Found this article on WIRED.com...

"As an ex-Brit, I’m well aware of the authorities’ love of surveillance and snooping, but even I, a pessimistic cynic, am amazed by the governments latest plan: to install Orwell’s telescreens in 20,000 homes."

£400 million ($668 million) will be spend on installing and monitoring CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes. The government’s “children’s secretary” Ed Balls is behind the plan, which is aimed at problem, antisocial families. The idea is that, if a child has a more stable home life, he or she will be less likely to stray into crime and drugs."

I do understand that citizens in the UK are not born with the rights as we are in America, and our liberty is far more secure than theirs is.  This is distrurbing becuase we are all lead to believe that our greatest ally is alot like us, when in fact this just goes to show how off base our greatest ally is. 

The rationale of government survaliance in order to produce better children, is beyond my understanding as a liberty loving American.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/britain-to-put-cctv-cameras-inside-private-homes/

Let's try to understand these numbers, before we give another 2 billion to the CARS program.  The CARS Program is already out of their 1 billion dollars authorized through congress becuase so many people have traded in their cars to recieve their 4500.00 voucher towards a new car.

This assumes the government pays out 4500.00 for each trade in.  1 billion divided by 4500.00 = 223,000 ( rounded ) units traded in.

The most popular car purchase after through this program is the Ford Focus, the brand does not matter, but we will use the low advertised price of a Ford Focus as our base number.  2009 Ford Focus: 14k - 16k ( 2009 Ford Focus Reviews, Pictures and Prices - U.S. News Rankings and Reviews )

14,000 car price - 4500 voucher = 9,500.00 in new consumer debt financed.  Let's take that new consumer debt number, and multiple it by the number of units traded in.  223,000 = 2,118,500,000 in additional Consumer DEBT!

Now congress wants another 2 billion to fund the CARS program.  When you take the numbers, add another 2 billion worth of trade ins,  you get an additional 4,237,000,000 in consumer debt.  The total CARS result is 6,355,500,000 in additional consumer debt.  This means the government took 3 million in tax payer money to give them an additional 6 billion in consumer debt.  Now that my friend is a double edge sword.

What does this really mean for the economy?  It means the economy has an additional 6 billion in debt it has to work through it's system, and that's 6 billion dollars that would not naturally go into the market through the the next few years.  The end result of this program is a much deeper hole and climb out of what we've been trying to get out of.

Government involvement in the markets do not work, they never have, they never will.  This program is sham, and the only people who benifit is the bloated car manfactures who have a failed business model, and can not turn profits without tax payer money.

Ask yourself, wouldn't you like to run a business in which the government ensures your profits?

Glenn Beck yesterday on his program mention a little interesting note about this CARS system that would have any Liberty minded person up in arms.  As a dealer principle, or the primary person who inputs all of the information into the CARS system, the system which dealerships use to process the trade-ins, the below warning is displayed.

"This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government. Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign."

Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/28815/

This is completely unconstitutional.  That our government would even stoop to this level of verbage for those who must use the CARS system, is beyond reason.  Furthermore, do the dealers even have a choice?  Is it reasonable to ask them to decline that privacy warning, and NOT accept a consumers trade in?  Would the consumer shop there? 

In essence, the government institutes a hand out program for consumers, and then forces dealerships to hand over all access, and privacy of all content on their computer in order to take advantage of the American Tax Payer handout for those who can afford a new car. 

Even at a lower cost, do we really need to be bailing out those who can afford a new car right now? Who does this program truely help?  The only thing this does is temporarily support car dealerships as long as government is willing to hand over cash, and subsides the cost of a car.  Will it last forever?  What happens once the cash for clunkers funding is over?

An article I read today at AlterNet ( www.alternet.org ) suggests we ban Tobacco, claiming the adverse effects long term compared to those of banned substances.  I ask the question, should anything be banned?  Should we be prevented from using anything we want to? 

I personally have just kicked the habit of smoking tobacco, 9 days free from it so far, I understand the lack of breath, and other health reasons that smoking causes. 

"Cigarettes kill; 400,000 people die prematurely every year from smoking. When we analyze the harm from drugs, there is no doubt that cigarettes are the worst.  They kill more people than cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and all other illegal drugs combined."

Instead of banning yet another free choice, we should use this as a stepping stone of removintg the war on drugs, putting that money back into the hands of the people, and stop locking away non-violent citizens simply becuase they had a little dope on them for personal use.

Most people have the ability to get and use illegal drugs, open any medicine cabinet, and there is a variety of drugs that if used in ways not directed, would be considered illegal.  Most people decide to not use drugs illegally becuase it is not for them, think of the savings, and lower taxes we could see by stopping the wasteful and worthless war on drugs.

Source: http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/141723/should_we_ban_tobacco/