Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
...Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive....
... Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.
Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who have come into the possession of a firearm, even accidentally, have been harshly treated. In 2009 a former soldier, Paul Clarke, found a bag in his garden containing a shotgun. He brought it to the police station and was immediately handcuffed and charged with possession of the gun. At his trial the judge noted: "In law there is no dispute that Mr. Clarke has no defence to this charge. The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant." Mr. Clarke was sentenced to five years in prison. A public outcry eventually won his release....
...What to conclude? Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven't made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres. The two major countries held up as models for the U.S. don't provide much evidence that strict gun laws will solve our problems.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Charts of the day: Gun violence in America declining over last 20 years
... The rate of firearm use in homicides from personal arguments has declined slightly over the last thirty years, even as gun sales have increased, showing that there is no causation or even correlation to support the idea that guns escalate arguments....
...Over the last 20 years, the firearm crime rate has dropped, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. The 1.4/1000 is the same rate as in 2004, the last year in which the “assault weapons” ban was in place. Part of this is from an overall decline in violent crime over the same period, but that doesn’t account for all of the improvement. Firearm crimes accounted for 11% of all violent crime in 1993 and 1994, but was 8% of all such crime in 2009.
This decline took place in an era where gun sales increased and carry permit laws were liberalized. It may assume too much to claim that that increased gun ownership and carrying caused the decline, but it’s clear that the correlation runs in that direction and not the opposite. ...
... The rate of firearm use in homicides from personal arguments has declined slightly over the last thirty years, even as gun sales have increased, showing that there is no causation or even correlation to support the idea that guns escalate arguments....
...Over the last 20 years, the firearm crime rate has dropped, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 6 victims per 1,000 residents in 1994 to 1.4 victims per 1,000 residents in 2009. The 1.4/1000 is the same rate as in 2004, the last year in which the “assault weapons” ban was in place. Part of this is from an overall decline in violent crime over the same period, but that doesn’t account for all of the improvement. Firearm crimes accounted for 11% of all violent crime in 1993 and 1994, but was 8% of all such crime in 2009.
This decline took place in an era where gun sales increased and carry permit laws were liberalized. It may assume too much to claim that that increased gun ownership and carrying caused the decline, but it’s clear that the correlation runs in that direction and not the opposite. ...
Basic errors killing 1000 NHS patients a month a study has revealed
The largest and most detailed survey into hospital deaths has revealed that almost 12,000 patients are needlessly dying every year as a result of poor patient care.
The researchers from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based the study on 1,000 deaths at 10 NHS trusts during 2009. The study revealed that basic errors were made in more than one in 10 cases, leading to 5.2% of deaths, which was the equivalent of nearly 12,000 preventable deaths in hospitals in England every year.
The research published in the British Medical Journal's Quality and Safety publication found that errors occurred when hospital staff made an incorrect diagnosis, prescribed the wrong drugs, failed to monitor a patient's condition or react when a patient deteriorated. Errors in omission were more frequent than active mistakes.
The majority of patients who died were elderly suffering with multiple health conditions, but the study found that some patients whose deaths were preventable were aged in their 30s and 40s....
The largest and most detailed survey into hospital deaths has revealed that almost 12,000 patients are needlessly dying every year as a result of poor patient care.
The researchers from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based the study on 1,000 deaths at 10 NHS trusts during 2009. The study revealed that basic errors were made in more than one in 10 cases, leading to 5.2% of deaths, which was the equivalent of nearly 12,000 preventable deaths in hospitals in England every year.
The research published in the British Medical Journal's Quality and Safety publication found that errors occurred when hospital staff made an incorrect diagnosis, prescribed the wrong drugs, failed to monitor a patient's condition or react when a patient deteriorated. Errors in omission were more frequent than active mistakes.
The majority of patients who died were elderly suffering with multiple health conditions, but the study found that some patients whose deaths were preventable were aged in their 30s and 40s....
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Germany 'exporting' old and sick to foreign care homes
Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany.
The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it "inhumane deportation".
But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a "time bomb".
Germany's chronic care crisis – the care industry suffers from lack of workers and soaring costs – has for years been mitigated by eastern Europeans migrating to Germany in growing numbers to care for the country's elderly.
But the transfer of old people to eastern Europe is being seen as a new and desperate departure, indicating that even with imported, cheaper workers, the system is unworkable....
Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany.
The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it "inhumane deportation".
But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a "time bomb".
Germany's chronic care crisis – the care industry suffers from lack of workers and soaring costs – has for years been mitigated by eastern Europeans migrating to Germany in growing numbers to care for the country's elderly.
But the transfer of old people to eastern Europe is being seen as a new and desperate departure, indicating that even with imported, cheaper workers, the system is unworkable....
Monday, December 24, 2012
The truth is that politicians are telling lies
...So universal has this rule turned out to be that parties and leaders who know better – whose economic literacy is beyond question – are now afraid even to hint at the fact which must eventually be faced. The promises that governments are making to their electorates are not just misleading: they are unforgivably dishonest. It will not be possible to go on as we are, or to return to the expectations that we once had. The immediate emergency created by the crash of 2008 was not some temporary blip in the infinitely expanding growth of the beneficent state. It was, in fact, almost irrelevant to the larger truth which it happened, by coincidence, to bring into view. Government on the scale established in most modern western countries is simply unaffordable. In Britain, the disagreement between Labour and the Conservatives over how to reduce the deficit (cut spending or increase borrowing?) is ridiculously insignificant and out of touch with the actual proportions of the problem. In the UK, the US, and (above all) the countries of the EU, democratic politics is being conducted on false premises.
Of course, once in power all governments must deal with reality – even if they have been elected on a systematic lie. As one ex-minister famously put it when he was released from the burden of office: “There’s no money left.” So that challenge must be met. How do you propose to go on providing the entitlements that you have sworn never to end, without any money? The victorious political parties of the Left have a ready answer to that one. They will raise taxes on the “rich”. In France and the United States, this is the formula that is being presented not only as an economic solution but also as a just social settlement, since the “rich” are inherently wicked and must have acquired their wealth by confiscating it from the poor.
Of course, the moral logic of this principle is absurd. The amount of wealth in an economy is not fixed so that one person having more means that somebody else must have less. But, for the purposes of our problem, it is the fault in the economic logic that is more important. The amount of money that is required to fund government entitlement programmes is now so enormous that it could not be procured by even very large increases in taxation on the “rich”. Assuming that you could get all of the rich members of your population to stand still and be fleeced (rather than leaving the country, as Gérard Depardieu and a vast army of his French brethren are doing), there are simply not enough of them to provide the revenue that a universal, comprehensive benefits system requires....
...So universal has this rule turned out to be that parties and leaders who know better – whose economic literacy is beyond question – are now afraid even to hint at the fact which must eventually be faced. The promises that governments are making to their electorates are not just misleading: they are unforgivably dishonest. It will not be possible to go on as we are, or to return to the expectations that we once had. The immediate emergency created by the crash of 2008 was not some temporary blip in the infinitely expanding growth of the beneficent state. It was, in fact, almost irrelevant to the larger truth which it happened, by coincidence, to bring into view. Government on the scale established in most modern western countries is simply unaffordable. In Britain, the disagreement between Labour and the Conservatives over how to reduce the deficit (cut spending or increase borrowing?) is ridiculously insignificant and out of touch with the actual proportions of the problem. In the UK, the US, and (above all) the countries of the EU, democratic politics is being conducted on false premises.
Of course, once in power all governments must deal with reality – even if they have been elected on a systematic lie. As one ex-minister famously put it when he was released from the burden of office: “There’s no money left.” So that challenge must be met. How do you propose to go on providing the entitlements that you have sworn never to end, without any money? The victorious political parties of the Left have a ready answer to that one. They will raise taxes on the “rich”. In France and the United States, this is the formula that is being presented not only as an economic solution but also as a just social settlement, since the “rich” are inherently wicked and must have acquired their wealth by confiscating it from the poor.
Of course, the moral logic of this principle is absurd. The amount of wealth in an economy is not fixed so that one person having more means that somebody else must have less. But, for the purposes of our problem, it is the fault in the economic logic that is more important. The amount of money that is required to fund government entitlement programmes is now so enormous that it could not be procured by even very large increases in taxation on the “rich”. Assuming that you could get all of the rich members of your population to stand still and be fleeced (rather than leaving the country, as Gérard Depardieu and a vast army of his French brethren are doing), there are simply not enough of them to provide the revenue that a universal, comprehensive benefits system requires....
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Edith Casas Wants To Marry Victor Cingolani, Convicted Of Murdering Her Twin Sister, Johana
A woman in Argentina wants to marry the man who was convicted of murdering her twin sister.
Edith Casas, 22, believes that her fiance, Victor Cingolani, "would not hurt a fly" and is innocent in her sister's death, the BBC reported.
Cingolani is currently serving a 13-year sentence for the murder of Johana Casas, a model whose body was found in a field with two bullet wounds in 2010. Cingolani had dated Johana, but the two were not in a relationship when she was killed.
"[Edith Casas] isn't jealous," Cingolani told Argentine newspaper Clarin, according to the BBC. "We always talk about Johana, about how she was."
The convict also noted that while his relationship with Johana Casas was "casual," he is "in love" with Edith.
The wedding was supposed to take place Saturday, El Patagonico reported. However, a civil judge has postponed the event after Casas' mother, Marcelina del Carmen Orellana, submitted a request for a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of her daughter....
A woman in Argentina wants to marry the man who was convicted of murdering her twin sister.
Edith Casas, 22, believes that her fiance, Victor Cingolani, "would not hurt a fly" and is innocent in her sister's death, the BBC reported.
Cingolani is currently serving a 13-year sentence for the murder of Johana Casas, a model whose body was found in a field with two bullet wounds in 2010. Cingolani had dated Johana, but the two were not in a relationship when she was killed.
"[Edith Casas] isn't jealous," Cingolani told Argentine newspaper Clarin, according to the BBC. "We always talk about Johana, about how she was."
The convict also noted that while his relationship with Johana Casas was "casual," he is "in love" with Edith.
The wedding was supposed to take place Saturday, El Patagonico reported. However, a civil judge has postponed the event after Casas' mother, Marcelina del Carmen Orellana, submitted a request for a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of her daughter....
Obama's Hypocrisy Problem On Guns
...If there's a bump in the night and it's a thug intent on attacking my family, it's my responsibility to deal with it first. That's who I am as the head of the household. I am the first responder, because my other alternative is to be the first victim, either alongside or right in front of my daughter. And again, while you don't expect such an event to happen, and you arrange your life as best you're able to prevent it, there is no such thing as a guarantee.
Now please understand one thing very clearly before we continue.
Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama don't have this issue.
They literally do not care about such things, and they design their life and their public office so as to be able to not care. It is an intentional act they could cast aside should they so choose, but they have not and will not.
Mayor Bloomberg has a small cadre of hired hands who are near and with him literally 24 hours a day. They are armed, all the time, and they are paid to worry about these things so he doesn't have to.
Likewise, President Obama has a literal army of trained, armed soldiers in the form of parts of the military and an entire division of officers (The Secret Service) whose job it is, once again, to make this not his problem for both him and his entire family. Michelle and his children do not have to concern themselves about these issues because there are literally over a thousand others who are paid to take that responsibility -- up to and including eating a bullet in their place.
Neither of these people is proposing to rely on what they claim you should rely on -- a "law." A piece of paper, which today doesn't even get printed on real paper; it's a ghost in a machine that glows at you in the dark....
...If there's a bump in the night and it's a thug intent on attacking my family, it's my responsibility to deal with it first. That's who I am as the head of the household. I am the first responder, because my other alternative is to be the first victim, either alongside or right in front of my daughter. And again, while you don't expect such an event to happen, and you arrange your life as best you're able to prevent it, there is no such thing as a guarantee.
Now please understand one thing very clearly before we continue.
Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama don't have this issue.
They literally do not care about such things, and they design their life and their public office so as to be able to not care. It is an intentional act they could cast aside should they so choose, but they have not and will not.
Mayor Bloomberg has a small cadre of hired hands who are near and with him literally 24 hours a day. They are armed, all the time, and they are paid to worry about these things so he doesn't have to.
Likewise, President Obama has a literal army of trained, armed soldiers in the form of parts of the military and an entire division of officers (The Secret Service) whose job it is, once again, to make this not his problem for both him and his entire family. Michelle and his children do not have to concern themselves about these issues because there are literally over a thousand others who are paid to take that responsibility -- up to and including eating a bullet in their place.
Neither of these people is proposing to rely on what they claim you should rely on -- a "law." A piece of paper, which today doesn't even get printed on real paper; it's a ghost in a machine that glows at you in the dark....
Unwittingly, Maria Miller's Spad has done her country a favour
Occasionally there is wonderful serendipity in news, meaning the occurrence of a happy accident that proves an important point perfectly. The extraordinary case of Maria Miller, her special adviser and The Daily Telegraph falls into that category.
For weeks, print journalists of all kinds – from tabloids to broadsheet – have been trying to explain that the press cannot be free if the state, or parliament, wields power over it. At times it has been as though we are talking a different language from parts of the rest of the population, such has been the bafflement. What could there possibly be to worry about if politicians – even at one remove, through a quango they appoint – essentially authorise, underpin or license press regulation? It would be "independent", wouldn't it? Politicians and their increasingly large staffs of spinners, strategists and assorted hangers-on would not dream of using this as a chance to apply pressure, bully, cajole or generally lord it any more than they already do over journalists trying to write uncomfortable stories that involve said politicians.
Step forward Joanna Hindley, Mrs Miller's special adviser, who has unwittingly just performed the press and her country a great act of service by the way she dealt with a Daily Telegraph reporter who was making perfectly fair enquiries about the rather eye-boggling expenses of the Culture Secretary.
As the Telegraph reports:
"When a reporter approached Mrs Miller’s office last Thursday, her special adviser, Joanna Hindley, pointed out that the Editor of The Telegraph was involved in meetings with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary over implementing the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson.
“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about,” said Miss Hindley.
Miss Hindley also said the reporter should discuss the issue with “people a little higher up your organisation”....
Occasionally there is wonderful serendipity in news, meaning the occurrence of a happy accident that proves an important point perfectly. The extraordinary case of Maria Miller, her special adviser and The Daily Telegraph falls into that category.
For weeks, print journalists of all kinds – from tabloids to broadsheet – have been trying to explain that the press cannot be free if the state, or parliament, wields power over it. At times it has been as though we are talking a different language from parts of the rest of the population, such has been the bafflement. What could there possibly be to worry about if politicians – even at one remove, through a quango they appoint – essentially authorise, underpin or license press regulation? It would be "independent", wouldn't it? Politicians and their increasingly large staffs of spinners, strategists and assorted hangers-on would not dream of using this as a chance to apply pressure, bully, cajole or generally lord it any more than they already do over journalists trying to write uncomfortable stories that involve said politicians.
Step forward Joanna Hindley, Mrs Miller's special adviser, who has unwittingly just performed the press and her country a great act of service by the way she dealt with a Daily Telegraph reporter who was making perfectly fair enquiries about the rather eye-boggling expenses of the Culture Secretary.
As the Telegraph reports:
"When a reporter approached Mrs Miller’s office last Thursday, her special adviser, Joanna Hindley, pointed out that the Editor of The Telegraph was involved in meetings with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary over implementing the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson.
“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about,” said Miss Hindley.
Miss Hindley also said the reporter should discuss the issue with “people a little higher up your organisation”....
America’s War on Children Abroad
...When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.
Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif [in Afghanistan]. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.
"Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied. "Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?...
Newtown kids v Yemenis and Pakistanis: what explains the disparate reactions?
..."Most of the world's media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama's murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are 'militants'. The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.
"'Are we,' Obama asked on Sunday, 'prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?' It's a valid question. He should apply it to the violence he is visiting on the children of Pakistan."...
...When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.
Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif [in Afghanistan]. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.
"Did we just kill a kid?" he asked the man sitting next to him.
"Yeah, I guess that was a kid," the pilot replied. "Was that a kid?" they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.
Then, someone they didn't know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. "No. That was a dog," the person wrote.
They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?...
Newtown kids v Yemenis and Pakistanis: what explains the disparate reactions?
..."Most of the world's media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama's murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are 'militants'. The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.
"'Are we,' Obama asked on Sunday, 'prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?' It's a valid question. He should apply it to the violence he is visiting on the children of Pakistan."...
The Misandry Bubble
Executive Summary : The Western World has quietly become a civilization that undervalues men and overvalues women, where the state forcibly transfers resources from men to women creating various perverse incentives for otherwise good women to conduct great evil against men and children, and where male nature is vilified but female nature is celebrated. This is unfair to both genders, and is a recipe for a rapid civilizational decline and displacement, the costs of which will ultimately be borne by a subsequent generation of innocent women, rather than men, as soon as 2020.
The Myth of Female Oppression : All of us have been taught how women have supposedly been oppressed throughout human existence, and that this was pervasive, systematic, and endorsed by ordinary men who presumably had it much better than women. In reality, this narrative is entirely fabricated. The average man was forced to risk death on the battlefield, at sea, or in mines, while most women stayed indoors tending to children and household duties. Male life expectancy was always significantly lower than that of females, and still is.
Warfare has been a near constant feature of human society before the modern era, and whenever two tribes or kingdoms went to war with each other, the losing side saw many of its fighting-age men exterminated, while the women were assimilated into the invading society. Now, becoming a concubine or a housekeeper is an unfortunate fate, but not nearly as bad as being slaughtered in battle as the men were. To anyone who disagrees, would you like for the men and women to trade outcomes?
Most of this narrative stems from 'feminists' comparing the plight of average women to the topmost men (the monarch and other aristocrats), rather than to the average man. This practice is known as apex fallacy, and whether accidental or deliberate, entirely misrepresents reality. To approximate the conditions of the average woman to the average man (the key word being 'average') in the Western world of a century ago, simply observe the lives of the poorest peasants in poor countries today. Both men and women have to perform tedious work, have insufficient food and clothing, and limited opportunities for upliftment. ...
...Genetic research has shown that before the modern era, 80% of women managed to reproduce, but only 40% of men did. The obvious conclusion from this is that a few top men had multiple wives, while the bottom 60% had no mating prospects at all. Women clearly did not mind sharing the top man with multiple other women, ultimately deciding that being one of four women sharing an 'alpha' was still more preferable than having the undivided attention of a 'beta'. Let us define the top 20% of men as measured by their attractiveness to women, as 'alpha' males while the middle 60% of men will be called 'beta' males. The bottom 20% are not meaningful in this context.
Research across gorillas, chimpanzees, and primitive human tribes shows that men are promiscuous and polygamous. This is no surprise to a modern reader, but the research further shows that women are not monogamous, as is popularly assumed, but hypergamous. In other words, a woman may be attracted to only one man at any given time, but as the status and fortune of various men fluctuates, a woman's attention may shift from a declining man to an ascendant man. There is significant turnover in the ranks of alpha males, which women are acutely aware of.
As a result, women are the first to want into a monogamous relationship, and the first to want out. This is neither right nor wrong, merely natural. What is wrong, however, is the cultural and societal pressure to shame men into committing to marriage under the pretense that they are 'afraid of commitment' due to some 'Peter Pan complex', while there is no longer the corresponding traditional shame that was reserved for women who destroyed the marriage, despite the fact that 90% of divorces are initiated by women. Furthermore, when women destroy the commitment, there is great harm to children, and the woman demands present and future payments from the man she is abandoning. A man who refuses to marry is neither harming innocent minors nor expecting years of payments from the woman. This absurd double standard has invisible but major costs to society.
To provide 'beta' men an incentive to produce far more economic output than needed just to support themselves while simultaneously controlling the hypergamy of women that would deprive children of interaction with their biological fathers, all major religions constructed an institution to force constructive conduct out of both genders while penalizing the natural primate tendencies of each. This institution was known as 'marriage'. Societies that enforced monogamous marriage made sure all beta men had wives, thus unlocking productive output out of these men who in pre-modern times would have had no incentive to be productive. Women, in turn, received a provider, a protector, and higher social status than unmarried women, who often were trapped in poverty. When applied over an entire population of humans, this system was known as 'civilization'.
All societies that achieved great advances and lasted for multiple centuries followed this formula with very little deviation, and it is quite remarkable how similar the nature of monogamous marriage was across seemingly diverse cultures. Societies that deviated from this were quickly replaced. This 'contract' between the sexes was advantageous to beta men, women over the age of 35, and children, but greatly curbed the activities of alpha men and women under 35 (together, a much smaller group than the former one). Conversely, the pre-civilized norm of alpha men monopolizing 3 or more young women each, replacing aging ones with new ones, while the masses of beta men fight over a tiny supply of surplus/aging women, was chaotic and unstable, leaving beta men violent and unproductive, and aging mothers discarded by their alpha mates now vulnerable to poverty. So what happens when the traditional controls of civilization are lifted from both men and women? ...
Executive Summary : The Western World has quietly become a civilization that undervalues men and overvalues women, where the state forcibly transfers resources from men to women creating various perverse incentives for otherwise good women to conduct great evil against men and children, and where male nature is vilified but female nature is celebrated. This is unfair to both genders, and is a recipe for a rapid civilizational decline and displacement, the costs of which will ultimately be borne by a subsequent generation of innocent women, rather than men, as soon as 2020.
The Myth of Female Oppression : All of us have been taught how women have supposedly been oppressed throughout human existence, and that this was pervasive, systematic, and endorsed by ordinary men who presumably had it much better than women. In reality, this narrative is entirely fabricated. The average man was forced to risk death on the battlefield, at sea, or in mines, while most women stayed indoors tending to children and household duties. Male life expectancy was always significantly lower than that of females, and still is.
Warfare has been a near constant feature of human society before the modern era, and whenever two tribes or kingdoms went to war with each other, the losing side saw many of its fighting-age men exterminated, while the women were assimilated into the invading society. Now, becoming a concubine or a housekeeper is an unfortunate fate, but not nearly as bad as being slaughtered in battle as the men were. To anyone who disagrees, would you like for the men and women to trade outcomes?
Most of this narrative stems from 'feminists' comparing the plight of average women to the topmost men (the monarch and other aristocrats), rather than to the average man. This practice is known as apex fallacy, and whether accidental or deliberate, entirely misrepresents reality. To approximate the conditions of the average woman to the average man (the key word being 'average') in the Western world of a century ago, simply observe the lives of the poorest peasants in poor countries today. Both men and women have to perform tedious work, have insufficient food and clothing, and limited opportunities for upliftment. ...
...Genetic research has shown that before the modern era, 80% of women managed to reproduce, but only 40% of men did. The obvious conclusion from this is that a few top men had multiple wives, while the bottom 60% had no mating prospects at all. Women clearly did not mind sharing the top man with multiple other women, ultimately deciding that being one of four women sharing an 'alpha' was still more preferable than having the undivided attention of a 'beta'. Let us define the top 20% of men as measured by their attractiveness to women, as 'alpha' males while the middle 60% of men will be called 'beta' males. The bottom 20% are not meaningful in this context.
Research across gorillas, chimpanzees, and primitive human tribes shows that men are promiscuous and polygamous. This is no surprise to a modern reader, but the research further shows that women are not monogamous, as is popularly assumed, but hypergamous. In other words, a woman may be attracted to only one man at any given time, but as the status and fortune of various men fluctuates, a woman's attention may shift from a declining man to an ascendant man. There is significant turnover in the ranks of alpha males, which women are acutely aware of.
As a result, women are the first to want into a monogamous relationship, and the first to want out. This is neither right nor wrong, merely natural. What is wrong, however, is the cultural and societal pressure to shame men into committing to marriage under the pretense that they are 'afraid of commitment' due to some 'Peter Pan complex', while there is no longer the corresponding traditional shame that was reserved for women who destroyed the marriage, despite the fact that 90% of divorces are initiated by women. Furthermore, when women destroy the commitment, there is great harm to children, and the woman demands present and future payments from the man she is abandoning. A man who refuses to marry is neither harming innocent minors nor expecting years of payments from the woman. This absurd double standard has invisible but major costs to society.
To provide 'beta' men an incentive to produce far more economic output than needed just to support themselves while simultaneously controlling the hypergamy of women that would deprive children of interaction with their biological fathers, all major religions constructed an institution to force constructive conduct out of both genders while penalizing the natural primate tendencies of each. This institution was known as 'marriage'. Societies that enforced monogamous marriage made sure all beta men had wives, thus unlocking productive output out of these men who in pre-modern times would have had no incentive to be productive. Women, in turn, received a provider, a protector, and higher social status than unmarried women, who often were trapped in poverty. When applied over an entire population of humans, this system was known as 'civilization'.
All societies that achieved great advances and lasted for multiple centuries followed this formula with very little deviation, and it is quite remarkable how similar the nature of monogamous marriage was across seemingly diverse cultures. Societies that deviated from this were quickly replaced. This 'contract' between the sexes was advantageous to beta men, women over the age of 35, and children, but greatly curbed the activities of alpha men and women under 35 (together, a much smaller group than the former one). Conversely, the pre-civilized norm of alpha men monopolizing 3 or more young women each, replacing aging ones with new ones, while the masses of beta men fight over a tiny supply of surplus/aging women, was chaotic and unstable, leaving beta men violent and unproductive, and aging mothers discarded by their alpha mates now vulnerable to poverty. So what happens when the traditional controls of civilization are lifted from both men and women? ...
New Study Finds CRA 'Clearly' Did Lead To Risky Lending
Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.
But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks."
Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas.
To satisfy CRA examiners, "flexible" lending by large banks rose an average 5% and those loans defaulted about 15% more often, the 43-page study found.
The strongest link between CRA lending and defaults took place in the runup to the crisis — 2004 to 2006 — when banks rapidly sold CRA mortgages for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Wall Street.
CRA regulations are at the core of Fannie's and Freddie's so-called affordable housing mission. In the early 1990s, a Democrat Congress gave HUD the authority to set and enforce (through fines) CRA-grade loan quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
It passed a law requiring the government-backed agencies to "assist insured depository institutions to meet their obligations under the (CRA)." The goal was to help banks meet lending quotas by buying their CRA loans....
Democrats and the media insist the Community Reinvestment Act, the anti-redlining law beefed up by President Clinton, had nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis and recession.
But a new study by the respected National Bureau of Economic Research finds, "Yes, it did. We find that adherence to that act led to riskier lending by banks."
Added NBER: "There is a clear pattern of increased defaults for loans made by these banks in quarters around the (CRA) exam. Moreover, the effects are larger for loans made within CRA tracts," or predominantly low-income and minority areas.
To satisfy CRA examiners, "flexible" lending by large banks rose an average 5% and those loans defaulted about 15% more often, the 43-page study found.
The strongest link between CRA lending and defaults took place in the runup to the crisis — 2004 to 2006 — when banks rapidly sold CRA mortgages for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Wall Street.
CRA regulations are at the core of Fannie's and Freddie's so-called affordable housing mission. In the early 1990s, a Democrat Congress gave HUD the authority to set and enforce (through fines) CRA-grade loan quotas at Fannie and Freddie.
It passed a law requiring the government-backed agencies to "assist insured depository institutions to meet their obligations under the (CRA)." The goal was to help banks meet lending quotas by buying their CRA loans....
Report to socialist French president recommends legalizing ‘accelerated deaths’
France should allow doctors to “accelerate the coming of death” for terminally ill patients, a report to President Francois Hollande recommended Tuesday....
France should allow doctors to “accelerate the coming of death” for terminally ill patients, a report to President Francois Hollande recommended Tuesday....
10 myths about the Connecticut shootings
...School shootings are incredibly rare and, statistically, children are safer at school than they are at home, and they are far more likely to be killed by their parents than by anyone else. According to Gary Kleck, a child is more likely to be struck by lightning at school than a bullet. To put it in perspective, the homicide rate at primary schools in the UK – that nation most favoured by gun-control activists - is slightly higher than that in the United States, lest anyone thinks that school violence is endemic to the US. The fact that we have all heard of school shootings does not mean that there is much danger at all of them occurring....
...There is no direct causal link between gun ownership and homicide rates. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa all have much lower gun-ownership rates than the US but higher gun-homicide rates. Whereas the US has a homicide rate higher than many European countries, countries with very high gun-ownership rates, like Canada, Switzerland and Israel, also have some of the lowest gun-homicide rates.
As Gary Kleck has pointed out, in the first 30 years of the twentieth century, US per capita handgun ownership remained stable, but the homicide rate rose tenfold. Subsequently, between 1937 and 1963, handgun ownership rose by 250 per cent, but the homicide rate fell by 35.7 per cent...
...School shootings are incredibly rare and, statistically, children are safer at school than they are at home, and they are far more likely to be killed by their parents than by anyone else. According to Gary Kleck, a child is more likely to be struck by lightning at school than a bullet. To put it in perspective, the homicide rate at primary schools in the UK – that nation most favoured by gun-control activists - is slightly higher than that in the United States, lest anyone thinks that school violence is endemic to the US. The fact that we have all heard of school shootings does not mean that there is much danger at all of them occurring....
...There is no direct causal link between gun ownership and homicide rates. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa all have much lower gun-ownership rates than the US but higher gun-homicide rates. Whereas the US has a homicide rate higher than many European countries, countries with very high gun-ownership rates, like Canada, Switzerland and Israel, also have some of the lowest gun-homicide rates.
As Gary Kleck has pointed out, in the first 30 years of the twentieth century, US per capita handgun ownership remained stable, but the homicide rate rose tenfold. Subsequently, between 1937 and 1963, handgun ownership rose by 250 per cent, but the homicide rate fell by 35.7 per cent...
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place. ...
Handgun crime 'up' despite ban
A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.
The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.
The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.
But the report suggests that despite the restrictions on ownership the use of handguns in crime is rising. ...
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place. ...
Handgun crime 'up' despite ban
A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.
The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.
The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.
But the report suggests that despite the restrictions on ownership the use of handguns in crime is rising. ...
Assault Weapons Bans, in the Words of Some of Their Supporters
...In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate. I am not up for reelection. So let me elaborate the real logic of the ban:
It is simply crazy for a country as modern, industrial, advanced and now crowded as the United States to carry on its frontier infatuation with guns. Yes, we are a young country, but the frontier has been closed for 100 years. In 1992, there were 13,220 handgun murders in the United States. Canada (an equally young country, one might note) had 128; Britain, 33.
Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today.
Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic — purely symbolic — move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. Its purpose is to spark debate, highlight the issue, make the case that the arms race between criminals and citizens is as dangerous as it is pointless.
De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.......
...In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate. I am not up for reelection. So let me elaborate the real logic of the ban:
It is simply crazy for a country as modern, industrial, advanced and now crowded as the United States to carry on its frontier infatuation with guns. Yes, we are a young country, but the frontier has been closed for 100 years. In 1992, there were 13,220 handgun murders in the United States. Canada (an equally young country, one might note) had 128; Britain, 33.
Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today.
Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic — purely symbolic — move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. Its purpose is to spark debate, highlight the issue, make the case that the arms race between criminals and citizens is as dangerous as it is pointless.
De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.......
Sunday, December 16, 2012
IPCC Admission Has Climate World Buzzing
Global warming hysteria has been driven largely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued four politically-driven and, in crucial ways, inconsistent reports. The IPCC is now working on report number five, and the current draft has been leaked. It contains a bombshell that may or may not survive in the final product; but in the meantime, the cat is out of the bag....
...So the IPCC, at the moment at least, stands ready to admit that the evidence supports a much larger role for solar activity, and a correspondingly much smaller role for CO2. Of course, other sections of the report implicitly contradict this admission. Watts Up With That has all the details on the controversy. I am not sure I agree with those who say this represents the death knell for climate alarmism, but it certainly does illustrate how flimsy the “science” underlying the hysterical position is....
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’
Global warming hysteria has been driven largely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued four politically-driven and, in crucial ways, inconsistent reports. The IPCC is now working on report number five, and the current draft has been leaked. It contains a bombshell that may or may not survive in the final product; but in the meantime, the cat is out of the bag....
...So the IPCC, at the moment at least, stands ready to admit that the evidence supports a much larger role for solar activity, and a correspondingly much smaller role for CO2. Of course, other sections of the report implicitly contradict this admission. Watts Up With That has all the details on the controversy. I am not sure I agree with those who say this represents the death knell for climate alarmism, but it certainly does illustrate how flimsy the “science” underlying the hysterical position is....
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’
How we’re all being seduced by the state
...The trouble is, the government hasn’t really been doing very much of anything either to tackle the immediate crisis or to create the basis for long-term economic success. For all the talk of years of austerity ahead, the fact is that day-to-day public spending has been going up, not down. It is capital spending that has been slashed (by over £9 billion in the government’s second year in office - a policy inherited from the last Labour government). Public services and benefits have not been heavily affected yet. Osborne has now announced that welfare benefits will only rise by one per cent per year for the next three years - significantly below the rate of inflation - after being index-linked at a time of relatively high inflation. Even then, other measures will help people in work, particularly an above-inflation rise in income-tax allowances. Overall, Osborne’s latest plans are roughly revenue-neutral, satisfying neither those who would slash spending nor those demanding a Keynesian-style fiscal stimulus.
The use of the word ‘austerity’ needs to be questioned. In 2001, the year Tony Blair’s New Labour government was re-elected, public spending was £7,340 per person. By 2007, before the financial crisis really hit, it had risen to £9,167 per person. By 2011, it was over £10,000 per person. (All these figures are adjusted for inflation.) State spending is now equivalent to 45 per cent of UK GDP. It is only now that spending is starting to fall and it is not expected to drop back to 2007 levels in the foreseeable future. This is hardly comparable with the austerity being experienced in the weaker Eurozone countries like Ireland and Greece. The Irish government announced a further austerity budget only last week.
Yet this hasn’t stopped a hyperbolic overreaction from many liberal commentators. In yesterday’s Observer, columnist Will Hutton declared that Osborne’s plans represented the end of any sense of shared social responsibility: ‘The last vestiges of an approach to organising society based on a social contract have been shredded. In its place there is an emergent system of discretionary poor relief imposed from on high in which every claimant is defined not as a citizen exercising an entitlement because they have hit one of life’s many hazards, but as a dependent shirker or scrounger.’
In reality, all roads seem to lead to the state. As the Office for National Statistics pointed out earlier this year: ‘On average, households in the top two income quintiles paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, while households in the bottom three quintiles received more in benefits than they paid in taxes.’ In other words, most people receive more money from the state than they pay in taxes. The welfare state, originally envisaged as a safety net with a substantial contributory element, has been transformed into a dependent relationship with the state that extends far beyond the unemployed....
...If those figures are correct - they were prepared by Migration Watch from OECD figures as an argument against immigration, so they may well be a worst-case example - it hardly represents the tearing-up of the social contract, as Hutton believes. Nor does it mean we live in a scroungers’ society - the beneficiaries in the example above are as much businesses that can pay low wage rates knowing that the state will top them up into something approaching a ‘family wage’. What they do illustrate is a relationship, between the individual and businesses on one side and the state on the other, which distorts incentives and undermines autonomy. The culture of entitlement and dependency affects capitalists just as much as it affects individuals....
...The trouble is, the government hasn’t really been doing very much of anything either to tackle the immediate crisis or to create the basis for long-term economic success. For all the talk of years of austerity ahead, the fact is that day-to-day public spending has been going up, not down. It is capital spending that has been slashed (by over £9 billion in the government’s second year in office - a policy inherited from the last Labour government). Public services and benefits have not been heavily affected yet. Osborne has now announced that welfare benefits will only rise by one per cent per year for the next three years - significantly below the rate of inflation - after being index-linked at a time of relatively high inflation. Even then, other measures will help people in work, particularly an above-inflation rise in income-tax allowances. Overall, Osborne’s latest plans are roughly revenue-neutral, satisfying neither those who would slash spending nor those demanding a Keynesian-style fiscal stimulus.
The use of the word ‘austerity’ needs to be questioned. In 2001, the year Tony Blair’s New Labour government was re-elected, public spending was £7,340 per person. By 2007, before the financial crisis really hit, it had risen to £9,167 per person. By 2011, it was over £10,000 per person. (All these figures are adjusted for inflation.) State spending is now equivalent to 45 per cent of UK GDP. It is only now that spending is starting to fall and it is not expected to drop back to 2007 levels in the foreseeable future. This is hardly comparable with the austerity being experienced in the weaker Eurozone countries like Ireland and Greece. The Irish government announced a further austerity budget only last week.
Yet this hasn’t stopped a hyperbolic overreaction from many liberal commentators. In yesterday’s Observer, columnist Will Hutton declared that Osborne’s plans represented the end of any sense of shared social responsibility: ‘The last vestiges of an approach to organising society based on a social contract have been shredded. In its place there is an emergent system of discretionary poor relief imposed from on high in which every claimant is defined not as a citizen exercising an entitlement because they have hit one of life’s many hazards, but as a dependent shirker or scrounger.’
In reality, all roads seem to lead to the state. As the Office for National Statistics pointed out earlier this year: ‘On average, households in the top two income quintiles paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, while households in the bottom three quintiles received more in benefits than they paid in taxes.’ In other words, most people receive more money from the state than they pay in taxes. The welfare state, originally envisaged as a safety net with a substantial contributory element, has been transformed into a dependent relationship with the state that extends far beyond the unemployed....
...If those figures are correct - they were prepared by Migration Watch from OECD figures as an argument against immigration, so they may well be a worst-case example - it hardly represents the tearing-up of the social contract, as Hutton believes. Nor does it mean we live in a scroungers’ society - the beneficiaries in the example above are as much businesses that can pay low wage rates knowing that the state will top them up into something approaching a ‘family wage’. What they do illustrate is a relationship, between the individual and businesses on one side and the state on the other, which distorts incentives and undermines autonomy. The culture of entitlement and dependency affects capitalists just as much as it affects individuals....
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. ...
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. ...
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Why the NHS is bad for us
Another lonely death. Another preventable death. Another reason why you must challenge your most deeply held beliefs.
Last week's report into the case of Thomas Rogers, the 74-year-old grandfather who bled to death after lying undiagnosed on a trolley in an accident and emergency ward at Whipps Cross Hospital for nine hours, is shocking. What is even more shocking is that it is hardly unusual. Equally awful stories worm their way out past NHS obstruction every week. And nothing changes.
Even as you read this, in almost every hospital in the country, there will be elderly, vulnerable people left for hours and sometimes days on trolleys. Each year, thousands of British people - the young, the old, the rich, the poor - die unnecessarily from lack of diagnosis, lack of treatment and lack of drugs. They die and suffer unnecessarily for different reasons, but there is just one root cause: the blind faith the Government has in the ideology of the National Health Service, and our unwillingness to accept not just that it doesn't work, but that it can never work. Bernard Kouchner, the health minister of France, widely thought of as having the best health system in the world, recognised this last week when he condemned the NHS as 'medieval' and 'intolerable'.
I used to be a believer. I grew up cocooned in the affection and pride that the British public had in the NHS, the glorious creation of postwar Britain that offered free, modern health care to all. Poor and rich got equal treatment; no longer would health depend on wealth. It was the only institution, it was claimed, that worked on an ethical principle.
But then, two years ago, I became health editor of The Observer , the very same day that Alan Milburn became Health Secretary. And what I have learnt about the health service and its workings has appalled me and completely eroded my faith in the NHS. Bombarded by the desperate pain of relatives and medical professionals, challenged by endless think-tanks, semi nars and government initiatives, I struggled with my beliefs like a troubled Catholic, until I came to the only conclusion that my heart, intellect and integrity would allow me: we must abolish the NHS as we know it, abandon our unique obsession that all health care should be free, and become as comfortable with mixed public and private medicine as they are elsewhere in the developed world. My beliefs make me a heretic among the Left. ...
...It is inevitable that a state monopoly offering free services will treat patients like mindless sheep, forcing them to accept whatever they are given, and it deprives the health service of a powerful force for good. The determination of sick people and their relatives to find the best treatment and care is wondrous to behold, but this energy is not harnessed by the NHS but crushed by it, forcing people into soul-destroying battles. The desire of millions of patients to improve their treatment should be a huge power for reform in the NHS, but, instead, reform is driven by civil servants sitting in offices in Whitehall issuing diktats. ...
Another lonely death. Another preventable death. Another reason why you must challenge your most deeply held beliefs.
Last week's report into the case of Thomas Rogers, the 74-year-old grandfather who bled to death after lying undiagnosed on a trolley in an accident and emergency ward at Whipps Cross Hospital for nine hours, is shocking. What is even more shocking is that it is hardly unusual. Equally awful stories worm their way out past NHS obstruction every week. And nothing changes.
Even as you read this, in almost every hospital in the country, there will be elderly, vulnerable people left for hours and sometimes days on trolleys. Each year, thousands of British people - the young, the old, the rich, the poor - die unnecessarily from lack of diagnosis, lack of treatment and lack of drugs. They die and suffer unnecessarily for different reasons, but there is just one root cause: the blind faith the Government has in the ideology of the National Health Service, and our unwillingness to accept not just that it doesn't work, but that it can never work. Bernard Kouchner, the health minister of France, widely thought of as having the best health system in the world, recognised this last week when he condemned the NHS as 'medieval' and 'intolerable'.
I used to be a believer. I grew up cocooned in the affection and pride that the British public had in the NHS, the glorious creation of postwar Britain that offered free, modern health care to all. Poor and rich got equal treatment; no longer would health depend on wealth. It was the only institution, it was claimed, that worked on an ethical principle.
But then, two years ago, I became health editor of The Observer , the very same day that Alan Milburn became Health Secretary. And what I have learnt about the health service and its workings has appalled me and completely eroded my faith in the NHS. Bombarded by the desperate pain of relatives and medical professionals, challenged by endless think-tanks, semi nars and government initiatives, I struggled with my beliefs like a troubled Catholic, until I came to the only conclusion that my heart, intellect and integrity would allow me: we must abolish the NHS as we know it, abandon our unique obsession that all health care should be free, and become as comfortable with mixed public and private medicine as they are elsewhere in the developed world. My beliefs make me a heretic among the Left. ...
...It is inevitable that a state monopoly offering free services will treat patients like mindless sheep, forcing them to accept whatever they are given, and it deprives the health service of a powerful force for good. The determination of sick people and their relatives to find the best treatment and care is wondrous to behold, but this energy is not harnessed by the NHS but crushed by it, forcing people into soul-destroying battles. The desire of millions of patients to improve their treatment should be a huge power for reform in the NHS, but, instead, reform is driven by civil servants sitting in offices in Whitehall issuing diktats. ...
How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor
... Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be. [3]
The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war....
... Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be. [3]
The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war....
Sportswriter says NRA the new KKK, or something
...Estimates vary widely on the number of households with firearms, but Gallup’s survey in 2005 put it at 42 percent. With roughly 150 million households in the U.S., that means that a gun is present in roughly 63 million households. Yet the number of murders committed by firearm in 2011, according to FBI statistics, was 8,583. That represents 0.0136 percent of all firearm-owning households. Murders by handgun came to 6,220, which makes that percentage 0.0099 percent. If guns caused murders, we’d be seeing a lot more murders. More than 99 percent of Americans seem to be capable of owning guns without committing murder, which demolishes the blame-the-gun argument...
...Estimates vary widely on the number of households with firearms, but Gallup’s survey in 2005 put it at 42 percent. With roughly 150 million households in the U.S., that means that a gun is present in roughly 63 million households. Yet the number of murders committed by firearm in 2011, according to FBI statistics, was 8,583. That represents 0.0136 percent of all firearm-owning households. Murders by handgun came to 6,220, which makes that percentage 0.0099 percent. If guns caused murders, we’d be seeing a lot more murders. More than 99 percent of Americans seem to be capable of owning guns without committing murder, which demolishes the blame-the-gun argument...
73% of New Jobs Created in Last 5 Months Are in Government
Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments.
By November, according to data BLS released today, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June.
In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall....
Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments.
By November, according to data BLS released today, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June.
In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall....
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Female Teachers Give Male Pupils Lower Marks, Claims Study
Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.
Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender....
Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.
Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender....
Colleges have free speech on the run
...Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff, 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.” But as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things.
In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators. ...
...Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought....
...Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff, 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.” But as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things.
In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators. ...
...Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought....
Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate
In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.
This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.
The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.
It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes. ...
In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.
This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.
The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.
It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes. ...
UK doctor testifies that under socialized medicine, sick babies are sent home to die
A British physician’s disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration.
Newborn babies are being being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway for end-of-life care, a system originally allotted and designed for elderly or terminally ill adults. That end-of-life care involves the removal of food and fluid tubes, a method which can take an average of ten days to result in death.
The Daily Mail reports an investigation is being launched to determine “whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.”
The physician, who wishes to remain anonymous, recounted his experience in a submission to the British Medical Journal, titled “How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies.”...
A British physician’s disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration.
Newborn babies are being being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway for end-of-life care, a system originally allotted and designed for elderly or terminally ill adults. That end-of-life care involves the removal of food and fluid tubes, a method which can take an average of ten days to result in death.
The Daily Mail reports an investigation is being launched to determine “whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.”
The physician, who wishes to remain anonymous, recounted his experience in a submission to the British Medical Journal, titled “How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies.”...
It’s not just UKIP parents who are under suspicion
The Rotherham foster family controversy has scandalised Britain. Understandably so. Rotherham council’s decision to remove three children from a fostering couple simply because the couple are members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) reeks of a McCarthy-like political authoritarianism. It is not surprising that the decision has been slammed by the press as ‘ugly’, ‘poisonous’, ‘prejudicial’, ‘Orwellian’ and ‘arrogant’.
Yet this very reaction, not only from the press but also from leading politicians, who have described Rotherham council’s behaviour as ‘indefensible’, gives the impression that what happened in Rotherham was a one-off, an act of extremism by a crazy council. It wasn’t. Rather, the Rotherham mess is the logical conclusion to the ever-more embedded idea that the state should get to say who would make a good parent and who would not; that the state has the right to determine which political, cultural and lifestyle attitudes it is okay for parents to have and which ones it is not okay for them to have. It is this idea - promoted by some of the same people now getting irate over Rotherham - which leads to a situation where foster parents who have the ‘wrong’ views can have their kids removed.
The most striking thing about the Rotherham case is how open the council was about its prejudices. Usually, when councils want to take children away from parents whom they decree to be ‘undesirable’, they will draw up a list of often exaggerated physical or moral harms facing those children as a way of justifying their actions. But in this case, officials were explicit about the fact that these kids were being removed because of the foster parents’ political views. The council’s director of children’s services, Joyce Thacker, said that because the three children are of Eastern European origin, it would be wrong to leave them with foster parents who support a party that is anti-EU and critical of the ideology of multiculturalism. ‘If the party mantra is, for example, ending the active promotion of multiculturalism, I have to think about that’, she said. ‘I have to think of [the children’s] longer-term needs.’
In essence, Thacker is saying that anyone who is critical of multiculturalism is not fit to be a foster parent - or, by extension, a natural parent - because they might inculcate children with views that Thacker considers to be wrong, insufficiently multicultural. This isn’t the first time a council in Britain has removed children from parents or foster parents who are seen as having problematic cultural views. Earlier this year, Toni McLeod, a mother-of-four in Durham, had her children taken from her, partly because, in the words of Durham council, she had developed ‘inappropriate friendships [through] the English Defence League’, a small far-right political group. ‘Inappropriate friendships’ was clearly code for ‘inappropriate views’....
The Rotherham foster family controversy has scandalised Britain. Understandably so. Rotherham council’s decision to remove three children from a fostering couple simply because the couple are members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) reeks of a McCarthy-like political authoritarianism. It is not surprising that the decision has been slammed by the press as ‘ugly’, ‘poisonous’, ‘prejudicial’, ‘Orwellian’ and ‘arrogant’.
Yet this very reaction, not only from the press but also from leading politicians, who have described Rotherham council’s behaviour as ‘indefensible’, gives the impression that what happened in Rotherham was a one-off, an act of extremism by a crazy council. It wasn’t. Rather, the Rotherham mess is the logical conclusion to the ever-more embedded idea that the state should get to say who would make a good parent and who would not; that the state has the right to determine which political, cultural and lifestyle attitudes it is okay for parents to have and which ones it is not okay for them to have. It is this idea - promoted by some of the same people now getting irate over Rotherham - which leads to a situation where foster parents who have the ‘wrong’ views can have their kids removed.
The most striking thing about the Rotherham case is how open the council was about its prejudices. Usually, when councils want to take children away from parents whom they decree to be ‘undesirable’, they will draw up a list of often exaggerated physical or moral harms facing those children as a way of justifying their actions. But in this case, officials were explicit about the fact that these kids were being removed because of the foster parents’ political views. The council’s director of children’s services, Joyce Thacker, said that because the three children are of Eastern European origin, it would be wrong to leave them with foster parents who support a party that is anti-EU and critical of the ideology of multiculturalism. ‘If the party mantra is, for example, ending the active promotion of multiculturalism, I have to think about that’, she said. ‘I have to think of [the children’s] longer-term needs.’
In essence, Thacker is saying that anyone who is critical of multiculturalism is not fit to be a foster parent - or, by extension, a natural parent - because they might inculcate children with views that Thacker considers to be wrong, insufficiently multicultural. This isn’t the first time a council in Britain has removed children from parents or foster parents who are seen as having problematic cultural views. Earlier this year, Toni McLeod, a mother-of-four in Durham, had her children taken from her, partly because, in the words of Durham council, she had developed ‘inappropriate friendships [through] the English Defence League’, a small far-right political group. ‘Inappropriate friendships’ was clearly code for ‘inappropriate views’....
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Global warming talks progress is 'slow but steady' – UN climate chief
...It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn't a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it's a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.
...It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn't a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it's a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Spin Cycle on Overdrive: EPA Launders Fingerprints of Public Officials with "Richard Windsor" Account
...I believe that the EPA's Richard Windsor account was created during the Clinton Administration. Was it used by Carol Browner? Was it used by George W. Bush's EPA Administrator? If not, then we have a dormant account that may have been available to political operatives and activists of the party out of power during the Bush presidency, if I'm right about the account having been created twelve or more years ago.
When was the EPA's "Richard Windsor" account created? Who was granted access to it? And when was each custodian granted that access?
Getting back to "Richard Windsor".... The Politico has implied that Lisa Jackson has claimed that she had a dog named "Richard" when she lived in East Windsor Township. The EPA acknowledges that there's a "Richard Windsor" account used by Lisa Jackson. Let's return to the dead Richard Windsor that I wrote about when first taking an interest in this story:
Richard Windsor was a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforcement attorney who, in 1997, began working for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an article announcing Windsor's new job staffing a PEER sponsored environmental hotline, he had this to say:
``Once upon a time, Florida [had] an environmental agency that tried to enforce environmental laws,'' Windsor said. ``That's not the case now.''
Windsor was an attorney in a court case in 2000 involving Florida's DEP. That same year, he corresponded with then EPA director Carol Browner. We know that because of footnote #39 on page 20 of a 2004 letter from Eric Huber of the Sierra Club addressed to Michael Leavitt of the EPA. We know that Richard L. Windsor was an attorney involved in a 2003 case involving Florida's DEP.
And, sadly, The Florida Bar News reported that Richard Lee Windsor shuffled off his mortal coil on December 7th, 2008.
It turns out that the deceased environmental lawyer, Richard Windsor, worked with Carol Browner when Browner was head of Environmental Regulation in Florida. The article about the PEER sponsored environmental hotline notes: "Windsor and Medina worked for 11 years as state regulators." So, Windsor would've worked at DEP from 1986 to 1997 (roughly). Browner was Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida from 1991 to 1993....
...I believe that the EPA's Richard Windsor account was created during the Clinton Administration. Was it used by Carol Browner? Was it used by George W. Bush's EPA Administrator? If not, then we have a dormant account that may have been available to political operatives and activists of the party out of power during the Bush presidency, if I'm right about the account having been created twelve or more years ago.
When was the EPA's "Richard Windsor" account created? Who was granted access to it? And when was each custodian granted that access?
Getting back to "Richard Windsor".... The Politico has implied that Lisa Jackson has claimed that she had a dog named "Richard" when she lived in East Windsor Township. The EPA acknowledges that there's a "Richard Windsor" account used by Lisa Jackson. Let's return to the dead Richard Windsor that I wrote about when first taking an interest in this story:
Richard Windsor was a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforcement attorney who, in 1997, began working for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an article announcing Windsor's new job staffing a PEER sponsored environmental hotline, he had this to say:
``Once upon a time, Florida [had] an environmental agency that tried to enforce environmental laws,'' Windsor said. ``That's not the case now.''
Windsor was an attorney in a court case in 2000 involving Florida's DEP. That same year, he corresponded with then EPA director Carol Browner. We know that because of footnote #39 on page 20 of a 2004 letter from Eric Huber of the Sierra Club addressed to Michael Leavitt of the EPA. We know that Richard L. Windsor was an attorney involved in a 2003 case involving Florida's DEP.
And, sadly, The Florida Bar News reported that Richard Lee Windsor shuffled off his mortal coil on December 7th, 2008.
It turns out that the deceased environmental lawyer, Richard Windsor, worked with Carol Browner when Browner was head of Environmental Regulation in Florida. The article about the PEER sponsored environmental hotline notes: "Windsor and Medina worked for 11 years as state regulators." So, Windsor would've worked at DEP from 1986 to 1997 (roughly). Browner was Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida from 1991 to 1993....
Hey, Barney Frank: The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
Sunday, November 18, 2012
In 37 Chicago Precincts, Romney Received No Votes
NBC Chicago reports:
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote. So Ward Room decided to look at the results in the president’s hometown, and see if he won as many shutouts here. The answer: no. Romney was rejected by every voter in only 37 Chicago precincts, an embarrassing result, given that segregation and Machine politics are two of our city’s most notable qualities.
Any doubt there was some vote fraud? Check out this comment on NBC Chicago's website:
In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators....
NBC Chicago reports:
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote. So Ward Room decided to look at the results in the president’s hometown, and see if he won as many shutouts here. The answer: no. Romney was rejected by every voter in only 37 Chicago precincts, an embarrassing result, given that segregation and Machine politics are two of our city’s most notable qualities.
Any doubt there was some vote fraud? Check out this comment on NBC Chicago's website:
In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators....
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Administration Said To Have Delayed Petraeus Resignation Until After Election
Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
Former UN official says climate report will shock nations into action
THE next United Nations climate report will ''scare the wits out of everyone'' and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.
"That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,'' Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. "I'm confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.''...
THE next United Nations climate report will ''scare the wits out of everyone'' and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.
"That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,'' Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. "I'm confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.''...
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Amid Sandy’s devastation, Long Island union sent written demand to Florida utilities: Pay dues or stay home
In a two-page Oct. 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities. The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.
The “Letter of Assent,” which The Daily Caller obtained from the Florida Municipal Electric Association, demanded 11 separate financial commitments from municipal power companies and electrical cooperatives in the Sunshine State. The agreement, for any utility that decided to sign it, would have been in force from Oct. 29 to Nov. 29.
Barry Moline, the association’s executive director, told TheDC that by Nov. 1 the union, based in the central Long Island town of Hauppauge, had relented and stopped insisting that nonunion crews pay dues and other union fees.
“The union director” himself placed a phone call to withdraw the letter, Moline said during a telephone interview Saturday. But that came only after Moline had notified a national trade group, the American Public Power Association, which turned outrage into action....
In a two-page Oct. 29 contract, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) local 1049 demanded union dues, pay hikes and benefit contributions from Florida electric utilities before its workers would be permitted to help reconnect power to Long Island communities. The demand came as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the Northeastern United States, stranding tens of millions without electricity.
The “Letter of Assent,” which The Daily Caller obtained from the Florida Municipal Electric Association, demanded 11 separate financial commitments from municipal power companies and electrical cooperatives in the Sunshine State. The agreement, for any utility that decided to sign it, would have been in force from Oct. 29 to Nov. 29.
Barry Moline, the association’s executive director, told TheDC that by Nov. 1 the union, based in the central Long Island town of Hauppauge, had relented and stopped insisting that nonunion crews pay dues and other union fees.
“The union director” himself placed a phone call to withdraw the letter, Moline said during a telephone interview Saturday. But that came only after Moline had notified a national trade group, the American Public Power Association, which turned outrage into action....
Danny DeVito’s Union Thugs and Tuesday’s Vote
We can learn a lot from Democrats by what they oppose. While Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings tells us there is no vote fraud, fellow Maryland congressional candidate Wendy Rosen is committing federal felonies by voting both in Maryland and Florida. While the NAACP is leading the charge against photo voter identification, Lessadolla Sowers from the NAACP heads off to prison for voting for dead voters. While Brian Moran, Virginia’s Democrat chair, rails against voter integrity, his nephew Pat is caught on camera plotting the use of forged documents at the polls to help President Obama....
We can learn a lot from Democrats by what they oppose. While Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings tells us there is no vote fraud, fellow Maryland congressional candidate Wendy Rosen is committing federal felonies by voting both in Maryland and Florida. While the NAACP is leading the charge against photo voter identification, Lessadolla Sowers from the NAACP heads off to prison for voting for dead voters. While Brian Moran, Virginia’s Democrat chair, rails against voter integrity, his nephew Pat is caught on camera plotting the use of forged documents at the polls to help President Obama....
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Can we blame Fannie again?
What did the ‘Friends of Angelo’ know and when did they know it? I know it’s not respectable to blame Fannie Mae for the financial meltdown. I understand that the Wall Streeters who oversold toxic securities bear much of the blame. But I don’t understand why the Justice department’s civil lawsuit against Bank of America for “brazen” mortgage fraud doesn’t put Fannie Mae back in the center of the vortex of culpability.
Bank of America is on the hook because it’s now owner of Countrywide Financial, (formerly headed by Angelo Mozilo, who liked to shower favors on powerful politicos like Dem bigshot and former Fannie CEO Jim Johnson). If I read the allegations in the stories correctly, Fannie bought up Countrywide’s crap mortgages (from which internal controls had been removed) and then repackaged them into securities for sale–laundering and legitimizing them, in effect, for Wall Street to then spread around.
This enabled Countrywide to gin up more crap mortgages....
What did the ‘Friends of Angelo’ know and when did they know it? I know it’s not respectable to blame Fannie Mae for the financial meltdown. I understand that the Wall Streeters who oversold toxic securities bear much of the blame. But I don’t understand why the Justice department’s civil lawsuit against Bank of America for “brazen” mortgage fraud doesn’t put Fannie Mae back in the center of the vortex of culpability.
Bank of America is on the hook because it’s now owner of Countrywide Financial, (formerly headed by Angelo Mozilo, who liked to shower favors on powerful politicos like Dem bigshot and former Fannie CEO Jim Johnson). If I read the allegations in the stories correctly, Fannie bought up Countrywide’s crap mortgages (from which internal controls had been removed) and then repackaged them into securities for sale–laundering and legitimizing them, in effect, for Wall Street to then spread around.
This enabled Countrywide to gin up more crap mortgages....
The REALLY inconvenient truths about global warming. Last week we explosively revealed a 16-year 'pause' in rising temperatures - triggering a bitter debate. You decide what the real facts are...
Q: Is the world warming or not?
A: The Hadcrut 4 figures that show a ‘pause’ in warming lasting nearly 16 years are drawn from more than 3,000 measuring stations on land and at sea. Hadcrut 4 is one of several similar global databases that reveal the same thing: that since January 1997 there has been no statistically significant warming of the Earth’s surface.
Between 1980 and the end of 1996, the planet warmed at a rate close to 0.2 degrees per decade. Since then, says the Met Office, the trend has been a much lower 0.03 degrees per decade.
However, world average temperature measurements are subject to an error of plus or minus 0.1 degrees, while any attempt to calculate a trend for the period 1997-2012 has an in-built statistical error of plus or minus 0.4 degrees. The claim that there has been any statistically significant warming for the past 16 years is therefore unsustainable....
Q: But isn’t the world still much warmer than at any time in recorded history?
A: Ever since it was published on the cover of the IPCC’s Third Assessment report in 2001, the ‘hockey stick’ graph showing stable or declining temperatures since the year 1000, followed by a steep rise in the 20th Century, has been controversial. There were no thermometers in 1000, so scientists use ‘proxy’ data from items such as tree rings, lake sediments and ice cores.
The hockey stick authors have also been accused of eliminating the ‘medieval warm period’ (MWP) at the end of the first millennium.
Two new separate peer-reviewed studies, published in prestigious academic journals last week, reinstated it. The first study, led by Bo Christiansen of the Danish Meteorological Institute, concluded: ‘The level of warmth during the peak of the MWP in the second half of the 10th Century, equalled or slightly exceeded the mid-20th Century warming.’
There was also a pronounced warming period in Roman times....
Q: Is the world warming or not?
A: The Hadcrut 4 figures that show a ‘pause’ in warming lasting nearly 16 years are drawn from more than 3,000 measuring stations on land and at sea. Hadcrut 4 is one of several similar global databases that reveal the same thing: that since January 1997 there has been no statistically significant warming of the Earth’s surface.
Between 1980 and the end of 1996, the planet warmed at a rate close to 0.2 degrees per decade. Since then, says the Met Office, the trend has been a much lower 0.03 degrees per decade.
However, world average temperature measurements are subject to an error of plus or minus 0.1 degrees, while any attempt to calculate a trend for the period 1997-2012 has an in-built statistical error of plus or minus 0.4 degrees. The claim that there has been any statistically significant warming for the past 16 years is therefore unsustainable....
Q: But isn’t the world still much warmer than at any time in recorded history?
A: Ever since it was published on the cover of the IPCC’s Third Assessment report in 2001, the ‘hockey stick’ graph showing stable or declining temperatures since the year 1000, followed by a steep rise in the 20th Century, has been controversial. There were no thermometers in 1000, so scientists use ‘proxy’ data from items such as tree rings, lake sediments and ice cores.
The hockey stick authors have also been accused of eliminating the ‘medieval warm period’ (MWP) at the end of the first millennium.
Two new separate peer-reviewed studies, published in prestigious academic journals last week, reinstated it. The first study, led by Bo Christiansen of the Danish Meteorological Institute, concluded: ‘The level of warmth during the peak of the MWP in the second half of the 10th Century, equalled or slightly exceeded the mid-20th Century warming.’
There was also a pronounced warming period in Roman times....
Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists
Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.
Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.
Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.
“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said...
...Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States recoiled at the idea of targeted killing. The Sept. 11 commission recounted how the Clinton administration had passed on a series of opportunities to target bin Laden in the years before the attacks — before armed drones existed. President Bill Clinton approved a set of cruise-missile strikes in 1998 after al-Qaeda bombed embassies in East Africa, but after extensive deliberation, and the group’s leader escaped harm.
Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it...
Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.
Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.
Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.
“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said...
...Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States recoiled at the idea of targeted killing. The Sept. 11 commission recounted how the Clinton administration had passed on a series of opportunities to target bin Laden in the years before the attacks — before armed drones existed. President Bill Clinton approved a set of cruise-missile strikes in 1998 after al-Qaeda bombed embassies in East Africa, but after extensive deliberation, and the group’s leader escaped harm.
Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it...
All about libertarians: Group’s mystique increases as profile is raised
It’s well known that libertarians hold fiscally conservative and socially liberal views. What is less known is that libertarians, in prizing liberty above all else, place less emphasis than others, according to the study, on caring for others, avoiding harm, behaving benevolently and acting altruistically — values that traditionally have defined virtuous and heroic behavior in nearly all of the moral systems of the world.
This calls to mind the muse of the contemporary libertarian movement, Ayn Rand, and her provocative position that altruists, far from being the self-sacrificing heroes that our culture makes them out to be, are “evil.” One who commits an altruistic act is, for Rand, like one who sacrifices his life in suicide — a madman or a fool.
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject,” Rand argued.
In his bestselling book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” (2012), Mr. Haidt, a co-author of the libertarian study, breaks down the foundational moral principles that shape liberal, conservative and libertarian ideology. According to research Mr. Haidt has conducted, liberals rely on three of the six core moral foundations: care, liberty and fairness. Conservatives rely on all six — the three that liberals favor plus sanctity, loyalty and authority.
Libertarians have the narrowest moral sense, relying on only one of the six universal moral foundations — liberty. Revealingly, they score lower than both conservatives and liberals on measures of care for others and protecting others from harm. What libertarians do care about, almost to the exclusion of all else, is individual rights — the group’s “sacred value,” according to the study. Mr. Iyer and his colleagues found that the most prominent feature of libertarians is “self-direction” — or independence.
“They are less groupish, less likely to coalesce and subject themselves to party discipline,” Mr. Haidt says. Libertarians also tend to be less social than most.
The libertarian reliance on liberty and self, however, comes at a social cost. According to the study, libertarians showed lower than other groups on levels of loving feelings toward their families, friends, romantic partners and generic others, which brings to mind another gem from Rand: “To say ‘I love you’ one must know first know how to say the ‘I’.”...
It’s well known that libertarians hold fiscally conservative and socially liberal views. What is less known is that libertarians, in prizing liberty above all else, place less emphasis than others, according to the study, on caring for others, avoiding harm, behaving benevolently and acting altruistically — values that traditionally have defined virtuous and heroic behavior in nearly all of the moral systems of the world.
This calls to mind the muse of the contemporary libertarian movement, Ayn Rand, and her provocative position that altruists, far from being the self-sacrificing heroes that our culture makes them out to be, are “evil.” One who commits an altruistic act is, for Rand, like one who sacrifices his life in suicide — a madman or a fool.
“If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject,” Rand argued.
In his bestselling book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” (2012), Mr. Haidt, a co-author of the libertarian study, breaks down the foundational moral principles that shape liberal, conservative and libertarian ideology. According to research Mr. Haidt has conducted, liberals rely on three of the six core moral foundations: care, liberty and fairness. Conservatives rely on all six — the three that liberals favor plus sanctity, loyalty and authority.
Libertarians have the narrowest moral sense, relying on only one of the six universal moral foundations — liberty. Revealingly, they score lower than both conservatives and liberals on measures of care for others and protecting others from harm. What libertarians do care about, almost to the exclusion of all else, is individual rights — the group’s “sacred value,” according to the study. Mr. Iyer and his colleagues found that the most prominent feature of libertarians is “self-direction” — or independence.
“They are less groupish, less likely to coalesce and subject themselves to party discipline,” Mr. Haidt says. Libertarians also tend to be less social than most.
The libertarian reliance on liberty and self, however, comes at a social cost. According to the study, libertarians showed lower than other groups on levels of loving feelings toward their families, friends, romantic partners and generic others, which brings to mind another gem from Rand: “To say ‘I love you’ one must know first know how to say the ‘I’.”...
Hey, Barney Frank: The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis
It is certainly possible to find prime mortgages among borrowers below the median income, but when half or more of the mortgages the GSEs bought had to be made to people below that income level, it was inevitable that underwriting standards had to decline. And they did. By 2000, Fannie was offering no-downpayment loans. By 2002, Fannie and Freddie had bought well over $1 trillion of subprime and other low quality loans. Fannie and Freddie were by far the largest part of this effort, but the FHA, Federal Home Loan Banks, Veterans Administration and other agencies--all under congressional and HUD pressure--followed suit. This continued through the 1990s and 2000s until the housing bubble--created by all this government-backed spending--collapsed in 2007. As a result, in 2008, before the mortgage meltdown that triggered the crisis, there were 27 million subprime and other low quality mortgages in the US financial system. That was half of all mortgages. Of these, over 70% (19.2 million) were on the books of government agencies like Fannie and Freddie, so there is no doubt that the government created the demand for these weak loans; less than 30% (7.8 million) were held or distributed by the banks, which profited from the opportunity created by the government. When these mortgages failed in unprecedented numbers in 2008, driving down housing prices throughout the U.S., they weakened all financial institutions and caused the financial crisis....
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
It is certainly possible to find prime mortgages among borrowers below the median income, but when half or more of the mortgages the GSEs bought had to be made to people below that income level, it was inevitable that underwriting standards had to decline. And they did. By 2000, Fannie was offering no-downpayment loans. By 2002, Fannie and Freddie had bought well over $1 trillion of subprime and other low quality loans. Fannie and Freddie were by far the largest part of this effort, but the FHA, Federal Home Loan Banks, Veterans Administration and other agencies--all under congressional and HUD pressure--followed suit. This continued through the 1990s and 2000s until the housing bubble--created by all this government-backed spending--collapsed in 2007. As a result, in 2008, before the mortgage meltdown that triggered the crisis, there were 27 million subprime and other low quality mortgages in the US financial system. That was half of all mortgages. Of these, over 70% (19.2 million) were on the books of government agencies like Fannie and Freddie, so there is no doubt that the government created the demand for these weak loans; less than 30% (7.8 million) were held or distributed by the banks, which profited from the opportunity created by the government. When these mortgages failed in unprecedented numbers in 2008, driving down housing prices throughout the U.S., they weakened all financial institutions and caused the financial crisis....
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
Countrywide Friends Got Good Loans
...Mr. Johnson led Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. He and Countrywide's Mr. Mozilo worked together to streamline the underwriting process. Mr. Mozilo told Dow Jones in 1995 that he was "working very closely ... with Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae to come up with a rational method of making the process more efficient by the use of credit scoring." Their efforts helped to lead to a boom in mortgage lending that brought huge profits to both companies but is now ending badly....
...Mr. Johnson returned to Countrywide several times to finance his growing real-estate holdings. In November 2001, he received a Countrywide loan of $1.3 million for a home in Palm Desert, Calif. The rate was 5.250% for five years, then became adjustable. Rates on such loans averaged about 6% to 6.2% about that time, HSH says.
In June 2003, Mr. Johnson obtained a $971,650 mortgage on a house in upper northwest Washington, D.C., with a rate of 3.875% for the first five years. About that time, the market average was about 4.3% to 4.9%, according to HSH.
In January 2006, Mr. Johnson got a $5 million home-equity line of credit from Countrywide on a residence in Ketchum, Idaho, near the Sun Valley ski resort. And in December 2007 he received a Countrywide home-equity line of credit for $1.01 million and executed a $1 million promissory note in connection with that home....
...Mr. Raines, who succeeded Mr. Johnson at Fannie's helm at the end of 1998, became a repeat customer of Countrywide while he was CEO. Two days before Christmas in 1999, Mr. Raines got a $1 million loan on his house in upper northwest Washington, D.C., refinancing it in November 2001. Property records don't show the interest rate in either case.
In April 2003, Mr. Raines refinanced again with Countrywide, this time getting a 5.125% rate for the first 10 years. According to HSH, the average rate for such a loan around that time was about 5.5% to 5.7%.
On July 31, 2003, Mr. Raines refinanced again, this time shaving a full percentage point off his initial rate, to 4.125%. The market rate at that period averaged about 5.1% to 5.4%, HSH data show....
...Mr. Raines, was forced to retire from Fannie Mae in 2004 when its regulator found it had violated accounting rules in an effort to conceal fluctuations in profit and hadn't maintained adequate risk controls. This April he agreed to a settlement that involved a donation of about $1.8 million to charity. He said the settlement was "not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing."...
...Mr. Johnson led Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998. He and Countrywide's Mr. Mozilo worked together to streamline the underwriting process. Mr. Mozilo told Dow Jones in 1995 that he was "working very closely ... with Jim Johnson of Fannie Mae to come up with a rational method of making the process more efficient by the use of credit scoring." Their efforts helped to lead to a boom in mortgage lending that brought huge profits to both companies but is now ending badly....
...Mr. Johnson returned to Countrywide several times to finance his growing real-estate holdings. In November 2001, he received a Countrywide loan of $1.3 million for a home in Palm Desert, Calif. The rate was 5.250% for five years, then became adjustable. Rates on such loans averaged about 6% to 6.2% about that time, HSH says.
In June 2003, Mr. Johnson obtained a $971,650 mortgage on a house in upper northwest Washington, D.C., with a rate of 3.875% for the first five years. About that time, the market average was about 4.3% to 4.9%, according to HSH.
In January 2006, Mr. Johnson got a $5 million home-equity line of credit from Countrywide on a residence in Ketchum, Idaho, near the Sun Valley ski resort. And in December 2007 he received a Countrywide home-equity line of credit for $1.01 million and executed a $1 million promissory note in connection with that home....
...Mr. Raines, who succeeded Mr. Johnson at Fannie's helm at the end of 1998, became a repeat customer of Countrywide while he was CEO. Two days before Christmas in 1999, Mr. Raines got a $1 million loan on his house in upper northwest Washington, D.C., refinancing it in November 2001. Property records don't show the interest rate in either case.
In April 2003, Mr. Raines refinanced again with Countrywide, this time getting a 5.125% rate for the first 10 years. According to HSH, the average rate for such a loan around that time was about 5.5% to 5.7%.
On July 31, 2003, Mr. Raines refinanced again, this time shaving a full percentage point off his initial rate, to 4.125%. The market rate at that period averaged about 5.1% to 5.4%, HSH data show....
...Mr. Raines, was forced to retire from Fannie Mae in 2004 when its regulator found it had violated accounting rules in an effort to conceal fluctuations in profit and hadn't maintained adequate risk controls. This April he agreed to a settlement that involved a donation of about $1.8 million to charity. He said the settlement was "not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing."...
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased. ...
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012 there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
This means that the ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the ‘plateau’ or ‘pause’ in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for about 40 years.
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 – a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler, and thus this trend is erased. ...
Pr. George’s officer charged with assault
A veteran Prince George’s County police officer was charged Friday with misconduct in office, reckless endangerment and second-degree assault for allegedly striking a Cottage City teenager with his gun — causing the weapon to discharge — then lying about what happened so he could criminally charge the young man, authorities and law enforcement sources said....
A veteran Prince George’s County police officer was charged Friday with misconduct in office, reckless endangerment and second-degree assault for allegedly striking a Cottage City teenager with his gun — causing the weapon to discharge — then lying about what happened so he could criminally charge the young man, authorities and law enforcement sources said....
Obama Administration pressures contractors not to warn workers of possible impending layoffs
...The Obama administration has sought to quell the fear of mass defense layoffs in presidential battlegrounds like Virginia, where letters sent in early November warning about the possibility of job losses could discourage thousands of defense workers from backing the incumbent.
The government’s guarantee to foot the bill for legal problems, as long as contractors heed OMB’s advice to refrain from warning about lob losses, is unusual.
“I don’t know of any situation where the government has done this in the past,” said William Gould, a labor professor at Stanford Law School....
...The Obama administration has sought to quell the fear of mass defense layoffs in presidential battlegrounds like Virginia, where letters sent in early November warning about the possibility of job losses could discourage thousands of defense workers from backing the incumbent.
The government’s guarantee to foot the bill for legal problems, as long as contractors heed OMB’s advice to refrain from warning about lob losses, is unusual.
“I don’t know of any situation where the government has done this in the past,” said William Gould, a labor professor at Stanford Law School....
The New School Nurse Is Nurse Ratched
..."In Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nurse Ratched maintained order in the mental institution by dispensing antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs to the patients. Fifty years later, the NY Times reports that some physicians are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money, not to treat ADHD, necessarily, but to boost their academic performance. 'We as a society have been unwilling to invest in very effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for these children and their families,' said Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, an expert in prescription drug use among low-income children. 'We are effectively forcing local community psychiatrists to use the only tool at their disposal, which is psychotropic medications.'"...
..."In Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nurse Ratched maintained order in the mental institution by dispensing antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs to the patients. Fifty years later, the NY Times reports that some physicians are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money, not to treat ADHD, necessarily, but to boost their academic performance. 'We as a society have been unwilling to invest in very effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for these children and their families,' said Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, an expert in prescription drug use among low-income children. 'We are effectively forcing local community psychiatrists to use the only tool at their disposal, which is psychotropic medications.'"...
Video: Preview of Univision’s “bombshell” report on Fast & Furious
...The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking...
Univision’s bombshell: Fast & Furious not just in Arizona, or Mexico
...The other shoe dropped on the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious last night, and it should sting — if enough people pay attention to it. Univision reported that the effort wasn’t just limited to one ATF office in Arizona — it had other operations in Florida and Texas as well. The ATF and Department of Justice lost more weapons than they have so far acknowledged, and those weapons have been tied to even more murders than previously thought — including a massacre of teens and young adults. This report literally showed blood flowing in the streets as a result of Fast and Furious, as ABC News reports...
...The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking...
Univision’s bombshell: Fast & Furious not just in Arizona, or Mexico
...The other shoe dropped on the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious last night, and it should sting — if enough people pay attention to it. Univision reported that the effort wasn’t just limited to one ATF office in Arizona — it had other operations in Florida and Texas as well. The ATF and Department of Justice lost more weapons than they have so far acknowledged, and those weapons have been tied to even more murders than previously thought — including a massacre of teens and young adults. This report literally showed blood flowing in the streets as a result of Fast and Furious, as ABC News reports...
Terrifying: Increases in Real Per Capita Federal Spending Over The Past 35 Years
The above chart put together by my frequent collaborator Veronique de Rugy is, simply put, terrifying.
It shows the growth in inflation-adjusted federal outlays per capita. So what you're looking at is a trend line that accounts for population growth and inflation.
Two things stand out: George W. Bush was god-awful. And Barack Obama looks to be even worse (note: fiscal 2009 includes spending attributable to both adminstrations).
The above chart put together by my frequent collaborator Veronique de Rugy is, simply put, terrifying.
It shows the growth in inflation-adjusted federal outlays per capita. So what you're looking at is a trend line that accounts for population growth and inflation.
Two things stand out: George W. Bush was god-awful. And Barack Obama looks to be even worse (note: fiscal 2009 includes spending attributable to both adminstrations).
Eric Holder in His “Fixer” Role
...During the 1990s, Eric Holder operated as the “fixer” for Attorney General Janet Reno, and from Ruby Ridge to Waco to the Oklahoma City bombing, Holder made sure that the government suppressed information that would have placed the Clinton administration in a bad light. (Murder tends to make one look bad.) Ultimately, Holder was rewarded by being appointed U.S. Attorney General under Barack Obama, and one only can imagine the crimes that Holder now is concealing....
...During the 1990s, Eric Holder operated as the “fixer” for Attorney General Janet Reno, and from Ruby Ridge to Waco to the Oklahoma City bombing, Holder made sure that the government suppressed information that would have placed the Clinton administration in a bad light. (Murder tends to make one look bad.) Ultimately, Holder was rewarded by being appointed U.S. Attorney General under Barack Obama, and one only can imagine the crimes that Holder now is concealing....
Surprise! Another Obama bundler benefits from “green-tech” subsidies
...An investment firm whose vice chairman has been an adviser and fundraiser for President Obama saw one of its portfolio companies win approval this year for $50 million in loans from the administration’s clean-energy loan program.
Washington-based Perseus says its affiliation with James A. Johnson, a major fundraiser for Obama’s campaign, played no role in persuading the Energy Department to award the loan to Vehicle Production Group, a Miami start-up that is manufacturing wheelchair-accessible cars and taxis....
...Johnson headed Obama’s vice presidential selection committee in 2008 and is the former chairman of housing mortgage giant Fannie Mae. He was listed as a campaign fundraising bundler for Obama in the 2008 race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and committed to raising $200,000 to $500,000 for the upcoming presidential race. …
Johnson had supported Obama as a young senator and, later, was briefly part of a three-member team leading his vice presidential search committee. But Johnson resigned in June 2008 amid revelations that he had received $7 million in deeply discounted mortgage loans from the chief executive of Countrywide, a company that had helped fuel the rise of subprime home mortgages. He said the controversy was a distraction for Obama’s campaign.
Johnson has personally donated $55,400 to Obama’s two presidential campaigns, federal donation records show, including a $35,800 check listed on Aug. 29 to Obama’s reelection effort. Pearl donated $1,500 to Obama’s campaign in 2008....
...An investment firm whose vice chairman has been an adviser and fundraiser for President Obama saw one of its portfolio companies win approval this year for $50 million in loans from the administration’s clean-energy loan program.
Washington-based Perseus says its affiliation with James A. Johnson, a major fundraiser for Obama’s campaign, played no role in persuading the Energy Department to award the loan to Vehicle Production Group, a Miami start-up that is manufacturing wheelchair-accessible cars and taxis....
...Johnson headed Obama’s vice presidential selection committee in 2008 and is the former chairman of housing mortgage giant Fannie Mae. He was listed as a campaign fundraising bundler for Obama in the 2008 race, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and committed to raising $200,000 to $500,000 for the upcoming presidential race. …
Johnson had supported Obama as a young senator and, later, was briefly part of a three-member team leading his vice presidential search committee. But Johnson resigned in June 2008 amid revelations that he had received $7 million in deeply discounted mortgage loans from the chief executive of Countrywide, a company that had helped fuel the rise of subprime home mortgages. He said the controversy was a distraction for Obama’s campaign.
Johnson has personally donated $55,400 to Obama’s two presidential campaigns, federal donation records show, including a $35,800 check listed on Aug. 29 to Obama’s reelection effort. Pearl donated $1,500 to Obama’s campaign in 2008....
SOMEHOW, I THINK THIS ROBERT HEINLEIN QUOTE IS WORTH REPEATING ONE MORE TIME
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
-- Bastiat, The Law, par. L. 10
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
-- Bastiat, The Law, par. L. 10
Sunday, September 09, 2012
'I'd have blown their heads off': Stepfather hits out at arrest of former model and her husband after intruder shooting at farmhouse
The stepfather of a woman held by police for three days over the shooting of two burglars said last night: 'I'd have blown their bloody heads off.'
John Towell said Tracey Ferrie and her husband Andy who was also arrested had faced a gang of four men at their isolated cottage in the early hours.
He said: 'Four of them came in. Andy and Tracey did what anyone would have done.' He said the law must now be changed to protect property owners who act to defend their land when it is burgled....
...Mr and Mrs Ferrie were arrested after dialling 999 to tell police they had shot at a gang trying to break in to their 200-year-old cottage near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.
Mr Ferrie, 35, told police he grabbed the gun and fired it, hitting two of the men and forcing the others to flee. Four men were arrested at Leicester Royal Infirmary on suspicion of aggravated burglary....
The stepfather of a woman held by police for three days over the shooting of two burglars said last night: 'I'd have blown their bloody heads off.'
John Towell said Tracey Ferrie and her husband Andy who was also arrested had faced a gang of four men at their isolated cottage in the early hours.
He said: 'Four of them came in. Andy and Tracey did what anyone would have done.' He said the law must now be changed to protect property owners who act to defend their land when it is burgled....
...Mr and Mrs Ferrie were arrested after dialling 999 to tell police they had shot at a gang trying to break in to their 200-year-old cottage near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.
Mr Ferrie, 35, told police he grabbed the gun and fired it, hitting two of the men and forcing the others to flee. Four men were arrested at Leicester Royal Infirmary on suspicion of aggravated burglary....
American Character Is at Stake
...In 1960, entitlement payments accounted for well under a third of the federal government's total outlays—about the same fraction as in 1940, when the Great Depression was still shaping American life. But over subsequent decades, entitlements as a percentage of total federal spending soared. By 2010 they accounted for just about two-thirds of all federal spending, with all other responsibilities of the federal government making up barely one-third. In a very real sense, entitlements have turned American governance upside-down....
...Poverty- or income-related entitlements—transfers of money, goods or services, including health-care services—accounted for over $650 billion in government outlays in 2010. Between 1960 and 2010, inflation-adjusted transfers for these objectives increased by over 30-fold, or by over 7% a year. Significantly, however, income and benefit transfers associated with traditional safety-net programs comprised only about a third of entitlements granted on income status, with two-thirds of those allocations absorbed by the health-care guarantees offered through the Medicaid program.
For their part, entitlements for older Americans—Medicare, Social Security and other pension payments—worked out to even more by 2010, about $1.2 trillion. In real terms, these transfers multiplied by a factor of about 12 over that period—or an average growth of more than 5% a year. But in purely arithmetic terms, the most astonishing growth of entitlements has been for health-care guarantees based on claims of age (Medicare) or income (Medicaid). Until the mid-1960s, no such entitlements existed; by 2010, these two programs were absorbing more than $900 billion annually....
...In 1960, entitlement payments accounted for well under a third of the federal government's total outlays—about the same fraction as in 1940, when the Great Depression was still shaping American life. But over subsequent decades, entitlements as a percentage of total federal spending soared. By 2010 they accounted for just about two-thirds of all federal spending, with all other responsibilities of the federal government making up barely one-third. In a very real sense, entitlements have turned American governance upside-down....
...Poverty- or income-related entitlements—transfers of money, goods or services, including health-care services—accounted for over $650 billion in government outlays in 2010. Between 1960 and 2010, inflation-adjusted transfers for these objectives increased by over 30-fold, or by over 7% a year. Significantly, however, income and benefit transfers associated with traditional safety-net programs comprised only about a third of entitlements granted on income status, with two-thirds of those allocations absorbed by the health-care guarantees offered through the Medicaid program.
For their part, entitlements for older Americans—Medicare, Social Security and other pension payments—worked out to even more by 2010, about $1.2 trillion. In real terms, these transfers multiplied by a factor of about 12 over that period—or an average growth of more than 5% a year. But in purely arithmetic terms, the most astonishing growth of entitlements has been for health-care guarantees based on claims of age (Medicare) or income (Medicaid). Until the mid-1960s, no such entitlements existed; by 2010, these two programs were absorbing more than $900 billion annually....
In 2011, Sandra Fluke argued for sex-change-operation insurance mandate
In an academic article published last year, contraception advocate Sandra Fluke made the case that private health insurers should be required to pay for sex change operations....
In an academic article published last year, contraception advocate Sandra Fluke made the case that private health insurers should be required to pay for sex change operations....
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Obama's Real Unemployment Rate Is In Double Digits
...But the government also releases what it calls the U6 measure — one that takes into account discouraged workers and those who, as the Labor Department puts it, are "marginally attached" to the labor force.
What does U6 show? It shows an alarming 15% unemployment rate — with 23 million people having no job. Worse, the U6 measure of unemployment is rising as the economy slows down.
We've concocted our own separate measure of unemployment, as you can see in the chart below.
As we noted, there's been a decline in labor force participation under President Obama — a decline that isn't adequately accounted for in the official data.
What would happen if the labor participation rate remained at 65.7% — its level when Obama entered office — instead of the 64.3% currently?
It may sound like a small difference, but just this tiny change pushes the real unemployment rate under Obama to 11% — not 8.3%....
...But the government also releases what it calls the U6 measure — one that takes into account discouraged workers and those who, as the Labor Department puts it, are "marginally attached" to the labor force.
What does U6 show? It shows an alarming 15% unemployment rate — with 23 million people having no job. Worse, the U6 measure of unemployment is rising as the economy slows down.
We've concocted our own separate measure of unemployment, as you can see in the chart below.
As we noted, there's been a decline in labor force participation under President Obama — a decline that isn't adequately accounted for in the official data.
What would happen if the labor participation rate remained at 65.7% — its level when Obama entered office — instead of the 64.3% currently?
It may sound like a small difference, but just this tiny change pushes the real unemployment rate under Obama to 11% — not 8.3%....
Doctored to justify latest power grab?
..."The advocates of global warming are beginning to have the classic doomsday cult problem. The Earth hasn't been warming for 16 years, and that's starting to get very embarrassing. The first adjustment to the dogma was to stop talking about global warming and start talking about climate change. The latest version of the party line is that we are going to have more extreme weather. The reality is that the weather is not any more variable or extreme than in the past. But with suitable fishing in the data, it is easy to make a case that this or that weather phenomenon has become more extreme.
"The scientist Richard Lindzen has pointed out that the extreme weather theme is inconsistent with the global warmers' own theories," Mr. Rogers continues. "The global warmers have long claimed that the poles will warm faster than the tropics. One of their key scary claims is that vast amounts of ice at the poles will melt and raise sea level. So, according to warmer theory, the temperature difference between the poles and the equator will lessen. But it is that very temperature difference that drives weather, particularly extreme weather. ... So the warmers' claims are fundamentally contradictory."...
...Science has been held in extremely high esteem for two full centuries, to our enormous benefit. But now imagine a culture in which the majority declare: "Scientists? They'll rig their results to please whoever's footing the bills. If a 'scientist' tells me something, I believe just the opposite."
What could be the long-term costs of such a shift in public esteem?...
..."The advocates of global warming are beginning to have the classic doomsday cult problem. The Earth hasn't been warming for 16 years, and that's starting to get very embarrassing. The first adjustment to the dogma was to stop talking about global warming and start talking about climate change. The latest version of the party line is that we are going to have more extreme weather. The reality is that the weather is not any more variable or extreme than in the past. But with suitable fishing in the data, it is easy to make a case that this or that weather phenomenon has become more extreme.
"The scientist Richard Lindzen has pointed out that the extreme weather theme is inconsistent with the global warmers' own theories," Mr. Rogers continues. "The global warmers have long claimed that the poles will warm faster than the tropics. One of their key scary claims is that vast amounts of ice at the poles will melt and raise sea level. So, according to warmer theory, the temperature difference between the poles and the equator will lessen. But it is that very temperature difference that drives weather, particularly extreme weather. ... So the warmers' claims are fundamentally contradictory."...
...Science has been held in extremely high esteem for two full centuries, to our enormous benefit. But now imagine a culture in which the majority declare: "Scientists? They'll rig their results to please whoever's footing the bills. If a 'scientist' tells me something, I believe just the opposite."
What could be the long-term costs of such a shift in public esteem?...
Denver Public Schools pilot program to push ‘social action,’ ‘social justice’
In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Denver public schools system are adding a fourth ‘r’ to the curriculum: rebellion.
According to NBC affiliate KUSA, Denver Public Schools is implementing a new system to evaluate teachers. In order to achieve a coveted “distinguished” rating, teachers at each grade level must show that they “encourage” students to “challenge and question the dominant culture” and “take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice.”
The new DPS teacher assessment system, called LEAP (Leading Effective Academic Practice), stems from state legislation passed in 2010 and is overwhelmingly funded by a $10M grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Debbie Hearty, executive director of the Office of Teacher Learning and Leadership at DPS, told KUSA that she wants kids as young as first graders to emulate Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Rosa Parks and others.
“Education that causes action is really important,” Hearty said. “It’s what our kids do with what they learn and apply in the real world.”...
In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Denver public schools system are adding a fourth ‘r’ to the curriculum: rebellion.
According to NBC affiliate KUSA, Denver Public Schools is implementing a new system to evaluate teachers. In order to achieve a coveted “distinguished” rating, teachers at each grade level must show that they “encourage” students to “challenge and question the dominant culture” and “take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice.”
The new DPS teacher assessment system, called LEAP (Leading Effective Academic Practice), stems from state legislation passed in 2010 and is overwhelmingly funded by a $10M grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Debbie Hearty, executive director of the Office of Teacher Learning and Leadership at DPS, told KUSA that she wants kids as young as first graders to emulate Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Rosa Parks and others.
“Education that causes action is really important,” Hearty said. “It’s what our kids do with what they learn and apply in the real world.”...
Re: Segway Jeremy Ryan ill?
...and if you truly live by a higher moral code you realize sometimes you have to intimidate...
... I lived every moment after as if it were my last from the first cardiac arrest onward... Just look at how the right attacks me...
DNC attendees: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome to belong to the government
...“Regardless of where you live, you’re gonna be owned by someone at some point. I think the American government so far has been a fair government and I don’t necessarily hate that I’m owned by them at this point.”...
...and if you truly live by a higher moral code you realize sometimes you have to intimidate...
... I lived every moment after as if it were my last from the first cardiac arrest onward... Just look at how the right attacks me...
DNC attendees: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome to belong to the government
...“Regardless of where you live, you’re gonna be owned by someone at some point. I think the American government so far has been a fair government and I don’t necessarily hate that I’m owned by them at this point.”...
In Top Journal, Obamacare Boosters Push ‘Global Spending Target’
...In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), several prominent Obamacare supporters have called for a binding “global spending target for both public and private payers.” In regular English, this means a government-enforced cap on how much Americans may spend in aggregate on their health care, both public and private. The co-authors of this article include former Obama administration officials Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (former White House health care advisor and brother of Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff), Dr. Donald Berwick (former head of Medicare), and Peter Orszag (former budget director)....
...In a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), several prominent Obamacare supporters have called for a binding “global spending target for both public and private payers.” In regular English, this means a government-enforced cap on how much Americans may spend in aggregate on their health care, both public and private. The co-authors of this article include former Obama administration officials Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (former White House health care advisor and brother of Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff), Dr. Donald Berwick (former head of Medicare), and Peter Orszag (former budget director)....
Monday, September 03, 2012
With landmark lawsuit, Barack Obama pushed banks to give subprime loans to Chicago’s African-Americans
...Fay Clayton, a Chicago progressive activist, initiated the discrimination lawsuit in 1994. Obama’s employer, a lawyer named Judson Miner, allied with Clayton to file a class-action lawsuit a year later.
Obama appeared at Clayton’s office “saying he was the new associate on the case,” Clayton said in a statement to The Daily Caller. “I remember Barack arriving — he was industrious, he enjoyed the work, he was clearly smart and dedicated.”...
...For example, when the 186 clients submitted their names for compensation in 1998, it turned out that least 19 had bankrupted or received foreclosure notices even before December 1997. Another 18 of the 186 clients would go under within three years because of financial pressures....
...Before striking its deal with the federal government progressives, Citibank got rid of the Chicago lawsuit by paying off the Chicago lawyers.
While the settlement provided $950,000 for the lawyers, it provided $20,000 for each of the three named plaintiffs, and $360,000 in benefits to be divided among the 183 other clients....
Bankruptcies
At least 46 of Obama’s 186 clients have declared bankruptcy since 1996, often multiple times.
That’s a far higher bankruptcy rate than the rate for all Americans, for Chicagoans and even for African-Americans in Chicago.
In a 2011 report, the left-of-center Woodstock Institute reported that just 4.25 percent of African-Americans living in Chicago’s mostly black neighborhoods went bankrupt between 2006 and 2010.
By contrast, 11 of Obama’s 186 clients — or 6.6 percent — went bankrupt during the same five-year period.
That bankruptcy is 50 percent higher than the rate among Cook County’s African-American population, and almost three times the bankruptcy rate of all Cook county residents, according to data in the Woodstock report, titled “Bridging the Gap II.”
Foreclosures
At least 55 of Obama’s 186 clients received foreclosure notices after 1998 — many of them multiple times. Foreclosures were finalized for at least 39 homeowners, or 20 percent.
That’s at least 20 times the rate at which prime loans foreclose over their lifetimes, and roughly three times the lifetime foreclosure rate of subprime loans.
Ten more of the 55 foreclosures are in process according to PACER, the federal government’s judicial records database.
The number of foreclosures may be near 70. That’s because the court database shows foreclosures by 16 people who share full names with his clients, including Donald Young and James E. Jones.
The clients’ foreclosure rate was far higher than that of other homeowners. In 2009, for example, at least seven of Obama’s former clients got foreclosure notices. That’s roughly twice the rate of completed 2009 foreclosures in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods, according to a 2010 report by the left-wing housing activist group National People’s Action.
That 2009 rate is also roughly eight times the nation’s post-bubble foreclosure rate of 0.5 percent per year, according to a report by the government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
2009 wasn’t an aberration: Obama’s client list had averaged 5.3 foreclosure notices a year during the 1990s....
...Fay Clayton, a Chicago progressive activist, initiated the discrimination lawsuit in 1994. Obama’s employer, a lawyer named Judson Miner, allied with Clayton to file a class-action lawsuit a year later.
Obama appeared at Clayton’s office “saying he was the new associate on the case,” Clayton said in a statement to The Daily Caller. “I remember Barack arriving — he was industrious, he enjoyed the work, he was clearly smart and dedicated.”...
...For example, when the 186 clients submitted their names for compensation in 1998, it turned out that least 19 had bankrupted or received foreclosure notices even before December 1997. Another 18 of the 186 clients would go under within three years because of financial pressures....
...Before striking its deal with the federal government progressives, Citibank got rid of the Chicago lawsuit by paying off the Chicago lawyers.
While the settlement provided $950,000 for the lawyers, it provided $20,000 for each of the three named plaintiffs, and $360,000 in benefits to be divided among the 183 other clients....
Bankruptcies
At least 46 of Obama’s 186 clients have declared bankruptcy since 1996, often multiple times.
That’s a far higher bankruptcy rate than the rate for all Americans, for Chicagoans and even for African-Americans in Chicago.
In a 2011 report, the left-of-center Woodstock Institute reported that just 4.25 percent of African-Americans living in Chicago’s mostly black neighborhoods went bankrupt between 2006 and 2010.
By contrast, 11 of Obama’s 186 clients — or 6.6 percent — went bankrupt during the same five-year period.
That bankruptcy is 50 percent higher than the rate among Cook County’s African-American population, and almost three times the bankruptcy rate of all Cook county residents, according to data in the Woodstock report, titled “Bridging the Gap II.”
Foreclosures
At least 55 of Obama’s 186 clients received foreclosure notices after 1998 — many of them multiple times. Foreclosures were finalized for at least 39 homeowners, or 20 percent.
That’s at least 20 times the rate at which prime loans foreclose over their lifetimes, and roughly three times the lifetime foreclosure rate of subprime loans.
Ten more of the 55 foreclosures are in process according to PACER, the federal government’s judicial records database.
The number of foreclosures may be near 70. That’s because the court database shows foreclosures by 16 people who share full names with his clients, including Donald Young and James E. Jones.
The clients’ foreclosure rate was far higher than that of other homeowners. In 2009, for example, at least seven of Obama’s former clients got foreclosure notices. That’s roughly twice the rate of completed 2009 foreclosures in Chicago’s minority neighborhoods, according to a 2010 report by the left-wing housing activist group National People’s Action.
That 2009 rate is also roughly eight times the nation’s post-bubble foreclosure rate of 0.5 percent per year, according to a report by the government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
2009 wasn’t an aberration: Obama’s client list had averaged 5.3 foreclosure notices a year during the 1990s....
Saturday, August 25, 2012
What the New Atheists Don’t See
This sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none, combined with adolescent shrillness and intolerance, reach an apogee in Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith. It is not easy to do justice to the book’s nastiness; it makes Dawkins’s claim that religious education constitutes child abuse look sane and moderate.
Harris tells us, for example, that “we must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.” I am puzzled by the status of the compulsion. It becomes even more sinister when considered in conjunction with the following sentences, quite possibly the most disgraceful that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist: “The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them.”...
This sloppiness and lack of intellectual scruple, with the assumption of certainty where there is none, combined with adolescent shrillness and intolerance, reach an apogee in Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith. It is not easy to do justice to the book’s nastiness; it makes Dawkins’s claim that religious education constitutes child abuse look sane and moderate.
Harris tells us, for example, that “we must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.” I am puzzled by the status of the compulsion. It becomes even more sinister when considered in conjunction with the following sentences, quite possibly the most disgraceful that I have read in a book by a man posing as a rationalist: “The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them.”...
If we are to cope with climate change we need a new moral order
...Underlying all this confusion is the problem that we don't have a way of ranking rationalities, so that the word means something more to a moral agent than it does to an economist. There may be ways of fixing that and averting catastrophic global warming that don't make use of religious resources, but I can't think of any.
It's important to this argument to understand that religious resources need not be theistic. All they need do is make manifest a higher rationality than self-interest. This isn't an argument about whether God exists, but about how human beings make up their minds and form their characters. Atheist states based around myth and ritual are not hard to find. Social Democratic Sweden struck me even at the time as a theocracy organised around the worship of itself, and the official ideology was atheist. That's a benevolent example but there are plenty of malevolent atheist regimes that could serve as unpleasant examples. One of the most chilling aspects to accounts of life in North Korea is the degree to which official propaganda appeals to altruism and bravery.
What religious thought – and ritual – can supply is the two things absent from normative consumer liberalism. The first is a belief that the choice between ends is not arbitrary or wholly personal: that there are moral facts of the matter; that saving as much of humanity as possible is an obligation on all of us, and that this is actually true, and not just a matter of preference.
The second is the kind of conformism, reinforced by all kinds of social ritual, large and small, which will enforce the social discipline needed to carry societies through some pretty ghastly changes. Let's face it, any adjustment to an ecologically sustainable standard of living is going to be a lot nastier than anything Greece is going through now. It will need considerable determination and solidarity....
...Underlying all this confusion is the problem that we don't have a way of ranking rationalities, so that the word means something more to a moral agent than it does to an economist. There may be ways of fixing that and averting catastrophic global warming that don't make use of religious resources, but I can't think of any.
It's important to this argument to understand that religious resources need not be theistic. All they need do is make manifest a higher rationality than self-interest. This isn't an argument about whether God exists, but about how human beings make up their minds and form their characters. Atheist states based around myth and ritual are not hard to find. Social Democratic Sweden struck me even at the time as a theocracy organised around the worship of itself, and the official ideology was atheist. That's a benevolent example but there are plenty of malevolent atheist regimes that could serve as unpleasant examples. One of the most chilling aspects to accounts of life in North Korea is the degree to which official propaganda appeals to altruism and bravery.
What religious thought – and ritual – can supply is the two things absent from normative consumer liberalism. The first is a belief that the choice between ends is not arbitrary or wholly personal: that there are moral facts of the matter; that saving as much of humanity as possible is an obligation on all of us, and that this is actually true, and not just a matter of preference.
The second is the kind of conformism, reinforced by all kinds of social ritual, large and small, which will enforce the social discipline needed to carry societies through some pretty ghastly changes. Let's face it, any adjustment to an ecologically sustainable standard of living is going to be a lot nastier than anything Greece is going through now. It will need considerable determination and solidarity....
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