White Supremacist Barrett found dead

WLBT is reporting:

Richard Barrett dies in house fire

RANKIN COUNTY, MS (WLBT) - Nationalist Movement founder and leader Richard Barrett was found dead in his home this morning following a fire.

A neighbor spotted the fire at Barrett's home around 7:45 this morning and called the fire department. When they responded to 227 East Petros Road, in Rankin County, they found smoke coming from inside the house and Barrett's body inside.

Several law enforcement agencies are on scene, including the FBI, but no one has said if foul play is suspected.

The Nationalist Movement is a white supremacist group Barrett founded after moving to the Magnolia State in 1966. He's also run unsuccessfully for Governor and Congress.

In 1994 he spearheaded a movement to get Governor Kirk Fordice to pardon Byron de la Beckwith, who was convicted for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.

UPDATE: Man arrested in death of Miss. white supremacist

PEARL, Miss. -- Authorities says a white supremacist lawyer found dead in his house had been stabbed, beaten and his body set afire.

Pennington said 22-year-old Vincent McGee has been charged with murder. He said additional charges could be forthcoming, including arson.

Pennington said Friday that a preliminary autopsy showed Barrett had been stabbed multiple times in the neck and had blunt force trauma to the head. The sheriff said 35 percent of Barrett's body had been burned.

Sun Herald

New PR push for Livingston Township suggests waning interest?

A recent story on WJTV promoting Livingston Township at the corner of Highway 22 and 463 is only one attempt of many over the past several months to keep the development in the public eye. The development is owned by David Landrum, and has seen significant challenges including the filing of two lien's here and here for over $120,000 in Madison County Chancery Court for architectural work.

Landrum was in Flora during a Town Board meeting earlier this year to promote the development as a good thing for Flora. That leap in logic is questionable. One would think development away from Flora is the opposite of "good for Flora."

WJTV reports:

Plans are in the works to bring life back to one part of Madison County.

 

Livingston once a historic town, was abandoned years ago.

The historic land is located at the corner of U.S. 22 and Highway 463 in the Mannsdale-Livingston Heritage Preservation District.

The historic land will turn into “Livingston Township”.

A 60 million dollar project that will be the home of offices and businesses while paying homage to the town’s history.

There are also plans to build about 60 Charleston-style cottages.

Developers say the project will keep the area’s history and economy alive.

“It’s our intent that the small businesses that will be located here will be in a nurturing environment to spawn other businesses that can open manufacturing in Flora or Canton’s industrial parts,“ said Don Williams the President of Livingston Holdings. “we are going to provide the essentials that are absent in this area.“

Historians like Charles Bowering hopes the future development will keep Livingston’s past in the present.

“I think it’s great,“ said Bowering. “It would just grow up in a wilderness if they don’t clean it up.“

Developers plan to break ground on the project this fall.

I have a great respect for Charles Elon Bowering. But, I tend to think the "wilderness" that has grown up there is quite a beautiful and pastoral setting, and the fact that "it was abandoned years ago" doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea to rebuild something there now. There is only so much money to go around from developers and investors in today's real estate market, and with millions of dollars coming due this year, liens for architectural work, and rumors of Landrum's own financial problems the project is already at a disadvantage.

Furthermore, the assertion by Don Williams that essential services "are absent in the area" is nothing more than a sales pitch. Nothing could be further from the truth. Flora is only 5 miles away, the Mannsdale area where considerable development is now occurring, is even closer.

Maybe, like years ago, people are recognizing that Livingston should be abandoned.

Earth Day 2010: More about blame, than conservation and stewardship.

Earth Day 2010 is here and it seems to lack the hype it once did. Gone is the weeklong celebration by the tree-huggers, Greenpeace and the multi-million dollar corporations that hope to nab a few of their dollars through green marketing campaigns. Today, it would appear that the self annointed enviromental cops have the people they want in leadership, so they can back off and let the government do it now. Or maybe it's because after 40 years of trying, the effort has accomplished nothing but hype. A Gallup Poll released on April 9 shows that Americans are today no more environmentally friendly in their actions than they were at the turn of the century. While more than three in four recycle, have reduced household energy use, and buy environmentally friendly products, these numbers have barely budged since 2000.

Excuse me if I don't act surprised. It is hardly news that everyone wants hard choices to be made, but very few people want to be the ones to make the sacrifices themselves.

When it came to wasteful spending former Senator Trent Lott once said "Pork is anything spent north of Memphis." The same mindset holds true for those who would otherwise be enviromentally friendly.

Case in point: The New York City sightseeing company Gray Line is promoting an “Earth Week” package of day trips that includes visits to “green spots” like the botanical gardens and flower shopping at Chelsea Market. The fact that these tours will be taken on buses running on fossil fuels does not sit well with the first Earth Day national coordinator Denis Hayes who tells The New York Times what he thinks of such green consumerism: “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green. It is tragic.”

Even the Old Gray Lady can't help but notice:

At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business

So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and government leaders.”

Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.

And then there is the left’s push for economy-killing energy taxes. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has found that cap-and-tax legislation pending in Congress would cost the average family-of-four almost $3,000 per year, cause 2.5 million net job losses by 2035, and a produce a cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035. Losing that $9.4 trillion to appease the fragile sensibilities of the enviro-left – now that would be tragic.

Especially when one considers that studies clearly show that important indicators of environmental quality actually improve as incomes and levels of consumption go up.

I, for one, would be more than happy to stop increasing my carbon footprint if the government would get the hell out of my money. If I were able to keep more of it, I wouldn't have the need to be constantly burning fossil fuels to find more.

Finally, there is the growing sentiment that we've all been lied to. It's becoming hard to believe traditional media sources as they continue to hype the same old argument despite the 900-pound gorilla sitting behind Katie Couric.

It’s been a rough five months for the credibility of many of the “leading” climate scientists.

First, the ClimateGate e-mails appeared to show unethical or illegal behavior of high profile scientists and a potential conspiracy to distort science for political gain. These weren’t just a few renegade scientists; in the following months, damning information came to light about the world’s leading climate alarmists and their work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Stern Report, the U.S. National Climate Data Center and even NASA.

Even with the 40th anniversary of Earth Day coming up on April 22, Americans are skeptical about the threat of climate change. A March 2010 Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans think the threat of global warming is “generally exaggerated". That’s the highest in 13 years, according to Gallup.

The public’s receding fear of climate change may be related to the series of scandals and admissions that have been uncovered since Nov. 20 when e-mails from University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were leaked. Those e-mails provided “ammunition” to climate skeptics about the authenticity and ethics surrounding the CRU’s work on global warming science.

Including this very damning email:

From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@XXXX, mhughes@XXXX
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@XXX.osborn@XXXX

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,

Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.

Thanks for the comments, Ray.
Cheers
Phil
Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone XXXX
School of Environmental Sciences Fax XXXX
University of East Anglia
Norwich

As for me and my house, we'll continue to do the very things my family and my faith has always taught me to do; be good stewards of the resources the Lord has provided. At the same time, I will try to get away, hide and otherwise stop those who would take those resources away to give them to someone else who refuses to take the same responsibility for themselves.

Williams: Taxes and Voting

According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., research organization, nearly half of U.S. households will pay no federal income taxes for 2009. That's up from the Tax Foundation's 2006 estimate that 41 percent of the American population, or 121 million Americans, were completely outside the federal income tax system. These Americans pay no federal income tax either because their incomes are too low or they have higher income but credits, deductions and exemptions that relieve them of tax liability. This lack of income tax liability stands in stark contrast to the top 10 percent of earners, those households earning an average of $366,400 in 2006, who paid about 73 percent of federal income taxes. The top 25 percent paid 86 percent. The bottom 50 percent of taxpayers paid less than 4 percent of federal income taxes collected.

Let's not dwell on the fairness of such an arrangement for financing the activities of the federal government. Instead, let's ask what kind of incentives and results such an arrangement produces and ask ourselves whether these results are good for our country. That's a question to be asked whether or not one has federal income tax liabilities.

Having 121 million Americans completely outside the federal income tax system, it's like throwing chum to political sharks. These Americans become a natural spending constituency for big-spending politicians. After all, if you have no income tax liability, how much do you care about deficits, how much Congress spends and the level of taxation? Political calls for tax cuts and spending restraints have little appeal. Survey polls revealed this. According to The Harris Poll taken in June 2003, 51 percent of Democrats thought the tax cuts enacted by Congress were a bad thing while 16 percent of Republicans thought so. Among Democrats, 67 percent thought the tax cuts were unfair while 32 percent of Republicans thought so. When asked whether the $350-billion tax cut package will help your family finances, 59 percent of those surveyed said no and 35 percent said yes. Tax cuts to many Americans mean just one thing: They pose a threat to the federal handouts they receive.

Here's my perhaps politically incorrect question: If one has no financial stake in our country, how much of a say-so should he have in its management? Let's put it another way: I do not own stock, and hence have no financial stake, in Ford Motor Company. Do you think I should have voting rights or any say-so in the management of the company?Let's put it another way: I do not own stock, and hence have no financial stake, in Ford Motor Company. Do you think I should have voting rights or any say-so in the management of the company? I'm guessing that the average sane person's answer is no. You say, "Williams, just where are you heading with this?" I'm not proposing that we take voting rights away from those who do not pay taxes. What I'm suggesting is that every American gets one vote in every federal election, plus another vote for each $20,000 he pays in federal taxes. With such a system, there'd be a modicum of linkage between one's financial stake in our country and his decision-making right. Of course, unequal voting power could be reduced by legislating lower taxes.


This is not a far-out idea. The founders worried about it. James Madison's concern about class warfare between the rich and the poor led him to favor the House of Representatives being elected by the people at large and the Senate elected by property owners. He said, "It is nevertheless certain, that there are various ways in which the rich may oppress the poor; in which property may oppress liberty; and that the world is filled with examples. It is necessary that the poor should have a defense against the danger. On the other hand, the danger to the holders of property cannot be disguised, if they be undefended against a majority without property."

Town Hall

Financial Regulation: The foxes are guarding the hen house

This post from CleanGovernmentNow on the upcoming hearings and financial regulation:

Are We At Farce Yet? The Show Trial of Goldman Sachs


What could possibly be more tragic than a 1400 page financial reform bill written by some of the key architects of financial ruin: Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Timothy Geithner ?

How about a convenient show trial for Goldman Sachs, one of biggest beneficiaries of the bailout these clever men cooked up?

On the one hand, you have a handful of elite, well-connected financial intermediaries and their investing clients that loaded up on smart gimmicks that were too clever by half. These derivatives instruments went poof when underlying real estate values declined more than expected. In a normal world, this would mean those dabbling in these hot potatoes would get burned. But lo and behold, these cats, who are perfectly capable of fattening themselves up for slaughter, were saved from their own idiocy by the bailout of their chief casino on credit -- AIG.

That was the tragedy. It is a tragedy that continues with an effort by Dodd, Frank, Geithner to play house to the Wall Street whales -- for a cut of the take of course.

Now comes word that one of the main beneficiaries of the AIG bailout -- Goldman Sachs -- might have done something that might have looked like something that might be connected to something that could possibly be interpreted as greedy speculation.

What I do know is that the timing and subject matter has all the earmarks of a show trial meant to distract from a far greater set of sins that took place within the government before, during and after the financial crisis.