A new Zogby poll indicates Americans are wisely beginning to question the manner in which we have financed the war against terrorism. Meanwhile China engages in female infanticide.

More than twice as many U.S. adults (58%) say that debt owed to China is a more serious threat to the long-term security and well-being of the U.S than is terrorism from radical Islamic terrorists (27%).

Interestingly there was little variation by party identification with a majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agreeing that the debt owed by the United States to China poses the greater threat.

Meanwhile, in a painful snapshot of the social values of Americas largest creditor ‘gendercide’, discarding infant girls at birth, is still practiced in China to bad effect.

XINRAN XUE, a Chinese writer, describes visiting a peasant family in the Yimeng area of Shandong province. The wife was giving birth. “We had scarcely sat down in the kitchen”, she writes (see article), “when we heard a moan of pain from the bedroom next door…The cries from the inner room grew louder—and abruptly stopped. There was a low sob, and then a man’s gruff voice said accusingly: ‘Useless thing!’

“Suddenly, I thought I heard a slight movement in the slops pail behind me,” Miss Xinran remembers. “To my absolute horror, I saw a tiny foot poking out of the pail. The midwife must have dropped that tiny baby alive into the slops pail! I nearly threw myself at it, but the two policemen [who had accompanied me] held my shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Don’t move, you can’t save it, it’s too late.’

The result of the male female imbalance is that unpartnered young adult males turn to crime and violence.

Throughout human history, young men have been responsible for the vast preponderance of crime and violence—especially single men in countries where status and social acceptance depend on being married and having children, as it does in China and India. A rising population of frustrated single men spells trouble.

The crime rate has almost doubled in China during the past 20 years of rising sex ratios, with stories abounding of bride abduction, the trafficking of women, rape and prostitution. A study into whether these things were connected† concluded that they were, and that higher sex ratios accounted for about one-seventh of the rise in crime. In India, too, there is a correlation between provincial crime rates and sex ratios. In “Bare Branches”††, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer gave warning that the social problems of biased sex ratios would lead to more authoritarian policing. Governments, they say, “must decrease the threat to society posed by these young men. Increased authoritarianism in an effort to crack down on crime, gangs, smuggling and so forth can be one result.”

Gender discrepancy is happening all over the world with a corresponding rise in violence… boys need girls and we girls need boys in equal numbers or all hell breaks out.

Also, while on the subject of China, South Africa is now accepting major investments in energy and rare earth mining and refining from China. Like America, they hope to develop jobs and improve the South African economy. Relying heavily on China hasn’t worked out so well here.

AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) is in a snit over proposed legislation that would mandate federal tax credits be denied if a project doesn’t include products made in America.

The truth is, by law, Recovery Act grants can only be used to finance projects that are being built in the United States.

What AWEA ignores is the high number of foreign manufacturing jobs subsidized when most of the components of an American based wind farm are manufactured in China instead of the US.

Senator Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and three other Democratic senators have joined to propose legislation that would place limitations on the grant in lieu of tax credits for renewable energy projects under section 1603 of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The concern expressed by Senator Schumer and the other sponsors is that a significant portion of the grants paid so far have gone to non-U.S. companies.

The above quote is from an email sent by the firm of Stoel Rives who go on to deny the truth of the statement above. To read more on US tax dollars subsidizing foreign manufacturing jobs, look here and then read Michael Trebilcock’s argument against industrial wind turbines.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 – compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25 cents; coal at 44 cents; hydro at 67 cents; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.”

Presently, China is the primary supplier of generators for traditional multi-megawatt wind farms. According to Rebecca Smith in the Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2009, a proposed 600MW wind farm in Texas relying heavily on federal subsidies, grants and tax credits for funding, is expected to create 2,800 jobs with only 15% of those jobs in the US and the rest flowing to China.

Write your Senator and Representative and ask them to support the Senator Schumer’s legislation.

Not a surprise that Karl Rove, ‘Bush’s brain’ would have a view of the lead-up to the Iraq war totally out of sync with proven facts.

“Scheherazade Rehman discusses the likelihood of Greece receiving a bailout from the European Union” Arguments are strong that Goldman Sachs contributed to the fall of Greece just to make a buck…

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country’s already bloated deficit….

Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting up government debt.Since 1999, the Maastricht rules threaten to slap hefty fines on euro member countries that exceed the budget deficit limit of three percent of gross domestic product. Total government debt mustn’t exceed 60 percent…

Greece’s debt managers agreed a huge deal with the savvy bankers of US investment bank Goldman Sachs at the start of 2002. The deal involved so-called cross-currency swaps in which government debt issued in dollars and yen was swapped for euro debt for a certain period — to be exchanged back into the original currencies at a later date.

In the seven years since my son first left for war as part of the initial invasion of Iraq, I have found that my stomach for detail has greatly diminished. In the beginning, I wanted to know everything, understand everything, know what it was to be a warrior, know the sound of mortars and strong metallic scent of blood and the stench of burning bodies. Knowing these things, I believed, were important so that I could help my son, John, who after a second tour in Iraq is permanently disabled suffering from debilitating PTSD and TBI.

John wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t share much of what happened except occasionally almost by accident. As the war has worn on I find I can’t bare to go to Icasualties.org anymore. The painful individual stories of the soldiers and Marines I have met are too hard for me to take now. Believe me I still care but the motivation previously induced by the senseless suffering of the kids we send to war now just hurts too much that accomplishing anything is almost impossible. for now anyway, I won’t be watching the documentaries ‘Taxi to the Dark Side’, or ‘Body of War’, they are just too painful and I will not go to see The Hurt Locker, and at least one Marine blinded in Iraq feels the same way.

“The Hurt Locker” and all the other movies I mentioned, whether they are good or bad as entertainment, are still war movies and war movies glorify the acts of violence that I described above. How do you feel about that? Would you bring your children out to the battlefield to witness it live and in person? There is no happy ending. Kelly does not get the gold, Stryker does not make it to the top of Mount Suribachi and 8-Ball gets cut down by a sniper. Please remember that when you watch a war movie you are watching stories about young Americans who went far from home and risked their lives; some of them died there with only their brothers in arms to witness. Hollywood is now taking our money by walking on their graves.

Maybe that’s extreme. Of course I understand why people watch war movies. I watch them, too. But I have seen my friends die and most of the movies just bring up very painful memories.

Apparently, more than one veteran is unhappy with The Hurt Locker – from the Atlantic

In his self-published book, Stolen Valor, Vietnam veteran B.G. Burkett exposes scores of men who pass themselves off as war heroes. He digs through stacks of military personnel records and outs city councilmen, prominent businessmen and even presidents of veterans groups as frauds. Some had served in the military and finagled paperwork that bumped them up several ranks and turned them into battlefield legends. Purple Hearts, Silver Stars, Medals of Honor. Others hadn’t spent a day in uniform but conjured equally dramatic tales of daring and sacrifice. The imposters, he says, had become some of the most vocal and visible veterans. They influenced the public’s perception of war and even guided legislative agendas, a disservice to those who did the fighting and the bleeding.

How could they get away with that? Moral authority. So few Americans have actually walked and sweated on battlefields that they defer to those who say they have, and assume those men and women speak the truth.

This also explains why The Hurt Locker is up for a Best Picture Oscar. And why it shouldn’t win.

“Republicans and Democrats are like a husband and wife fighting over whether to have a health care bill baby.”

Parts one and two of an unplanned two part special comment about end of life counseling. Sadly, Keith is experiencing the matter first hand as he copes and watches is sick father rise and falter along the path to home or beyond…