Ready For A Global Internet Tax?

The United Nations is proposing placing a global tax on internet usage in order to promote their wealth redistribution plans under the guise of the World Health Organization.

The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations' public health arm, is moving full speed ahead with a controversial plan to impose global consumer taxes on such things as Internet activity and everyday financial transactions like paying bills online — while its spending soars and its own financial house is in disarray.

The aim of its taxing plans is to raise "tens of billions" of dollars for WHO that would be used to radically reorganize the research, development, production and distribution of medicines around the world, with greater emphasis on drugs for communicable diseases in poor countries.

They even admit that their first attempt at this went down in flames at the climate summit recently held in Copenhagen, but they are not about to give up. The Moochers of Turtle Bay are now turning into out and out robbers.

Frankly it scares the snot out of me because I don't trust our folks in Washington anymore. They seem have to have foregone any recognition of soveignity of the nation, you know, the United States of America. Instead they are filled with this kumbaya one world vision.

The UN is not content merely with taxing the internet either. Wrapped up in this crap sandwich are some other provisions designed to take money from the working folks and give it to others.

What truly concerns the experts, however, is how to get the wealth transfers that will make the R and D transfers possible — on a permanent basis. The panel offers up a specific number of possibilities.

Chief among them:
• a "digital" or "bit" tax on Internet activity, which could raise "tens of billions of U.S. dollars";
• a 10 percent tax on international arms deals, "worth about $5 billion per annum";
• a financial transaction tax, citing a Brazilian levy that was raising some $20 billion per year until it was canceled (for unspecified reasons);
• an airline tax that already exists in 13 countries and has raised some $1 billion.

Everybody is head over heels in love with this romanticized version of Robin Hood, where stealing from the rich to give to the needy is noble. The problem is they don't recognize that the 'rich' that Robin Hood was stealing from wasn't the peasants, but rather the tax collectors enroute back to the sheriff with the peasants money. That whole stealing from the rich theme loses some luster in that light, but the UN and governments all around the world for that matter, are doing exactly that. Some sort of perverse Robin Hood, where now the tax collectors are the good guys.

I am fed up with the UN and am ready to implement the Bolton strategy in regards to this corrupt organization. If the United States doesn't stand up to them, I hope somewhere there are some countries which will tell them just where to stick this plan. Somebody has to believe in the sovereignty of a nation.

Fatman-made Global Warming

In today's installment of things to blame for global warming: fat people.

Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

"We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "Obesity is a key part of the big picture."

At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

Of course tomorrow we'll see another tear-jerking story on how many people are hungry.

The silliness just never ends.

News for the Corpulent

If you fly any of Canada's largest carriers, expect prices to increase due to this cockamamie ruling by the Canadian Transportation Agency.

Fare deal for obese air travellers

A CANADIAN tribunal has ordered domestic airlines to charge clinically obese or disabled passengers accompanied by an attendant only one ticket to fly, even if they take up two or more seats.

Under the Canadian Transportation Agency ruling, airlines have one year to bring in a "one-person-one-fare" policy for persons with severe disabilities who require two seats to accommodate them.

It also applies to disabled persons who need a medical attendant seated with them on flights.

However, it is up to the airlines themselves to come up with a screening process to assess eligibility, said the agency.

The decision follows a 2002 complaint and lawsuits by an obese woman and two severely disabled people, backed by the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, who had requested extra seats on flights for themselves or attendants at no extra cost, but were denied.

In a statement, the Canadian Transportation Agency said its ruling is "based on longstanding principles of equal access to transportation services for persons with disabilities, regardless of the nature of the disability."

It also respects related high court and federal court decisions.

In January 2006, the Federal Court of Appeal confirmed "that a person who is obese may be (considered) disabled for purposes of air travel if unable to fit in an airline seat."

The Canadian Transportation Agency said in its decision Canada's two major airlines failed to demonstrate that implementation of a one-person-one-fare policy would impose undue hardship on them.

I'm sorry, but when you're running a business and charge a certain price for a seat, it's fundamentally unfair to expect the company to have up to three people fly for the price of one.

If you're so obese you needs two seats, pony up or find another means of transportation.

Meanwhile, in other obesity news, a health economist now says being a fat slob is a lifestyle choice, and we owe it all to capitalism.

As adult obesity balloons in the United States, being overweight has become less of a health hazard and more of a lifestyle choice, the author of a new book argues.

"Obesity is a natural extension of an advancing economy. As you become a First World economy and you get all these labor-saving devices and low-cost, easily accessible foods, people are going to eat more and exercise less," health economist Eric Finkelstein told AFP.

In "The Fattening of America", published this month, Finkelstein says that adult obesity more than doubled in the United States between 1960 and 2004, rising from 13 percent to around 33 percent.

Globally, only Saudi Arabia fares worse than the United States in terms of the percentage of adults with a severe weight problem -- 35 percent of people in the oil-rich desert kingdom are classified as obese, the book says, citing data from the World Health Organization and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

With the rising tide of obesity come health problems and an increased burden on the healthcare system and industry.

"But the nasty side-effects of obesity aren't as nasty as they used to be," Finkelstein said.

"When you have a first-rate medical system that can cure the diseases that obesity promotes, you no longer need to worry so much about being obese," he told AFP.

"With our ever-advancing modern medicine there helping to save the day (at least for many people), are government and the media blowing the magnitude of the 'obesity crisis' out of proportion?" his book says.

Israel Blamed For Gaza 'Humanitarian Crisis'

Something else to blame on Israel.

The nerve of these people trying to protect themselves against Islamofascist scum.

THE World Health Organisation warned against a humanitarian crisis erupting in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip due to Israeli travel restrictions.

"`The health situation in the Gaza Strip ... continues to decline and risks becoming a humanitarian crisis," a report obtained by AFP said.

"The World Health Organization (WHO) notes with grave concern reports that patients trying to leave Gaza for specialist medical care in Israel or neighbouring countries are increasingly being denied travel permits."

Out of 4,074 Gaza patients who applied to Israel for travel permits to leave the territory on medical grounds since June 2007, when Hamas violently seized power in the territory, 713 had their applications denied, it said.

"The proportion of patients who have been denied passage has reportedly more than doubled since the restrictions were imposed, increasing from 10.7 per cent in June to 22.9 percent in October."

Following the Hamas takeover Israel further upped the strict travel restrictions in and around Gaza, from where it removed troops and settlers in 2005 but whose borders it still controls

Here's a novel concept: How about blaming Hamas for the problems in Gaza?

NY Times Harps on Bush AIDS Efforts

No amount of good the man does will ever be enough for some people. Let's overlook the fact the George W. Bush has devoted more money than any other President in the effort to fight AIDS. No, that's just not good enough. It's how the money is distributed that bothers the elitists at the New York Times.

President Bush’s $15 billion plan to fight AIDS globally is seriously hampered by restrictions imposed by Congress and the administration, a panel of medical experts said yesterday.

The country’s most prestigious medical advisory panel, the Institute of Medicine, was asked by Congress to assess the five-year plan at midway. The 13 members of the panel praised the efforts, saying the plan had “demonstrated what many doubted could be done.” But it needs to move from an emergency response to a long-term battle plan, the panel said, and its members listed these three restrictions that they felt were the most hindering:

¶The requirement that 33 percent of all money for prevention be spent teaching chastity and fidelity, even in countries where most cases are spread by drug injection.

¶The need for separate Food and Drug Administration approval of AIDS drugs that the World Health Organization has already approved.

¶Laws forbidding the use of taxpayer money to give clean needles to drug addicts.

Read the rest. They get around to casting aspersions upon the dreaded "conservative Christian" bogeymen later on, needless to say. What annoys me is the "restrictions" cited above are quite logical in the fight to stop the spread of the disease. But because a panel of "experts" and the New York Times reporter have an agenda, all the noble efforts and vast amounts of money devoted to the program are dismissed.

The President could throw a trillion dollars with no restrictions at the cause and they would still hate him.

Maybe we need to start funding the fight against BDS.