Rating institutes’ AAA ratings for junk (causal for world economic collapse) unpunished

Rating agencies gave AAA ratings for junk financial instruments, out of financial conflict of interest.   Still they remain unpunished.  The stupidity here is a system where greedy incompetence is rewarded and not kept in check by law.

The sheer fraud and greed of rating agency analysts and executives is staggering. That no one has gone to jail, and none of the agencies have been shut down is a travesty of justice on an infinitely larger scale than Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Until depositors, bankers and investors regain confidence in the quality of ratings we rely upon to measure financial stability and creditworthiness, the tremors that underlie the credit crisis will drag on indefinitely.   […]

The problem with the business of rating the issuers of securities, and rating the securities they issue – such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized mortgage-backed obligations – is that the rating agencies are paid by the issuers to rate them. Objectivity aside, ratings firms are in business not to rate but to make money for themselves by rating issuers and their securities. It’s like all the contestants in the Miss World pageant paying the judges with country funds … who’s not going to be judged beautiful?

Wait, there is more! This article continues! More about rating agencies’ guilt and lack of punishment »
Rating institutes’ AAA ratings for junk (causal for world ec…
» continues here »

Sexual Desire for Pre-Pubescent Children. The worst of all crimes?

As child abuse experts point out, about 50 children are reported kidnapped and raped or murdered by strangers annually, compared to more than 3,000 children murdered by parents and other family members in non-sexual cases.

Most sex offenders, says one therapist who works with sex offenders in a state prison system, are “Gentle grandfathers who made one mistake in judgment years ago and fondled their grandchild.

At issue her is:

  • Legal punishment for sexual “crimes” against minors is a modern witch hunt.
  • Totally out of proportion to damage caused by it.
  • Hysteria
  • Purposeful confounding of criminal violent sexual crime against minors nearly or totally harmless fondling or consensual sexual acts
  • any reasonable open-minded unbiased discussion or scientific analysis of the issue regarding underage sexuality  is totally shunned, repressed, ignored, prohibited.

Wait, there is more! This article continues! More pre-pubescent sex apology »
Sexual Desire for Pre-Pubescent Children. The worst of all crimes?
» continues here »

Pirates with Grenade Launchers Attack British Ship. Captured and set Free by Portuguese Navy

Heavily armed pirates attack a British ship. They were arrested by a Portuguese warship (part of the same Nato alliance as Britain) and then set fee.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8030541.stm

Explosives and grenade launchers were discovered on the mother ship when Portuguese special forces boarded “with no exchange of fire”, Lt Cmdr Alexandre Santos Fernandes said.

“It was almost a kilogramme of high explosives. If used correctly it can open a hole in the hull of a ship and sink her,” Lt Cmdr Fernandes said.

“It is the first time we have spotted high explosives on board a pirate ship, normally they just stick to AK-47s and RPGs (grenades).”

The 19 pirate suspects were released because they had not attacked Portuguese property or citizens.

I really wonder if that is furthering human happiness, or if it contributes to more suffering, encouraging further piracy by the same criminals and by others encouraged by their impunity.

Problematic Human Rights: captured Somali pirates are usually released

Human Right are certainly a progress compared to middle age witch tortures and stalinistic despotic abuses.

But as all dogmas, maybe they should be questioned.  Setting pirates free after expensive capture, does that not encourage piracy and create human suffering? Potential victims of the next attack of the same pirates? Victims of other pirates who join the profession, because they see that their biggest risk is spending a day on a war ship, getting fed and then sent back home? Everyone in the world who pays higher cost for higher insurance premiums due to piracy?

Wait, there is more! This article continues! More about Human Rights for Pirates »
Problematic Human Rights: captured Somali pirates are usually rele…
» continues here »