Secret Squirrel On The American Disease Of,Affluenza:The Cure.

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Secret Squirrel here ponders things Judicial,specifically,that of Judges, and the methods used to create judges, being appointed and/or elected,dependent.It is noted here that Switzerland, Japan and the United States are exceptions to the rule in the rest of the world where judges are appointed in order to secure their independence. These three democracies allow some non-federal judges to be elected by popular vote on the grounds it helps prevent cronyism.Well, there’s not only cronyism, but a disease, of the America’s and their judicial structures, AND society, and it is aptly named and called by the accepting American public……….AFFLUENZA.
Accepted you say by the American people, well, that’s because whilst it can be commented on and about, nothing is and can be done about it, it is a disease, the rich in America have, THE AFFLUENT, whom, by and large are the effluent of society in the eyes of the American people. These affluent are a world apart, a class,in a classless system, yes a system where the people have no class at all, and the rich have it all. Now you in Europe,Japan,New Zaeland, Australia, won’t have an inkling of what’s being referred to. Well AFFLUENZA is a case,and cases, where in America the rich appear before judges and get off with no fines, no prison sentence,in some cases utter trial avoidance, and also no criminal records, and no civil lawsuit verdicts (except,of course, in their favor). It can be a part of corruption, Affluenza, as corruption is generally referred to as a system of bribes so commonplace at all levels of America rich,and oligarkic rule and government society, but the AFFLEUNZA also makes use of this CORRUPTION generally prevalent there. Now,is there a cure for this disease the Americans suffer from, if they wish to be cured and can be cured, is there a cure for Britain and other civilized nations of the world, to immunize, cure and prevent entirely? Yes, there is.

In most of the world where judicial selection is made by the executive branch from a civil service-like pool of professionals who have been trained in the equivalent of a school for judges,but not necessarily so,most coming from law schools, meaning they have been and are and were,firstly,lawyers. In the United States such is the case for federal and Supreme Court judges but not for the majority of state
judges who face popular election.

UN Special Rapporteur for judicial independence, Leandro Despouy gave his opinion on
juducial appointment systems………

“In the countries I’ve visited, especially the poorer ones, judges are chosen by the
executive branch and it is up to the executive to sanction them if necessary. In general I am not in favor of elected judges. They should be chosen on a merit basis based on their knowledge and independence so they can resist all pressures to conform to the wishes of elected officials.”

However here we have a dicotomy,a conundrum,appointed they can be sanctioned
by,dis-appointed by,and are in fact, really not capable of resisting, the wishes of
certain specific government officials.Conventional wisdom says that those who appoint judges affect future judicial decisions.Judgeships could be,and are,bought and sold according to the personal preferences of those making the selection,appointments degrade the quality of the judiciary. It is not uncommon for appointed judges to loose sight of what they are supposed to be doing to start actually writing new laws themselves through the decisions they make. And is anyone really so naivé as to believe that the current appointed “independent” federal judiciary has not become a political branch? As Thomas Jefferson had warned:

“Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. . . . [A]nd their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.””The exemption of the judges from that….from election…..is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them [the people] not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it [control] from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

Elected ones, are subject to the people, and specifically can be removed with the next election, and can be influenced by the wishes of the public at large,which is, of course, for justice,equality,equity in the judicial processes.Voters in many US states think justice is too lenient with criminals and they demand harsher sentencing. They prefer that a judge who ignores the popular sentiment be voted out of office,thus making them accountable to the people themselves,judges must be there for be professional, objective and independent.In America,nationwide, 87 percent of all state court judges face elections, and 39 states elect at least some of their judges, according to the National Center for State Courts.

Some states have recently considered proposals that would abolish the election of State judges and replace it with a system of appointed judges who would face periodic retention elections. While supporters of this plan argue that retention elections will keep judges accountable to the voters, it is irrefutable that this plan will give judges a level of insulation from the public they have never before experienced and make them more unaccountable than ever before. The folly of this proposal is made clear both by history as well as the lessons of other States that have adopted such a plan.Originally the Founding Fathers of America feared tyranny from the Judiciary,so they placed severe limitations on that branch, employed the powers of impeachement to remove them quickly should the need arise, as Alexander Hamilton explained, “the practice of impeachments was a bridle”,a way to keep judges accountable to the people,such that the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from the judiciary.For judges to campaign and win voter support actually prevents the judiciary from becoming a political branch and running a political agenda.

In the 2002 election, the appointed New Jersey Supreme Court reviewed the State law
declaring that a candidate’s name may be replaced on the ballot only if the “vacancy
shall occur not later than the 51st day before the general election” and somehow decided that the 35th day before the election fulfilled the same legal requirements as the 51st day before the election. (Recall that the Democrat candidate was lagging far behind his Republican opponent in the polls; the Democrats convinced the unelected judges to place a more viable candidate on the ballot – in violation of the State law – and Democrats therefore won a U. S. Senate seat they were destined to lose.)

Elected judges know that if they make such agenda-driven decisions, they will face
removal by voters for contempt of,and violation of,State law. When judges are elected, the selection process is totally open to the public. The reasons why a particular individual may be chosen are readily visible to inquiring citizens or the press, and State Legislatures can actually specify the minimum qualifications for each judicial office,thus ensuring intelligent choices be presented to the voter.Judicial independence is essential to a functioning democracy,and the regulation of judges requires involvement of we, the people. This is what needs be done in America to cure the people of affluenza, it is a cure.However in America we know that for the rich this cure is far too expensive and it is the affluent who control government and judicial structures such that the disease will rather continue,and in fact spread there. For Britain and the rest of the world, Squirrel has here mentioned the preventative, the cure for a disease that yet doesn’t ail the people, but which some day well might. Squirrel suggest it be best to apply the cure Squirrel has discovered. Gesundheit!

Secret Squirrel,
MRL,MP,Dunny On The Wold,
Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.

Secret Squirrel:How To Turn A Massive Profit On The Simple Cauliflower.

Secret Squirrel discovers the headlines,

“In Canada, the 8-Dollar Cauliflower Shows the Pain of Falling Oil Prices”

Well, Squirrel knows, Squirrel is wisdom, Squirrel knows it’s not the oil prices that affect the cauliflower prices, nay, the oil prices dropped, the cauliflower prices rose, the oil rises, the cauliflower price should drop? Does the price of gold fluctuate, no, gold rises and rises and rises, the precious metals, and so too Squirrel sees the precious Cauliflower. Indeed, in Canada, steamed, sautéed or stir-fried,or as a soup,in stews,breaded,fried and whatever, cauliflower is standard fare on many dinner tables. BUT,in Canada, it is a luxury.

As prices for commodities have dropped,oil and so forth, the value of the Canadian dollar has fallen, a direct link to an economy that is dependent on oil and other resources. It makes imports, like fresh American vegetables during the dark Canadian winter, look especially costly.The drought in California, where Canadians get most of their vegetables in the off-season, just compounds the sticker shock. With less bounty in the fields, farmers’ prices, in American dollars, are higher. The Canadians have even yet taken to buying up land in Mexico, farming it, with cheap, virtual slave underpaid if at all, labour, and there they grow food, whilst the Mexicans starve, and said food is then shipped cheaply in to the USA and Canada where it is sold to feed Canadians, and Americans, all whilst the Mexicans starve.

Well now. How does this effect us, the Brits,for example? Well, our cauliflower prices are but a pittance 49pence, which is .97 Canadian cents you know, a 50% drop. BUT recall, the 8 dollar cauliflower,so 8 dollar cauliflower to pence, give or take we’ll round the figures,t’is but a pittance to us, the 8 dollar cauliflower converted to pence works out to 8 x 49pence…3.95 pound………a 3.95 pound cauliflower……. nay, but said 8 dollar cauliflower converted to pounds is 3.95 pounds, less the .49pence…a profit fully of no less than 3.46 pounds/pence….said full 3.95 could buy, garnered from a single Cauliflower sold to a Canadian, 405.70 pence, or 4.05 pounds, so , starting with a seed cauliflower,even yet a single one, sold to the Canadians………and we profit profit profit, you see, the more cauliflowers sold to them at $8 Canadian, the merrier we are in solid British pounds! We convert the currency garnered to British pounds and buy yet more and more and ever increasingly, multiplying more, cauliflower!!

Now do you really need your cauliflower, couldn’t you like broccoli for example, perhaps psychologically looking at it as a green cauliflower,really, and thence part with your cauliflower and sell it to the Canadians, growing it anywhere and everywhere we,and you, could, and should, including the system of buying Mexican lands cheaply from the Mexican government, to grow it there and sell it to the Canadians. Why we would garner huge,absolutely huge, profits.

Yes, Squirrel knows, there is profit in confusion, Canada is a confused land, there is profit in Canada,there is profit in Cauliflower! Yes, please see Squirrel’s new, going soon to production, financial film, Cauliflower:The New Hope……..I’m working on it and shall have my cousin, George Lucas, produce and create it, as he has some experience in producing films.
As they say in Canada, never let it be said, that Squirrel, gave you a bum steer, nor a cheap cauliflower. And if our laggardly government would wisely engage in this,Squirrel’s cauliflower venture, and speculation,why the massive amounts of currency so garnered, would produce a Britain as sound as the pound.

Secret Squirrel,
MRL,MP,(Dunny On The Wold),
Minister For Re-Deranged Re-Engineering.

Secret Squirrel Examines The Ridiculous Mexican Attempts To Sue US Gun Manufacturers.

Secret Squirrel has learned, through perusal of a CBS News item, that the Mexican Government,of it’s present President,one  Felipe Calderon, has retained an American law firm to explore filing civil charges against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors over the flood of guns crossing the border into Mexico.Not that it matters any but there is a law in America, in effect,a law which has been applied several times, The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,and this law, brought in under the Bush
era,would bar that kind of lawsuit from the start. The law, passed in 2005 has resulted in several lawsuits against gun makers being dismissed.Sources familiar with the case say the law firm retained by Mexico – New York based Reid Collins & Tsai – believes the federal law won’t stand in the way of their case.Mexico’s actions are a “novel approach,” in reality, such lawsuits have been used for decades as a tactic by anti-gun groups and governments in their attempts to bankrupt gun manufacturers and circumvent the political process.

That’s why Congress passed the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act” in 2005.  This act protects firearms manufacturers, distributors, dealers and importers from suits brought about as a result of “the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended.”  The outlook for a Mexican government suit looks dim; since the PLCAA was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26, 2005, no federal court has allowed such a suit by a government plaintiff to go forward against a U.S. firearms manufacturer.

The Mexican government’s plans for a lawsuit extend at least back to November 2, 2010, when a contract with the law firm was signed.  Unfortunately for the Mexican government, the possible lawsuit has come to light at the same time as diplomatic cables newly made available by Wikileaks, which have shown that drug cartels obtain much of their weaponry from Central American arsenals.

One such cable, recently publicized by Mexico City newspaper La Jornada, addresses a frequently heard claim about the origin of guns used in Mexico’s crime wave.  The cable’s author writes, “Claims by Mexican and U.S. officials that upwards of 90 percent of illegal recovered weapons can be traced back to the U.S. is based on an incomplete survey of confiscated weapons.  In point of fact, without wider access
to the weapons seized in Mexico, we really have no way of verifying these numbers.”
This information comes to light only weeks after another cable publicized by La Jornada revealed that 90 percent of the drug cartels’ “heavy armament,” such as grenades and rocket launchers, originates in Central America and enters Mexico through its Southern border with Guatemala.  Bolstering these claims, IHS Global Insights reported on April 6 that the head of U.S. Southern Command, General Douglas Fraser, testified before the Senate that over 50 percent of the military grade weapons in the region originated from Central America.Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of
AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years — but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in
January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

“Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Christopher Renzulli of New York, who has represented U.S. gun makers for fifteen years, says he believes this would be a difficult case for the Mexican government to win.It would make sense that the Mexicans and their legal friends couldn’t win, not only due to the law being in place not even yet allowing suit, but,it is fundamental logic that the gun makers can’t prevent somebody from selling or giving said guns
to the Mexicans.But then Mexicans are hardly logical, and the law firm being what it is,will take anybody’s money,for any case,obviously,considering they are taking up a case for the foreign government of Mexico,against America and American firms.Indeed, if the gun firms could and did,refuse to sell guns to Mexicans, the Mexican president would be suing claiming it was discrimination against Mexicans in
America,and that Mexicans had the same rights as Americans in procuring guns, and whatever else could come to his mind,being what he is,intelligent,perhaps, or not, as is most certainly likely.Recall The Mexicans complained when America started building a high fence to prevent Mexicans from illegally entering the US.At that time they claimed this was discrimination against the Mexicans, in effect keeping them in Mexico,and illegally out of America,this was under then Mexican President, Vincente Fox.But we of course,see things differently, the fence would be a grand idea to continue round and about as it would keep Mexicans from illegally entering the United States, and of course, it would much more handily keep guns from getting to the Mexicans, which may irritate the Mexican President at this point.It seems that
Calderon believes the guns enter Mexico from across the Mexican American border, either across in a reverse wetbacking fashion, or through in reverse fashion, the drug infiltration tunnels, or flown in by air seemingly passing any Mexican security to prtevent such things.The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry, issued a statement saying it “respects the work of President Calderon to willingly take on his country’s powerful drug cartels. However, we are
disappointed that he would seek to hold law-abiding American companies responsible for crime in Mexico.”The association also denied that most of the guns used for crime in Mexico come from the United States.

In either case, the drug lords,and gangs, are getting their hands on a great many guns, and using them as well in the pursuit of their favorite pass time in Mexico, the drug trade which they then pedal in to the United States,across the border. Calderon is not prepared to believe that the guns enter from,say, the sea ports, but it is known that many of the guns are actually European in origins, Soviet AK 47’s,Belgian guns, even yet Israeli guns have shown up,guns of all kinds and types. Mexican authorities have
investigated reports that some were supplied by arms dealers in Israel and Belgium.

The plot thickens,however, and here we do have an interesting development.In a related legal move, Mexico’s Attorney General is demanding the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives turn over the names of its agents who participated in its “Operation Fast and Furious.”During the covert operation last year, ATF agents allowed smugglers to sneak about 2,000 guns into Mexico so they could be traced to suspected criminals and drug cartels.Although the operation helped U.S. law enforcement agents identify criminals, it also resulted in some of the guns being used for murders and other crimes, according to Mexican police.Mexico’s Attorney General did not say why he wanted the names of participating law officers, but the Mexican news media is speculating he will try to sue them or press charges against them.So far, the U.S. Justice Department has refused to reveal the names of Fast and
Furious agents.President Felipe Calderon expressed his frustration to CBS News correspondent Peter Greenberg: “We seized more than 90,000 weapons…I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR -5 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets. Amazing figures and according to all those cases, the ones we are able to track, most of these are American weapons.”Unquestionably some of the guns do come from America, the great majority of the traceable ones, as Americans guns are just that, traceable, the rest are not, not being American guns, and the vast majority of the guns are not American guns.Indeed, the grenades were not America,and as for Armalite, this was and is a weapon supplied, oddly enough, to many revolutionaries, by one Fidel Castro, and no doubt, a tradition continued by his
brother,they’re in to the more modern AR-10, but for Mexicans the Ar-5 will just have to do.They’ve alsoseized many of the famous and prolific AK 47’s. In short, the Mexicans have a problem, a problem which is beyond them,but it is not a problem of the Mexican selected American arms manufacturers,but rather those of foreign manufacturers whom the Mexican President does not choose to sue, nor blame.He’s the American equivalent of the Mohamed Al Fayed the British have, in short, perhaps if they give the Mexican  President American citizenship, perhaps he will withdraw his ridiculous attempts to sue,for what ever.

Secret Squirrel On Attempts To Emulate America’s Previously Unfathomed Monetary System.

Secret Squirrel has noticed something,namely, that the US national debt keeps growing and growing and growing, and American government keeps spending and spending and spending, giving those it spends to, vast amounts,ever increasing amounts, of American currency,for things it purchases or spends on, such as the military,gifts (subsidies and such other named differently gifts)to corporations etc et all, except for it’s people on whom it spends as little if possible if anything. Now what with the US debt, being firstly, millions, then billions, and now trillions and whatever else comes next,in the United States, it’ll be 1000 billion. In most other countries, it’s “quadrillion”. The dollar remains a dollar,regardless, to Americans and the rest of the world, regardless of debt, whilst in the rest of the world, America it seems, screams overprinting and it seems that currency is devalued against the US dollar standard of the world,and everybody elses as well,and in turn their against the American dollar and everybody elses as well.

It’s the strange way of the world, the world of global currency,high finance,economics and whatever else they call it. It’s been noticed the Turks tried to print up a million dollar bill, in their currency, the bir, well they have lots of birs but one million birs can be purchased for the price of 90cents US,in old aged birs,or lirasi as they’re known.It’s all because old birs go stale and so only new birs are worth it.What’s to be said for it all, in light of the above?Well,as the song says, “Money,money,money,must be funny, in a rich man’s world.”

Well I have fathomed how America is doing this all.It’s because the rest of the world has been tied to the US dollar in value and with the US basically overseeing what it claims are monetary overprinting infractions. What the American government does, is quite simply print up Treasury Bills(Certificate or some such),of any value they particularly require,and then they go to the US Treasury Department, which then happily takes said certificate(bills as they were), and then it prints up and gives to the US government,whom ever presented said bill/certificate
the equivalent in currency. This repeats each year to pay the debt world wide and whatever have you, while the Treasury Department debt mounts,but is ignored and everything’s all right as long as they have the certificates on file.

One wonders what happens if they should loose said certificate, would this have a reducing effect on the national debt of America? I should think not, because if it did, they surely would be doing just that, in all wisdom. Regrettably the other
nations of the world are not as wise as America being tied to the American currency. One wonders now, if they would wisely tie their currency, to their own currency as the Americans do,thence they follow the American system of setting up a
Treasury Department, printing Treasury Certificates of the desired values, and having their Treasury Department print up their currency as they need.You notice I did not refer to printing up US Treasury Certificates and going to their Treasury
Department as I do believe the Americans would consider that to be counterfeiting and similar to printing false currencies based on their treasury certificates.

What ever shall we do? Not wishing to test the American waters ourselves,we could
try,perhaps, a test printing of a US Treasury Certificate, and have the government of Britain send, say, Rosencrantz Martin Luther King, and Guildenstern Martin Luther King,Jr attempt to cash said certificate for the good of the people of, and on the behalf of, the people and government of Britain. Mind there may be some who would consider that a for of use and abuse of the ignorant,and so not being considered to be politically correct as we are out of the times of The Empire,then moving with the times, we must pursue yet another course of action. We go with an alternate plan. We have say,with some suitable encouragement,I was initially going to suggest Iceland for the test as they’re flat broke, or the Irish, equally so, but then again there is the previously mentioned politically incorrect aspect to things with respect to them, and the french who were not mentioned as they would never believe we were doing them any great favour. So, let’s say we try with the last friend we have in the world,and equally as in dire straits as we are, we go to the New Zealanders. We encourage them to join our club, The Clube Des Billionaires, The Clube Des Trillionaires, The Club Des Quadrillionaires, much as the sardines are,after all the plan is a real Kipper,and indeed things being as they are, an American dollars based on the system they use to procure them are worth, in reality,in the light of financial sanity, one sardine,except they won’t as yet acknowledge it as being so.

So, the New Zealanders set up their Department Of the Treasury. The Government procures a printing press which prints the new Treasury Certificates(Bills, what ever have you as the Americans do and you don’t,or perhaps can’t), and then they take those printed Certificates, printed with certain required values of currency on them as necessary, be it millions,billions or trillions and whatever else as the years progress, and the New Zealand Department of Treasury then prints up the money as the New Zealand government sees fit. We then sit back and watch the reaction of the US government and the rest of the world to a system parallel to that of the US government and it’s Treasury system.

It works so well for the Americans, it must be just that we never knew how they did it and nobody thought to do what they do.In either case,we’ll never know till we try,err till they try, the New Zealanders that is, and having given it the good college try as it were, should the New Zealanders for some strange reason fail as it were, they will still be, after all,our remaining friends.