do? Not this.

B-Daddy here. Dean has a series of posts on the theme of this administration's continuity with the policies of George W. Bush, most of them not to his liking, titled WW()D? He also notes Obama's proposed expansion of wire tap, going farther than Bush ever did. However, Obama lacks one thing that Bush had, restraint and class, when it came to dealing with his opponents in the press. Did you ever see Bush attack MSNBC, despite their relentless attacks on him? But here is Obama in Rolling Stone, after being asked if he thinks Fox News is "is a good institution for America and for democracy?":

Obama: “[Laughs] Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We’ve got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition – it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.”

Give me a break. Fox disagrees, so the President labels them "ultimately destructive?" Why can't he show some class. He loves to play the bully, with Massachusetts police officers, health insurers, and anyone who disagrees with him in general. His air of moral superiority offends, note his disdain for the fact that Fox is a successful economic enterprise. What enterprise has the President ever successfully run in his life?

News item of the day

Greek cartoonist and newspaper editors: German-driven austerity measures totally like the Nazis in WW II or something.

The dark shadow of German-driven austerity measures squeezing Greece has revived historical enmities and evoked comparisons to the massive destruction of the Mediterranean country at the hands of Nazi Germany over 65 years ago.

Decades of social democracy will warp your brain into this standard line of thinking.

Random thoughts on a rainy Saturday afternoon

We’re getting ready for Tequila Club later this afternoon. Good news/bad news: featured Tequila is Herradura. A very good brand but its Reposado is already the house tequila here at BwD Headquarters. We won’t be sampling anything we haven’t had before. Oh well – we’ll suffer for our art, anyway.

A New Year’s resolution yet to be fully resolved is to do more book-reading. Our internet and newspaper reading for material upon which to blog and research for the same has cut into sitting down for an hour every day to read from a book and which has also cut into the mental exercise of reflecting upon and thinking through concepts presented in long-form narratives that are absent in shorter articles and blog entries.

As such, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying a book loaned to us by Mongo, Southern California: An Island on the Land by Carey McWilliams which presents a cultural history of the region from roughly 1920 through the end of WW II. We will be sharing bits and pieces of the book over the next few weeks. It’s a fascinating read about a fascinating region of this country.

And speaking of reading, we were thumbing through a collection of columns from the late, great Pulitzer prize-winning sports columnist, Jim Murray, last night. It is not an exaggeration to say we learned how to read in the 1st and 2nd grades by slugging our way through Murray’s prose in the L.A. Times twice a week. Anyway, he did a column back in 1962 on the Boston Celtic’s legendary point guard, Bob Cousy. Only seeing black and white footage of Cousy, his manic and frantic dribbling style combined with our general disdain for school while growing up made the following Murray line priceless:

"He led the fast break like the lead kid out the door on the last day of school."

Were not quite sure we’ve ever run across more wonderful imagery than that.




As we put together our resume’ for getting some airtime once the Fairness Doctrine is re-imposed, one of the line items to bona fide our liberal chops is that we are against this notion of faith-based initiatives… both of the Bush variety and now of the Obama variety (yet another Bush administration hold-over that is flying under the radar a bit).

Declaring that “there is a force for good greater than government,” President Barack Obama yesterday established a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his Republican predecessor.

We’re relieved the President has come to this conclusion, it’s just that we don’t think we will actually see this belief in practice.

To lead the office, Obama appointed Joshua DuBois, 26, a Pentecostal minister who headed religious outreach for Obama's Senate office and his presidential campaign.
“The big picture is that President Obama believes faith-based and smaller, secular neighborhood organizations can play a role in American renewal. They can work with the federal government to address big problems,” DuBois said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We're also going to make sure we have a keener eye toward the separation of church and state.”

Exit question: How exactly does one have a keener eye towards separation of church and state when one will be funding to even a larger degree than FBI v. 1.0, religious charities and organizations?



Hope everyone is having a great day and staying dry.