Harvard writer: Free speech threatens liberalism and must be destroyed
If this Harvard University student got her way, free speech on campus would be abolished and professors with dissenting views fired, because radical leftism is the only permissible political philosophy and the First Amendment is a barrier preventing modern colleges from fulfilling their proper role as indoctrination camps.
Her name is Sandra Korn. She is a senior at Harvard and columnist for the Harvard Crimson.
In a recent column, Korn unambiguously insisted that the university should stop guaranteeing professors and students the right to hold controversial views and pursue research that challenges liberalism.
“If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals?” asked Korn in her column.
The column’s subtitle was even more direct: “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice.”...
Monday, February 24, 2014
CNN’s media critic: Journalists shouldn’t ‘give equal time’ to global warming skeptics [VIDEO]
CNN’s senior media correspondent says there’s no need for journalists to provide a voice to those who question global warming or the threat it poses.
“Let’s begin with an important journalistic statement,” Brian Stelter declared Sunday on his show, CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Some stories don’t have two sides. Some stories are simply true. There’s no necessity to give equal time to the ‘other side.’ One of these is climate change. Depending on which study or which expert you consult, between 95 and 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is happening now, that it’s damaging the planet and that’s it’s manmade. That seems pretty definitive, right?”
True to his opening “important journalistic statement,” Stelter then gave the floor to two guests who agreed with his position....
CNN’s senior media correspondent says there’s no need for journalists to provide a voice to those who question global warming or the threat it poses.
“Let’s begin with an important journalistic statement,” Brian Stelter declared Sunday on his show, CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Some stories don’t have two sides. Some stories are simply true. There’s no necessity to give equal time to the ‘other side.’ One of these is climate change. Depending on which study or which expert you consult, between 95 and 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is happening now, that it’s damaging the planet and that’s it’s manmade. That seems pretty definitive, right?”
True to his opening “important journalistic statement,” Stelter then gave the floor to two guests who agreed with his position....
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sierra Club Touts Economic ‘De-Growth’: ‘We have to de-grow our economy’ to ‘temper climate disruption, and foster a stable, equitable world economy’ – ‘WORK LESS TO LIVE MORE’
...In the last century, public opinion has shifted from deeming a 40-hour workweek scandalously short to hailing it as a triumph of modern labor. Now, with a faltering global economy and human population projections creeping toward 10 billion by 2050, some researchers are calling for a change that might be considered blasphemous: a 20- to 30-hour full-time workweek.
Resistance is inevitable, but as history shows, so is change. Reducing individual workloads and distributing the hours among more people could increase personal well-being, temper climate disruption, and foster a stable, equitable world economy, according to the New Economics Foundation in London and the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C.
“There’s no such thing as sustainable growth, not in a country like the U.S.,” Worldwatch senior fellow Erik Assadourian says. “We have to de-grow our economy, which is obviously not a popular stance to take in a culture that celebrates growth in all forms. But as the saying goes, if everyone consumed like Americans, we’d need four planets.”
Whether you move to a smaller house or an apartment, downsize to one or no car, or simply have fewer lattes to-go, a smaller paycheck could reduce consumption overall.
“If we had a livable wage and could each work a 20-hour week,” Assadourian says, “we’d have time to choose more sustainable options that are also better for ourselves.”...
...In the last century, public opinion has shifted from deeming a 40-hour workweek scandalously short to hailing it as a triumph of modern labor. Now, with a faltering global economy and human population projections creeping toward 10 billion by 2050, some researchers are calling for a change that might be considered blasphemous: a 20- to 30-hour full-time workweek.
Resistance is inevitable, but as history shows, so is change. Reducing individual workloads and distributing the hours among more people could increase personal well-being, temper climate disruption, and foster a stable, equitable world economy, according to the New Economics Foundation in London and the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C.
“There’s no such thing as sustainable growth, not in a country like the U.S.,” Worldwatch senior fellow Erik Assadourian says. “We have to de-grow our economy, which is obviously not a popular stance to take in a culture that celebrates growth in all forms. But as the saying goes, if everyone consumed like Americans, we’d need four planets.”
Whether you move to a smaller house or an apartment, downsize to one or no car, or simply have fewer lattes to-go, a smaller paycheck could reduce consumption overall.
“If we had a livable wage and could each work a 20-hour week,” Assadourian says, “we’d have time to choose more sustainable options that are also better for ourselves.”...
Democrats Try to Bully Cancer Sufferer Into Silence
I wrote here about a hard-hitting Obamacare ad that Americans For Prosperity is running in Michigan. The ad features Julie Boonstra, a Michigan resident who suffers from leukemia. Mrs. Boonstra had an excellent health care plan, which gave her access to top-notch doctors and the treatments that she needs. But she lost that coverage because of Obamacare. The ad targets Congressman Gary Peters, who voted for Obamacare. The ad is, as I wrote, devastating.
Now the Democrats are striking back. They are calling Mrs. Boonstra a liar, and are demanding that Michigan television stations stop broadcasting the ad–an implicit admission of how damaging it is to Peters, who is running for the Senate. The Democrats’ cease and desist letter was signed by two lawyers from the powerful Perkins, Coie firm in Washington, D.C. You can read their letter here. The Democrats, using a one-two punch, also apparently complained to Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column....
I wrote here about a hard-hitting Obamacare ad that Americans For Prosperity is running in Michigan. The ad features Julie Boonstra, a Michigan resident who suffers from leukemia. Mrs. Boonstra had an excellent health care plan, which gave her access to top-notch doctors and the treatments that she needs. But she lost that coverage because of Obamacare. The ad targets Congressman Gary Peters, who voted for Obamacare. The ad is, as I wrote, devastating.
Now the Democrats are striking back. They are calling Mrs. Boonstra a liar, and are demanding that Michigan television stations stop broadcasting the ad–an implicit admission of how damaging it is to Peters, who is running for the Senate. The Democrats’ cease and desist letter was signed by two lawyers from the powerful Perkins, Coie firm in Washington, D.C. You can read their letter here. The Democrats, using a one-two punch, also apparently complained to Glenn Kessler, who writes the Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” column....
Companies Must Now Swear — to the IRS — That None of Their Layoffs Are Because of Obamacare
...Consider what administration officials announcing the new exemption for medium-sized employers had to say about firms that might fire workers to get under the threshold and avoid hugely expensive new requirements of the law. Obama officials made clear in a press briefing that firms would not be allowed to lay off workers to get into the preferred class of those businesses with 50 to 99 employees. How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so....
Congressional Investigation: Treasury, IRS, HHS Conspired To Create An Unauthorized, Half-Trillion Dollar Entitlement.
...Last week, two congressional committees issued a little-noticed report detailing how Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, and Health and Human Services officials conspired to create a massive new entitlement not authorized anywhere in federal law.
In the summer of 2012, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight & Government Reform and Committee on Ways & Means launched an investigation to determine “whether IRS and Treasury conducted an adequate review of the statute and legislative history prior to coming to [the] conclusion that [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's] premium subsidies would be allowed in federal exchanges.” Over the next 18 months, the committees held numerous hearings with senior Treasury and IRS officials, while investigative staff conducted interviews with key agency attorneys responsible for developing the regulations in question. Investigators also reviewed what few documents Treasury and IRS officials allowed them to see....
Democrats, Media Slam President Romney Over Health Care Law Changes
In a move certain to please his conservative supporters and infuriate his critics, President Romney announced this afternoon that his administration would make yet another change to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a terse release, posted without fanfare to the Department of Health and Human Services website, officials revealed that the law’s employer mandate would be suspended until 2016 for all businesses that employ between 50 and 99 people.
The move comes hot on the heels of news that the agency would not be enforcing the provisions in the law that require Americans to buy approved health insurance until after the next election. Now, as then, a simple explanation was forthcoming. “The president won,” a White House aide told National Review Online. “His disdain for the law was ratified by the people. Now he’s going to fundamentally transform it.”
“This is an utter disgrace,” griped Senator Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y). “This law was passed through Congress, signed by the previous president, and upheld by the Supreme Court.”...
Obamacare lawlessness charge sticks
...The Post’s editorial board explains just how indefensible is the president’s “increasingly cavalier approach to picking and choosing how to enforce this law.” They warn Obama supporters: “Imagine how Democrats would respond if a President Rand Paul, say, moved into the White House in 2017 and announced he was going to put off provisions of Obamacare he thought might be too onerous to administer. … The law is also explicit that the government should be enforcing penalties already; that’s the plainest interpretation of Congress’s intent. The administration shouldn’t dismiss that without exceptionally good reason. Fear of a midterm shellacking doesn’t qualify as good reason.” (And it might even contribute to that shellacking.)
In a comment that reveals more about pundits than about Obamacare, Ron Fournier lets on that he can’t bear any longer to make up excuses for the White House. (Fournier has hardly been the worst offender; far too many have made covering for the president a virtual job requirement. Liberals may have ended JournoList, but the JournoList mentality remained.) Fournier rightly observes that the problem started with the passage of the bill: “The win-at-all-cost mentality helped create a culture in which a partisan-line vote was deemed sufficient for passing transcendent legislation. It spurred advisers to develop a dishonest talking point—’If you like your health plan, you’ll be able to keep your health plan.’ And political expediency led Obama to repeat the line, over and over and over again, when he knew, or should have known, it was false.” And it led liberals to excuse it all.
Kirsten Power echoed Fournier’s sentiments, bemoaning the fate of those “who have supported the law, who support universal health care, [who] are constantly put in the position of having to defend this president, who has really incompetently put this together, rolled it out.”...
...Consider what administration officials announcing the new exemption for medium-sized employers had to say about firms that might fire workers to get under the threshold and avoid hugely expensive new requirements of the law. Obama officials made clear in a press briefing that firms would not be allowed to lay off workers to get into the preferred class of those businesses with 50 to 99 employees. How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so....
Congressional Investigation: Treasury, IRS, HHS Conspired To Create An Unauthorized, Half-Trillion Dollar Entitlement.
...Last week, two congressional committees issued a little-noticed report detailing how Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, and Health and Human Services officials conspired to create a massive new entitlement not authorized anywhere in federal law.
In the summer of 2012, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight & Government Reform and Committee on Ways & Means launched an investigation to determine “whether IRS and Treasury conducted an adequate review of the statute and legislative history prior to coming to [the] conclusion that [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's] premium subsidies would be allowed in federal exchanges.” Over the next 18 months, the committees held numerous hearings with senior Treasury and IRS officials, while investigative staff conducted interviews with key agency attorneys responsible for developing the regulations in question. Investigators also reviewed what few documents Treasury and IRS officials allowed them to see....
Democrats, Media Slam President Romney Over Health Care Law Changes
In a move certain to please his conservative supporters and infuriate his critics, President Romney announced this afternoon that his administration would make yet another change to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a terse release, posted without fanfare to the Department of Health and Human Services website, officials revealed that the law’s employer mandate would be suspended until 2016 for all businesses that employ between 50 and 99 people.
The move comes hot on the heels of news that the agency would not be enforcing the provisions in the law that require Americans to buy approved health insurance until after the next election. Now, as then, a simple explanation was forthcoming. “The president won,” a White House aide told National Review Online. “His disdain for the law was ratified by the people. Now he’s going to fundamentally transform it.”
“This is an utter disgrace,” griped Senator Chuck Schumer (D, N.Y). “This law was passed through Congress, signed by the previous president, and upheld by the Supreme Court.”...
Obamacare lawlessness charge sticks
...The Post’s editorial board explains just how indefensible is the president’s “increasingly cavalier approach to picking and choosing how to enforce this law.” They warn Obama supporters: “Imagine how Democrats would respond if a President Rand Paul, say, moved into the White House in 2017 and announced he was going to put off provisions of Obamacare he thought might be too onerous to administer. … The law is also explicit that the government should be enforcing penalties already; that’s the plainest interpretation of Congress’s intent. The administration shouldn’t dismiss that without exceptionally good reason. Fear of a midterm shellacking doesn’t qualify as good reason.” (And it might even contribute to that shellacking.)
In a comment that reveals more about pundits than about Obamacare, Ron Fournier lets on that he can’t bear any longer to make up excuses for the White House. (Fournier has hardly been the worst offender; far too many have made covering for the president a virtual job requirement. Liberals may have ended JournoList, but the JournoList mentality remained.) Fournier rightly observes that the problem started with the passage of the bill: “The win-at-all-cost mentality helped create a culture in which a partisan-line vote was deemed sufficient for passing transcendent legislation. It spurred advisers to develop a dishonest talking point—’If you like your health plan, you’ll be able to keep your health plan.’ And political expediency led Obama to repeat the line, over and over and over again, when he knew, or should have known, it was false.” And it led liberals to excuse it all.
Kirsten Power echoed Fournier’s sentiments, bemoaning the fate of those “who have supported the law, who support universal health care, [who] are constantly put in the position of having to defend this president, who has really incompetently put this together, rolled it out.”...
The Untouchable Profits of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Would you buy stock in a company that barred you from sharing in its future earnings? Of course not. Participating in the upside is what stock ownership is all about.
And yet, as of December 2010, holders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac common stock were subject to such a restriction by the United States government. They didn’t know it at the time, though, because the policy was not disclosed.
This month, an internal United States Treasury memo that outlined this restriction came up at a forum in Washington.
The memo was addressed to Timothy F. Geithner, then the Treasury secretary, from Jeffrey A. Goldstein, then the under secretary for domestic finance. In discussing Fannie and Freddie, the beleaguered government-sponsored enterprises rescued by taxpayers in September 2008, the memo referred to “the administration’s commitment to ensure existing common equity holders will not have access to any positive earnings from the G.S.E.’s in the future.”
The memo, which was produced in a lawsuit filed by Fannie and Freddie shareholders, was dated Dec. 20, 2010. Securities laws require material information — that is, information that might affect an investor’s view of a company — to be disclosed. That the government would deny a company’s shareholders all its profits certainly seems material, but the existence of this policy cannot be found in the financial filings of Fannie Mae. Neither have the Treasury’s discussions about the future of the two finance giants mentioned the administration’s commitment to shut common stockholders out of future earnings....
Would you buy stock in a company that barred you from sharing in its future earnings? Of course not. Participating in the upside is what stock ownership is all about.
And yet, as of December 2010, holders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac common stock were subject to such a restriction by the United States government. They didn’t know it at the time, though, because the policy was not disclosed.
This month, an internal United States Treasury memo that outlined this restriction came up at a forum in Washington.
The memo was addressed to Timothy F. Geithner, then the Treasury secretary, from Jeffrey A. Goldstein, then the under secretary for domestic finance. In discussing Fannie and Freddie, the beleaguered government-sponsored enterprises rescued by taxpayers in September 2008, the memo referred to “the administration’s commitment to ensure existing common equity holders will not have access to any positive earnings from the G.S.E.’s in the future.”
The memo, which was produced in a lawsuit filed by Fannie and Freddie shareholders, was dated Dec. 20, 2010. Securities laws require material information — that is, information that might affect an investor’s view of a company — to be disclosed. That the government would deny a company’s shareholders all its profits certainly seems material, but the existence of this policy cannot be found in the financial filings of Fannie Mae. Neither have the Treasury’s discussions about the future of the two finance giants mentioned the administration’s commitment to shut common stockholders out of future earnings....
The Feminist Mystique
Feminism is not an idea or a collection of ideas but a collection of appetites wriggling queasily together like a bag of snakes. Feminism has nothing to do with the proposition that women should be considered whole and complete members of the body politic, though it has enjoyed great success marketing itself that way. (Virginia I. Postrel recently denounced me as a “creep” for suggesting that the substance of feminism, if indeed there is any, differs rather radically from its advertising campaigns.) A useful definition is this: “Feminism is the words ‘I Want!’ in the mouths of three or more women, provided they’re the right kind of women.” Feminism must therefore accommodate wildly incompatible propositions — e.g., (1) Women unquestionably belong alongside men in Marine units fighting pitched battles in Tora Bora but (2) really should not be expected to be able to perform three chin-ups. Or: (1) Women at Columbia are empowered by pornography but (2) women at Wellesley are victimized by a statue of a man sleepwalking in his Shenanigans. And then there is Fluke’s Law: (1) Women are responsible moral agents with full sexual and economic autonomy who (2) must be given an allowance, like children, when it comes to contraceptives....
Feminism is not an idea or a collection of ideas but a collection of appetites wriggling queasily together like a bag of snakes. Feminism has nothing to do with the proposition that women should be considered whole and complete members of the body politic, though it has enjoyed great success marketing itself that way. (Virginia I. Postrel recently denounced me as a “creep” for suggesting that the substance of feminism, if indeed there is any, differs rather radically from its advertising campaigns.) A useful definition is this: “Feminism is the words ‘I Want!’ in the mouths of three or more women, provided they’re the right kind of women.” Feminism must therefore accommodate wildly incompatible propositions — e.g., (1) Women unquestionably belong alongside men in Marine units fighting pitched battles in Tora Bora but (2) really should not be expected to be able to perform three chin-ups. Or: (1) Women at Columbia are empowered by pornography but (2) women at Wellesley are victimized by a statue of a man sleepwalking in his Shenanigans. And then there is Fluke’s Law: (1) Women are responsible moral agents with full sexual and economic autonomy who (2) must be given an allowance, like children, when it comes to contraceptives....
Torch-Carrying Environmentalists Protest at Oil Exec’s Home
Masked protesters carrying torches and threatening organized violence protested outside the home of an executive at a major oil pipeline company last week.
Eight environmental activists gathered on the lawn of Mark Maki, a member of the Enbridge Energy Company’s board of directors and president of Enbridge Energy Management, to protest the arrests of three anti-pipeline activists last year.
The protesters, who brandished torches for a photo posted online, held a sign warning, “solidarity means attack” and “we will shut you down.”...
Report: 95 percent of global warming models are wrong
...Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer says that climate models used by government agencies to create policies “have failed miserably.” Spencer analyzed 90 climate models against surface temperature and satellite temperature data, and found that more than 95 percent of the models “have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).”...
The global warming pause: the dangers of politicising science
...Such premature speculation reveals that the scientific questions around climate change are driven by political problems, and scientists are complicit in the construction of political narratives. As some sceptics have observed, this new paper’s lead author, Matthew England, accused them of lying about the hiatus as recently as 2012. In the space of less than a year, England changed his mind about the stall in global warming, made it the object of a study, and found a way to explain it. It seems that climate scientists like England lack the cool, rational, and value-free approach necessary to investigate the material world.
Masked protesters carrying torches and threatening organized violence protested outside the home of an executive at a major oil pipeline company last week.
Eight environmental activists gathered on the lawn of Mark Maki, a member of the Enbridge Energy Company’s board of directors and president of Enbridge Energy Management, to protest the arrests of three anti-pipeline activists last year.
The protesters, who brandished torches for a photo posted online, held a sign warning, “solidarity means attack” and “we will shut you down.”...
Report: 95 percent of global warming models are wrong
...Former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer says that climate models used by government agencies to create policies “have failed miserably.” Spencer analyzed 90 climate models against surface temperature and satellite temperature data, and found that more than 95 percent of the models “have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).”...
The global warming pause: the dangers of politicising science
...Such premature speculation reveals that the scientific questions around climate change are driven by political problems, and scientists are complicit in the construction of political narratives. As some sceptics have observed, this new paper’s lead author, Matthew England, accused them of lying about the hiatus as recently as 2012. In the space of less than a year, England changed his mind about the stall in global warming, made it the object of a study, and found a way to explain it. It seems that climate scientists like England lack the cool, rational, and value-free approach necessary to investigate the material world.
Do We Care If The Poor Don't Work?
...Incentive is the mother of achievement, for almost all people. Remove the incentive, you destroy the potential greatness of the individual, and the future society that depends on such individuals, right in the cradle.
Finally there is the implicit insult in Douthat's assertion. The best way for me to elucidate this insult is to ask a question.
Faced with choosing between work, or being perpetual state-financed layabouts, what do you think Mr. Douthat would encourage his own children to do?...
...Incentive is the mother of achievement, for almost all people. Remove the incentive, you destroy the potential greatness of the individual, and the future society that depends on such individuals, right in the cradle.
Finally there is the implicit insult in Douthat's assertion. The best way for me to elucidate this insult is to ask a question.
Faced with choosing between work, or being perpetual state-financed layabouts, what do you think Mr. Douthat would encourage his own children to do?...
The Failure of Obama’s Aristocracy of Merit
...Barack Obama, in contrast, has built a top-and-bottom coalition — academics and gentry liberals, blacks and Hispanics, with funding and organizational backing from taxpayer-funded public-sector unions. In 2008, Obama carried those with incomes under $50,000 and over $200,000, and lost those in between.
The Obama Democrats passed a stimulus package tilted toward public-sector unions and financial regulation propping up the big banks. Those at the top got paid off.
Less has gone to those at the bottom. Those in the middle have seen their health insurance canceled by Obamacare and sit waiting for HealthCare.gov to function.
Suddenly, this “aristocracy based on talent and sensibility,” in Siegel’s words, seems to be discrediting its own policies — and its conceit that it is uniquely fit to govern.
...Barack Obama, in contrast, has built a top-and-bottom coalition — academics and gentry liberals, blacks and Hispanics, with funding and organizational backing from taxpayer-funded public-sector unions. In 2008, Obama carried those with incomes under $50,000 and over $200,000, and lost those in between.
The Obama Democrats passed a stimulus package tilted toward public-sector unions and financial regulation propping up the big banks. Those at the top got paid off.
Less has gone to those at the bottom. Those in the middle have seen their health insurance canceled by Obamacare and sit waiting for HealthCare.gov to function.
Suddenly, this “aristocracy based on talent and sensibility,” in Siegel’s words, seems to be discrediting its own policies — and its conceit that it is uniquely fit to govern.
Labour supporters admit it: taxes are to punish the rich, not to raise revenue
...Ponder the graph above. Sixty-nine per cent of Labour supporters would want a top rate tax of 50 per cent even if it brought in no money.
I’m sure they’d dispute the premise. I’m sure they’d insist that it did bring money in. And, on one level, they’d believe it; it’s human nature to start with the result we want and then rationalise it to ourselves with what look like hard data. I think their rationalisation would be false, obviously – once the behavioural consequences of the tax are factored in, it becomes a net drain on revenue – but I might be subject to my own confirmation bias in the other direction.
Anyway, this isn’t a blog about the statistics – I’ve already posted one of those. No, this is a blog about the mind-set of people who see taxation, not as an unpleasant necessity, but as a way to punish others.
Envy is an ugly and debilitating condition, but it seems to have an evolutionary-biological basis. The dosage varies enormously from individual to individual, but even toddlers often display a sense that, if they can’t have something, no one else should either. ...
...Ponder the graph above. Sixty-nine per cent of Labour supporters would want a top rate tax of 50 per cent even if it brought in no money.
I’m sure they’d dispute the premise. I’m sure they’d insist that it did bring money in. And, on one level, they’d believe it; it’s human nature to start with the result we want and then rationalise it to ourselves with what look like hard data. I think their rationalisation would be false, obviously – once the behavioural consequences of the tax are factored in, it becomes a net drain on revenue – but I might be subject to my own confirmation bias in the other direction.
Anyway, this isn’t a blog about the statistics – I’ve already posted one of those. No, this is a blog about the mind-set of people who see taxation, not as an unpleasant necessity, but as a way to punish others.
Envy is an ugly and debilitating condition, but it seems to have an evolutionary-biological basis. The dosage varies enormously from individual to individual, but even toddlers often display a sense that, if they can’t have something, no one else should either. ...
The New Contras: Understanding The Left’s Grip On Media
...In fact, attempts to do just that permeate the entire paper and its recommendations. West and Stone even chide the practice of pairing conservatives and liberals on TV to comment on issues, which they say results in “polarization of discourse and ‘false equivalence’ in reporting.” Getting both views means there is a lack of “nuanced analysis,” which “confuses viewers,” they write. As with all liberal grousing, there is also throughout the paper the suspicion that the average American is not capable of filtering the news by himself. Another passage reads, “the average reader’s ability to critically judge this new presentation of digital data is still developing and is lagging behind the ubiquity of interactives and infographics on the web.”
So journalists should lead the average American reader out of his torpor by linking to thoughtful commentary that give the context the reader needs, just like in the old days. And who might be good examples of such much-needed context-givers? West and Stone observe that “Platforms such as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog and Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” provide daily developments in policy news for those seeking to understand the intricacies of complex issues.” And, no it doesn’t end there. They also recommend Democracy Now!, which they describe as “a daily, independent program operated by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. It runs stories that have ‘people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media.’ Among the individuals it features include grassroots leaders, peace activists, academics, and independent analysts. The program regularly hosts substantive debates designed to improve public understanding of major issues.”
Both Sullivan and Klein are uniformly liberal in all issues and supportive of Barack Obama’s agenda. They are also, however, deep-thinking innovators who explain things thoroughly in their respective sites, even if from their perspectives. Not so for Goodman and Gonzalez, who can only be described as neo-Marxist apologists for Chavez, Castro and the Sandinistas....
...In fact, attempts to do just that permeate the entire paper and its recommendations. West and Stone even chide the practice of pairing conservatives and liberals on TV to comment on issues, which they say results in “polarization of discourse and ‘false equivalence’ in reporting.” Getting both views means there is a lack of “nuanced analysis,” which “confuses viewers,” they write. As with all liberal grousing, there is also throughout the paper the suspicion that the average American is not capable of filtering the news by himself. Another passage reads, “the average reader’s ability to critically judge this new presentation of digital data is still developing and is lagging behind the ubiquity of interactives and infographics on the web.”
So journalists should lead the average American reader out of his torpor by linking to thoughtful commentary that give the context the reader needs, just like in the old days. And who might be good examples of such much-needed context-givers? West and Stone observe that “Platforms such as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog and Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” provide daily developments in policy news for those seeking to understand the intricacies of complex issues.” And, no it doesn’t end there. They also recommend Democracy Now!, which they describe as “a daily, independent program operated by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. It runs stories that have ‘people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media.’ Among the individuals it features include grassroots leaders, peace activists, academics, and independent analysts. The program regularly hosts substantive debates designed to improve public understanding of major issues.”
Both Sullivan and Klein are uniformly liberal in all issues and supportive of Barack Obama’s agenda. They are also, however, deep-thinking innovators who explain things thoroughly in their respective sites, even if from their perspectives. Not so for Goodman and Gonzalez, who can only be described as neo-Marxist apologists for Chavez, Castro and the Sandinistas....
Census Bureau: Means-Tested Gov't Benefit Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Year-Round Workers
Americans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau.
They also out-numbered the total population of the Philippines....
...When the people who received non-means-tested government benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and non-means-tested veterans compensation are added to those who received means-tested government programs such as food stamps, Supplemental Security Income and public housing, the total number of people receiving government benefits from one or more programs in the United States in 2011 climbs to 151,014,000, according to the Census Bureau....
Americans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau.
They also out-numbered the total population of the Philippines....
...When the people who received non-means-tested government benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and non-means-tested veterans compensation are added to those who received means-tested government programs such as food stamps, Supplemental Security Income and public housing, the total number of people receiving government benefits from one or more programs in the United States in 2011 climbs to 151,014,000, according to the Census Bureau....
McNider and Christy: Why Kerry Is Flat Wrong on Climate Change
...For instance, in 1994 we published an article in the journal Nature showing that the actual global temperature trend was "one-quarter of the magnitude of climate model results." As the nearby graph shows, the disparity between the predicted temperature increases and real-world evidence has only grown in the past 20 years.
When the failure of its predictions become clear, the modeling industry always comes back with new models that soften their previous warming forecasts, claiming, for instance, that an unexpected increase in the human use of aerosols had skewed the results. After these changes, the models tended to agree better with the actual numbers that came in—but the forecasts for future temperatures have continued to be too warm. ...
...For instance, in 1994 we published an article in the journal Nature showing that the actual global temperature trend was "one-quarter of the magnitude of climate model results." As the nearby graph shows, the disparity between the predicted temperature increases and real-world evidence has only grown in the past 20 years.
When the failure of its predictions become clear, the modeling industry always comes back with new models that soften their previous warming forecasts, claiming, for instance, that an unexpected increase in the human use of aerosols had skewed the results. After these changes, the models tended to agree better with the actual numbers that came in—but the forecasts for future temperatures have continued to be too warm. ...
Cut Off Harvard to Save America
...The eight Ivy League schools have less than 1 percent of U.S. college students but almost 17 percent of all endowment money. The top 3 percent of schools ranked by endowment size have more than half the funds. Five schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford University and one public institution, the University of Texas) had endowment increases last year of more than $1 billion, exceeding the total endowment of more than 90 percent of the schools (including virtually all the larger ones) publicly disclosing information.
Do rich schools use their wealth to promote upward economic mobility by disproportionately accepting low-income students? No -- just the opposite. I took the 10 highest-endowed schools and looked at the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, then compared that with the 10 lowest-endowed schools in a survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
Most Pell Grant students come from below-average-income households. In the highly endowed schools, a median of 16 percent of students received Pells, compared with 59 percent at the lowest-endowed institutions.
A student graduating from Yale or Princeton, with their roughly $2 million endowments per student, has a ticket to a well-paying job, while one graduating from the College of St. Joseph in Vermont, with its $29,000 endowment per student, does not. Only 12 percent of the Yale and Princeton students have Pells, compared with 71 percent at St. Joseph.
The federal government subsidizes this academic aristocracy (made more exclusive by elite highly endowed schools giving admission preferences for children of alumni) in several ways. Big endowments such as Harvard’s probably often reap at least $1 billion annually from capital gains. They pay no income taxes on those gains; individuals pay 23.8 percent. They also pay no income taxes on dividend and interest income. The donations that form the endowments are deductible against donor income taxes, giving rich people the incentive to give to their already rich colleges, which in turn give preferences to alumni children. ...
...The eight Ivy League schools have less than 1 percent of U.S. college students but almost 17 percent of all endowment money. The top 3 percent of schools ranked by endowment size have more than half the funds. Five schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford University and one public institution, the University of Texas) had endowment increases last year of more than $1 billion, exceeding the total endowment of more than 90 percent of the schools (including virtually all the larger ones) publicly disclosing information.
Do rich schools use their wealth to promote upward economic mobility by disproportionately accepting low-income students? No -- just the opposite. I took the 10 highest-endowed schools and looked at the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants, then compared that with the 10 lowest-endowed schools in a survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
Most Pell Grant students come from below-average-income households. In the highly endowed schools, a median of 16 percent of students received Pells, compared with 59 percent at the lowest-endowed institutions.
A student graduating from Yale or Princeton, with their roughly $2 million endowments per student, has a ticket to a well-paying job, while one graduating from the College of St. Joseph in Vermont, with its $29,000 endowment per student, does not. Only 12 percent of the Yale and Princeton students have Pells, compared with 71 percent at St. Joseph.
The federal government subsidizes this academic aristocracy (made more exclusive by elite highly endowed schools giving admission preferences for children of alumni) in several ways. Big endowments such as Harvard’s probably often reap at least $1 billion annually from capital gains. They pay no income taxes on those gains; individuals pay 23.8 percent. They also pay no income taxes on dividend and interest income. The donations that form the endowments are deductible against donor income taxes, giving rich people the incentive to give to their already rich colleges, which in turn give preferences to alumni children. ...
Philadelphia’s Union ‘Thugs’ Indicted
FBI agents arrested several union members of Philadelphia’s Ironworkers Local 401 Wednesday on multiple counts including arson, violent crime in the aid of racketeering, and conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The investigation is ongoing and will likely scrutinize unions’ allies in political office, according to sources.
National Review wrote extensively about Ironworkers Local 401 last year as part of a broader investigation into how, for decades, organized labor has dominated the construction industry in Philadelphia through violence, intimidation, harassment and vandalism. Investigations and arrests have long been rare.
The 49-page indictment details how members of Local 401, who called themselves “the Helpful Union Guys,” or “THUGS,” allegedly extorted, intimidated and bullied businesses and contractors, forcing them to hire union members, even when they were “unwanted, unnecessary and superfluous.”
Members used arson, vandalism, sabotage and occasional violence to retaliate against those who chose to use non-union workers, the indictment says. Local 401 members were also allegedly behind the arson attack on a Quaker meeting house just days before Christmas 2012, which resulted in $500,000 in damage. The indictment also accuses two ironworkers of participating in a 2010 baseball-bat assault on non-union workers building a Toys R Us store in King of Prussia....
Why Card Check Matters, Chattanooga Edition
...In the employees’ affidavits obtained by National Review Online, the employees said that the UAW “solicited, enticed, and/or demanded VW employees’ signatures by unlawful means including misrepresentations, coercion, threats, and promises.” In one instance, union officials allegedly offered free tickets to a nearby amusement park to one employee and his entire family if he signed the card....
...But the workers’ protests that they’d been intimidated forced VW to grant them the protection of a secret ballot. “I think that if those eight employees hadn’t filed charges, the card check might have worked,” Mix says. “To this day, nobody has seen the ‘majority’ of cards the UAW claimed to have.”
When the vote finally came, workers rejected the UAW’s attempt to unionize by 53–47 margin, 712 votes to 626....
Thugs: Union publishes names of members who opted-out in ‘Freeloaders List’
...Terry Bowman, founder of Union Conservatives Inc. and a member of the United Auto Workers, told the Mackinac Center for Public Policy that Local 324′s tactics were putting former union members and their families in danger of harassment and retaliation.
“Union officials must be held accountable for putting workers and their families in real, substantial danger of retaliation,” said Bowman in a statement to the Mackinac Center. ”Any worker who was exposed by union officials and put in danger for simply exercising their rights should consider contacting Michigan’s attorney general’s office for criminal complaints, as well as civil legal action.”...
FBI agents arrested several union members of Philadelphia’s Ironworkers Local 401 Wednesday on multiple counts including arson, violent crime in the aid of racketeering, and conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The investigation is ongoing and will likely scrutinize unions’ allies in political office, according to sources.
National Review wrote extensively about Ironworkers Local 401 last year as part of a broader investigation into how, for decades, organized labor has dominated the construction industry in Philadelphia through violence, intimidation, harassment and vandalism. Investigations and arrests have long been rare.
The 49-page indictment details how members of Local 401, who called themselves “the Helpful Union Guys,” or “THUGS,” allegedly extorted, intimidated and bullied businesses and contractors, forcing them to hire union members, even when they were “unwanted, unnecessary and superfluous.”
Members used arson, vandalism, sabotage and occasional violence to retaliate against those who chose to use non-union workers, the indictment says. Local 401 members were also allegedly behind the arson attack on a Quaker meeting house just days before Christmas 2012, which resulted in $500,000 in damage. The indictment also accuses two ironworkers of participating in a 2010 baseball-bat assault on non-union workers building a Toys R Us store in King of Prussia....
Why Card Check Matters, Chattanooga Edition
...In the employees’ affidavits obtained by National Review Online, the employees said that the UAW “solicited, enticed, and/or demanded VW employees’ signatures by unlawful means including misrepresentations, coercion, threats, and promises.” In one instance, union officials allegedly offered free tickets to a nearby amusement park to one employee and his entire family if he signed the card....
...But the workers’ protests that they’d been intimidated forced VW to grant them the protection of a secret ballot. “I think that if those eight employees hadn’t filed charges, the card check might have worked,” Mix says. “To this day, nobody has seen the ‘majority’ of cards the UAW claimed to have.”
When the vote finally came, workers rejected the UAW’s attempt to unionize by 53–47 margin, 712 votes to 626....
Thugs: Union publishes names of members who opted-out in ‘Freeloaders List’
...Terry Bowman, founder of Union Conservatives Inc. and a member of the United Auto Workers, told the Mackinac Center for Public Policy that Local 324′s tactics were putting former union members and their families in danger of harassment and retaliation.
“Union officials must be held accountable for putting workers and their families in real, substantial danger of retaliation,” said Bowman in a statement to the Mackinac Center. ”Any worker who was exposed by union officials and put in danger for simply exercising their rights should consider contacting Michigan’s attorney general’s office for criminal complaints, as well as civil legal action.”...
Are Domestic Violence Statistics Bogus?
...Attorney General Eric Holder repeated the domestic violence version of the statistic in a 2009 speech; he stated, “Disturbingly, intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45.” The statistic was posted in at least two places at the Department of Justice (DOJ) website. The conservative feminist Christina Hoff Sommers took exception. In USA Today (Feb. 4, 2011), she wrote, “That's a horrifying statistic, and it would be a shocking reflection of the black family, and American society generally, if it were true. But it isn't true.”
Over two years later, the Washington Post fact checker, Glenn Kessler investigated Holder's statement and published his results. Kessler wrote that CDC “data show that, for the year 2008 (the year before Holder’s speeches), cancer, heart disease, unintentional injury and HIV/AIDS all topped homicide. Then if you break out intimate-partner homicide, that ends up being seventh or eighth on the list (depending on whether you also include all homicides.)” As a basis of comparison, in 2008, cancer killed 1,871 black females; heart disease, 1,629; all homicides, 326.
Kessler next ran a forensic investigation of the claim. “As best we [Washington Post] and the Justice Department can determine,” he stated, “this all started with a 1998 study by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), titled “Violence Against Intimates,” that examined the data concerning crimes committed by current and former spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends.” But that study did not find domestic-violence homicide to be the leading cause of death in black women aged 15 to 45 years. Indeed, the study even reported a marked decline in such homicides....
...The foregoing might suggest intentional fabrication, but other explanations, such as ideological blindness, are always a possibility. While debunking the infamous World Cup myth—namely, that the UK World Cup (as well as the American Super Bowl) created a spike in domestic violence each year—Sommers noted an interesting response. The BBC had checked the proffered data and concluded that the World Cup claim was “a stunt based on cherry-picked figures.” When journalists confronted a woman who spread the myth, she replied, “If it has saved lives, then it is worth it.” The ideologically driven are notoriously willing to disregard truth in the name of a “noble” goal...or whatever they define as one.
Another reason that academics have falsified data is to gain more grants and academic respectability or power....
...Attorney General Eric Holder repeated the domestic violence version of the statistic in a 2009 speech; he stated, “Disturbingly, intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45.” The statistic was posted in at least two places at the Department of Justice (DOJ) website. The conservative feminist Christina Hoff Sommers took exception. In USA Today (Feb. 4, 2011), she wrote, “That's a horrifying statistic, and it would be a shocking reflection of the black family, and American society generally, if it were true. But it isn't true.”
Over two years later, the Washington Post fact checker, Glenn Kessler investigated Holder's statement and published his results. Kessler wrote that CDC “data show that, for the year 2008 (the year before Holder’s speeches), cancer, heart disease, unintentional injury and HIV/AIDS all topped homicide. Then if you break out intimate-partner homicide, that ends up being seventh or eighth on the list (depending on whether you also include all homicides.)” As a basis of comparison, in 2008, cancer killed 1,871 black females; heart disease, 1,629; all homicides, 326.
Kessler next ran a forensic investigation of the claim. “As best we [Washington Post] and the Justice Department can determine,” he stated, “this all started with a 1998 study by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), titled “Violence Against Intimates,” that examined the data concerning crimes committed by current and former spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends.” But that study did not find domestic-violence homicide to be the leading cause of death in black women aged 15 to 45 years. Indeed, the study even reported a marked decline in such homicides....
...The foregoing might suggest intentional fabrication, but other explanations, such as ideological blindness, are always a possibility. While debunking the infamous World Cup myth—namely, that the UK World Cup (as well as the American Super Bowl) created a spike in domestic violence each year—Sommers noted an interesting response. The BBC had checked the proffered data and concluded that the World Cup claim was “a stunt based on cherry-picked figures.” When journalists confronted a woman who spread the myth, she replied, “If it has saved lives, then it is worth it.” The ideologically driven are notoriously willing to disregard truth in the name of a “noble” goal...or whatever they define as one.
Another reason that academics have falsified data is to gain more grants and academic respectability or power....
Sunday, February 09, 2014
Here's Proof: the Obama Administration Doesn't Care Whether You Work Or Not
...Perhaps when President Obama’s acolytes and mouthpieces frame joblessness as liberation they’re thinking of some future Jobses and Wozniaks, freed from hourly drudgery to retreat to the garage and change the world with their brilliance. Or maybe he has in mind a J.K. Rowling, living off welfare and dreaming up a boy wizard while doodling in cafes.
Such thinking is consistent with the elite character of the Obama administration — some 40 percent of the president’s men and women hold Ivy League degrees, with more of them receiving degrees from Oxford than from any American public school. When they shrug off jobs as limitations, Obama and Co. have in mind their gifted and talented friends.
This is magical thinking. Most people are not entrepreneurs, geniuses or novelists. Most people don’t have big ideas. Most people get by and advance in small steps, not giant leaps. Jobs are the principal way people improve themselves, their lives and the lives of their families, and leave their children better off than they were.
The White House response to the CBO report is in direct opposition to its supposed stance on inequality and class mobility. More long-term unemployment, even the unemployment of people who leave the workforce willingly in order to “pursue their dreams,” in the Oprah Winfrey-style phrasing of Jay Carney, means more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder...
Obama admin looking at extending “administrative fix” for noncompliant individual plans — for three years?
Last November was a particularly — ahem — messy time for President Obama’s crowning legislative achievement. The rollout of the law’s federal exchange website was showcasing newly-plumbed depths of big-government incompetence and obfuscation while millions of insurees in the individual market were balking at notices informing them that their not-comprehensive/expensive-enough healthcare plans were getting cancelled in order to comply with the new standards that ObamaCare had laid down for their guidance. The president’s very own Democrats were desperately floating legislation to enforce the oft-repeated “If you like your plan, you can keep it”-promise that was soon after deemed “The Lie of the Year,” but rather than bother with messy legislation, the Obama administration followed their unilateral employer-mandate delay with an “administrative fix” for these individual plans that would allow insurers to un-cancel cancelled plans for another year.
They hoped that would calm things down for awhile and at least temporarily cushion the spreading revelation that forcing insurees off of inexpensive plans is in fact a feature and not a bug of the law, but that means that a lot of those same uncomfortable conversations are going to be coming due right about the time of the midterms this fall.
Heck, they did it once already — why not extend the “fix” through 2016, really? So what if the decision plagues the already-tottering system with insurance plans that don’t pull their redistributive weight? That’s what risk corridors are for! ...
...Perhaps when President Obama’s acolytes and mouthpieces frame joblessness as liberation they’re thinking of some future Jobses and Wozniaks, freed from hourly drudgery to retreat to the garage and change the world with their brilliance. Or maybe he has in mind a J.K. Rowling, living off welfare and dreaming up a boy wizard while doodling in cafes.
Such thinking is consistent with the elite character of the Obama administration — some 40 percent of the president’s men and women hold Ivy League degrees, with more of them receiving degrees from Oxford than from any American public school. When they shrug off jobs as limitations, Obama and Co. have in mind their gifted and talented friends.
This is magical thinking. Most people are not entrepreneurs, geniuses or novelists. Most people don’t have big ideas. Most people get by and advance in small steps, not giant leaps. Jobs are the principal way people improve themselves, their lives and the lives of their families, and leave their children better off than they were.
The White House response to the CBO report is in direct opposition to its supposed stance on inequality and class mobility. More long-term unemployment, even the unemployment of people who leave the workforce willingly in order to “pursue their dreams,” in the Oprah Winfrey-style phrasing of Jay Carney, means more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder...
Obama admin looking at extending “administrative fix” for noncompliant individual plans — for three years?
Last November was a particularly — ahem — messy time for President Obama’s crowning legislative achievement. The rollout of the law’s federal exchange website was showcasing newly-plumbed depths of big-government incompetence and obfuscation while millions of insurees in the individual market were balking at notices informing them that their not-comprehensive/expensive-enough healthcare plans were getting cancelled in order to comply with the new standards that ObamaCare had laid down for their guidance. The president’s very own Democrats were desperately floating legislation to enforce the oft-repeated “If you like your plan, you can keep it”-promise that was soon after deemed “The Lie of the Year,” but rather than bother with messy legislation, the Obama administration followed their unilateral employer-mandate delay with an “administrative fix” for these individual plans that would allow insurers to un-cancel cancelled plans for another year.
They hoped that would calm things down for awhile and at least temporarily cushion the spreading revelation that forcing insurees off of inexpensive plans is in fact a feature and not a bug of the law, but that means that a lot of those same uncomfortable conversations are going to be coming due right about the time of the midterms this fall.
Heck, they did it once already — why not extend the “fix” through 2016, really? So what if the decision plagues the already-tottering system with insurance plans that don’t pull their redistributive weight? That’s what risk corridors are for! ...
Common Core MATH lesson plans attack Reagan, list Lincoln’s religion as ‘liberal’
...The lesson plan then offers three websites for obtaining information about American presidents. The “recommended” site is a page entitled “Presidents” at the website Infoplease.com.
The page links to a biography of each president and provides some key facts about each president including their home states, their ages at inauguration and their religions.
Abraham Lincoln’s religion is listed as “Liberal.”
Any math student who surfs over to the Infoplease.com biography of Ronald Reagan is in for a treat. The page duly explains that Reagan’s “‘supply side’ economic program” of “tax cuts and sharp reductions in government spending” led to “the worst recession in 40 years” and a “constantly growing budget deficit.” The roaring economy and the huge plunge in both inflation and unemployment that ensued rate nary a mention....
...The lesson plan then offers three websites for obtaining information about American presidents. The “recommended” site is a page entitled “Presidents” at the website Infoplease.com.
The page links to a biography of each president and provides some key facts about each president including their home states, their ages at inauguration and their religions.
Abraham Lincoln’s religion is listed as “Liberal.”
Any math student who surfs over to the Infoplease.com biography of Ronald Reagan is in for a treat. The page duly explains that Reagan’s “‘supply side’ economic program” of “tax cuts and sharp reductions in government spending” led to “the worst recession in 40 years” and a “constantly growing budget deficit.” The roaring economy and the huge plunge in both inflation and unemployment that ensued rate nary a mention....
Email: IRS’s Lerner, Treasury Department secretly drafted new rules to restrict nonprofits
...The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.
The rules place would place much more stringent controls on what would be considered political activity by the IRS, effectively limiting the standard practices of a wide array of non-profit groups.
“Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off -plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting…,” Treasury official Ruth Madrigal wrote in a June 14, 2012 email to Lerner and others obtained by Ways and Means and provided to The Daily Caller....
...The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule. They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.
The rules place would place much more stringent controls on what would be considered political activity by the IRS, effectively limiting the standard practices of a wide array of non-profit groups.
“Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off -plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting…,” Treasury official Ruth Madrigal wrote in a June 14, 2012 email to Lerner and others obtained by Ways and Means and provided to The Daily Caller....
How Voter Shortsightedness Skews Elections
..."'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?' Ronald Reagan's famous question in the U.S. presidential election of 1980 is generally a good yardstick for picking a candidate, or at least for judging a leader's economic policies. But few voters follow it. Instead, they are swayed by economic swings in the months leading up to the election, often ignoring the larger trends. Why are we so shortsighted? A psychological study of voting behavior suggests an answer and points to a simple fix. ... Healy and Lenz challenged their subjects to evaluate hypothetical governments based on slightly varying information. For example, some received information expressed as yearly income while others received the same information expressed as a yearly growth rate. The same information in a plot of steadily increasing average personal income over 3 years—$32,400, $33,100, $33,800—can also be expressed as a steadily decreasing rate of growth—3%, 2.3%, 2.1%. That did the trick. Just changing the units of the data was enough to cure voter fickleness. When economic trends were expressed as yearly income rather than rates of change, the subjects made accurate judgments. But if the same information was expressed as a change over time—the bias reappeared."...
..."'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?' Ronald Reagan's famous question in the U.S. presidential election of 1980 is generally a good yardstick for picking a candidate, or at least for judging a leader's economic policies. But few voters follow it. Instead, they are swayed by economic swings in the months leading up to the election, often ignoring the larger trends. Why are we so shortsighted? A psychological study of voting behavior suggests an answer and points to a simple fix. ... Healy and Lenz challenged their subjects to evaluate hypothetical governments based on slightly varying information. For example, some received information expressed as yearly income while others received the same information expressed as a yearly growth rate. The same information in a plot of steadily increasing average personal income over 3 years—$32,400, $33,100, $33,800—can also be expressed as a steadily decreasing rate of growth—3%, 2.3%, 2.1%. That did the trick. Just changing the units of the data was enough to cure voter fickleness. When economic trends were expressed as yearly income rather than rates of change, the subjects made accurate judgments. But if the same information was expressed as a change over time—the bias reappeared."...
School officials are no fans of gun ban signs
...“One of my biggest concerns as a principal is safety and security,” Tinley Park High School Principal Theresa Nolan said. “It is bothersome to have to post a sticker of a gun that says, ‘Hey, folks, leave your guns at home.’ ”
Nolan said she is not opposed to posting it, she’s just worried that not enough people are aware of what it means and could misinterpret the new signage.
“I think the general public will be alarmed by it and wonder if people have been allowed to bring guns to school in the past,” she said. In her 22 years with Bremen Community High School District 228, she said, “I have no knowledge of guns ever being in this building.”
Nolan, and others, take issue with the sticker’s design.
“I would have appreciated something more subtle, yet still recognizable — a logo, perhaps, not a gun,” she said.
“You can’t look at this (sticker) and not think about Sandy Hook,” she said, referring to the 2012 school shooting in Newton, Conn., in which 20 children and six teachers were killed....
...“One of my biggest concerns as a principal is safety and security,” Tinley Park High School Principal Theresa Nolan said. “It is bothersome to have to post a sticker of a gun that says, ‘Hey, folks, leave your guns at home.’ ”
Nolan said she is not opposed to posting it, she’s just worried that not enough people are aware of what it means and could misinterpret the new signage.
“I think the general public will be alarmed by it and wonder if people have been allowed to bring guns to school in the past,” she said. In her 22 years with Bremen Community High School District 228, she said, “I have no knowledge of guns ever being in this building.”
Nolan, and others, take issue with the sticker’s design.
“I would have appreciated something more subtle, yet still recognizable — a logo, perhaps, not a gun,” she said.
“You can’t look at this (sticker) and not think about Sandy Hook,” she said, referring to the 2012 school shooting in Newton, Conn., in which 20 children and six teachers were killed....
'Men are failing us,' says woman planning demonstration
...Women across the city are having similar conversations with themselves lately, as Philadelphia reels from yet another senseless purse snatching/homicide. The latest happened early Sunday as two women left the Tropical Heat nightclub at 53rd and Market streets following a night of karaoke. Two men in hooded sweatshirts confronted the women about 2:35 a.m., took their handbags, then opened fire, killing Melissa Thomas, 29, and injuring her friend.
All because of a damn handbag.
"She gave it up and she still was killed," said Sanchez, 40, an administrative assistant. "It's 2:40 in the morning. She's just coming out of the bar. At 2-something in the morning, they probably didn't have that much cash on them.
"Where are our men? Why are they not protecting us?" Sanchez continued, her voice full of frustration. "Men are failing us. I feel as though we are not being protected."...
These people can vote: In retrospect to the 85,000, reformism and other things
When men view our blogs in such large numbers, it’s a threat. They’re not just looking at it, they view it with the intent of harming radical feminists and women in general. They do it to collect information so they know what next to do to prevent women from going there. They batter radfem work in public for all women to see and show the result of their verbal and written battering as an example of what will await women if they do, think or say the same. They write nasty and threatening comments, that in order to trash, I have to read at least a few words of. Even though it doesn’t hurt my feelings, they are still harmful and inevitably affect my thoughts.
85,000, that’s the maximum number of views I had in one day a couple of weeks ago when the liberals and MRAs circulated my PIV blogpost for punishment. Unlike a normal blogger, attracting 85,000 hits isn’t something I want to celebrate. It’s threatening: you know they’re after you, it only means you’ve hit men’s radar and you have no idea what they plan to do....
...Women across the city are having similar conversations with themselves lately, as Philadelphia reels from yet another senseless purse snatching/homicide. The latest happened early Sunday as two women left the Tropical Heat nightclub at 53rd and Market streets following a night of karaoke. Two men in hooded sweatshirts confronted the women about 2:35 a.m., took their handbags, then opened fire, killing Melissa Thomas, 29, and injuring her friend.
All because of a damn handbag.
"She gave it up and she still was killed," said Sanchez, 40, an administrative assistant. "It's 2:40 in the morning. She's just coming out of the bar. At 2-something in the morning, they probably didn't have that much cash on them.
"Where are our men? Why are they not protecting us?" Sanchez continued, her voice full of frustration. "Men are failing us. I feel as though we are not being protected."...
These people can vote: In retrospect to the 85,000, reformism and other things
When men view our blogs in such large numbers, it’s a threat. They’re not just looking at it, they view it with the intent of harming radical feminists and women in general. They do it to collect information so they know what next to do to prevent women from going there. They batter radfem work in public for all women to see and show the result of their verbal and written battering as an example of what will await women if they do, think or say the same. They write nasty and threatening comments, that in order to trash, I have to read at least a few words of. Even though it doesn’t hurt my feelings, they are still harmful and inevitably affect my thoughts.
85,000, that’s the maximum number of views I had in one day a couple of weeks ago when the liberals and MRAs circulated my PIV blogpost for punishment. Unlike a normal blogger, attracting 85,000 hits isn’t something I want to celebrate. It’s threatening: you know they’re after you, it only means you’ve hit men’s radar and you have no idea what they plan to do....
Community Organizers Chase Trader Joe’s Out of Portlandia
...After a few months of racially tinged accusations and angry demands, Trader Joe’s decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. “We run neighborhood stores and our approach is simple,” a corporate statement said. “If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe's, we understand, and we won't open the store in question.”
Hours after Trader Joe’s pulled out, PAALF leaders arrived at a previously scheduled press conference trying to process what just happened. The group re-issued demands that the now-cancelled development include affordable housing, mandated jobs based on race, and a small-business slush fund. Instead, the only demand being met is two fallow acres and a lot of anger from the people who actually live nearby....
...After a few months of racially tinged accusations and angry demands, Trader Joe’s decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. “We run neighborhood stores and our approach is simple,” a corporate statement said. “If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe's, we understand, and we won't open the store in question.”
Hours after Trader Joe’s pulled out, PAALF leaders arrived at a previously scheduled press conference trying to process what just happened. The group re-issued demands that the now-cancelled development include affordable housing, mandated jobs based on race, and a small-business slush fund. Instead, the only demand being met is two fallow acres and a lot of anger from the people who actually live nearby....
The Case for Socialized Law
Inequality has bent American justice. Here's a radical way to fix it.
...he idea would be roughly as follows: in criminal cases, we decide what the accused should be able to spend to defend themselves against a given charge—securities fraud, grand theft, manslaughter, etc. No one can spend more, even if she has the money, and those who can’t afford the limit would receive a subsidy for the full amount beyond what they would have spent on their own (say, beyond a certain percentage of their annual salary or net worth). In civil cases, we decide what the plaintiff should be able to spend to pursue an award of a particular amount, or to pursue a particular kind of claim, and what the defendant should be able to spend in response.8 The same subsidies would apply.
Working out the particular amounts would mostly be an empirical question—Big Data can help us figure out what it costs to put together a competent legal team from case to case. But it would no doubt be a messy process that required constant refining and lots of humility. (Bands of permissible spending would probably work better in practice than fixed sums.) Still, what’s important isn’t so much that we get the amounts precisely right from the get-go. It’s not even clear that there’s such a thing as “precisely right” in some abstract sense. What’s important is that we take a critical first step toward making legal rights more equal. In any case, the beauty of the arrangement is that, with the rich and well-connected relying on similar legal resources as the poor and dispossessed, you can bet that any overly strict spending cap will be loosened (and the subsidies raised) soon enough....
...he idea would be roughly as follows: in criminal cases, we decide what the accused should be able to spend to defend themselves against a given charge—securities fraud, grand theft, manslaughter, etc. No one can spend more, even if she has the money, and those who can’t afford the limit would receive a subsidy for the full amount beyond what they would have spent on their own (say, beyond a certain percentage of their annual salary or net worth). In civil cases, we decide what the plaintiff should be able to spend to pursue an award of a particular amount, or to pursue a particular kind of claim, and what the defendant should be able to spend in response.8 The same subsidies would apply.
Working out the particular amounts would mostly be an empirical question—Big Data can help us figure out what it costs to put together a competent legal team from case to case. But it would no doubt be a messy process that required constant refining and lots of humility. (Bands of permissible spending would probably work better in practice than fixed sums.) Still, what’s important isn’t so much that we get the amounts precisely right from the get-go. It’s not even clear that there’s such a thing as “precisely right” in some abstract sense. What’s important is that we take a critical first step toward making legal rights more equal. In any case, the beauty of the arrangement is that, with the rich and well-connected relying on similar legal resources as the poor and dispossessed, you can bet that any overly strict spending cap will be loosened (and the subsidies raised) soon enough....
Labor union officials say Obama betrayed them in health-care rollout
Labor leaders who have spent months lobbying unsuccessfully for special protections under the Affordable Care Act warned this week that the White House’s continued refusal to help is dampening union support for Democratic candidates in this year’s midterm elections.
Leaders of two major unions, including the first to endorse Obama in 2008, said they have been betrayed by an administration that wooed their support for the 2009 legislation with promises to later address the peculiar needs of union-negotiated insurance plans that cover millions of workers....
White House: When you think about it, 2.5 million fewer people working because of ObamaCare is good news
I’m done, guys. If we’ve reached the stage of welfare-state decadence where it’s a selling point for a new entitlement that it discourages able-bodied people from working, there’s no reason to keep going. We’ve lost, decisively.
As a great man once said, remember me as I am — filled with murderous rage....
Labor leaders who have spent months lobbying unsuccessfully for special protections under the Affordable Care Act warned this week that the White House’s continued refusal to help is dampening union support for Democratic candidates in this year’s midterm elections.
Leaders of two major unions, including the first to endorse Obama in 2008, said they have been betrayed by an administration that wooed their support for the 2009 legislation with promises to later address the peculiar needs of union-negotiated insurance plans that cover millions of workers....
White House: When you think about it, 2.5 million fewer people working because of ObamaCare is good news
I’m done, guys. If we’ve reached the stage of welfare-state decadence where it’s a selling point for a new entitlement that it discourages able-bodied people from working, there’s no reason to keep going. We’ve lost, decisively.
As a great man once said, remember me as I am — filled with murderous rage....
Pro-Common Core panelist: ‘The children belong to all of us’
...Reville, a Harvard professor who served as secretary of education under current Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, then bashed federalism and suggested that children are communal property.
“Again, the argument about where it came from I think privileges certain sort of fringe voices about federalism and states’ rights, and things of that nature,” he told CNSNews.
“Why should some towns and cities and states have no standards or low standards and others have extremely high standards when the children belong to all of us?”...
...Reville, a Harvard professor who served as secretary of education under current Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, then bashed federalism and suggested that children are communal property.
“Again, the argument about where it came from I think privileges certain sort of fringe voices about federalism and states’ rights, and things of that nature,” he told CNSNews.
“Why should some towns and cities and states have no standards or low standards and others have extremely high standards when the children belong to all of us?”...
Want to Be C.E.O.? No Flex Time For You…
...Unfortunately, some activist groups cling to the wage gap, insisting that women earn less than men even after controlling for the relevant variables. For example, the AAUW’s "Graduating to a Pay Gap" report classifies "social science" as one college major and reports that, among such majors, women earn only 83 percent of what men earn. Horrifying—until you notice that "social science" includes both “economics” and “sociology.” Economics majors (66 percent male) have a median income of $70,000; for sociology majors (68 percent female) it is $45,000. ...
...Unfortunately, some activist groups cling to the wage gap, insisting that women earn less than men even after controlling for the relevant variables. For example, the AAUW’s "Graduating to a Pay Gap" report classifies "social science" as one college major and reports that, among such majors, women earn only 83 percent of what men earn. Horrifying—until you notice that "social science" includes both “economics” and “sociology.” Economics majors (66 percent male) have a median income of $70,000; for sociology majors (68 percent female) it is $45,000. ...
Investigation IDs IRS Leaker
A House committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-leaning groups has identified the IRS agent who leaked the confidential donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage. NOM’s donor list, contained in a Form 990 Schedule B, which it is required by law to file with the IRS, was obtained in March 2012 by its chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign, and subsequently became the subject of several national news stories that centered on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s donation to the group.
Though the House Ways and Means Committee, which began investigating the scandal in the wake of revelations that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups, has identified the individual who divulged the information as an employee in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, it can’t divulge his name to the public or to NOM. It can’t even confirm when the leak took place, whether the perpetrator was disciplined, or even whether he is still employed by the IRS or the U.S. government. ....
Embattled IRS plans employee bonuses for 2013 work to ‘boost morale’
Citing the need to boost employee morale, the Internal Revenue Service’s new commissioner said Monday that he will pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to agency employees, reversing a decision his predecessor made to save money amid the sequester budget cuts and other belt-tightening last year.
The agency remains under fire for targeting tea party groups, but Commissioner John Koskinen said the bonuses are needed to retain and attract good employees in a time of cutbacks.
“This is money best spent on our existing employees,” he said in an email to agency employees. “The performance award payouts are in recognition of that great work done in very trying circumstances. I firmly believe that this investment in our employees will directly benefit taxpayers and the tax system.”
The move didn’t sit well with congressional critics who have been stupefied by the agency’s targeting of tea party groups and, more recently, proposed rules to crack down on an even broader class of political activities by tax-exempt groups....
A House committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of right-leaning groups has identified the IRS agent who leaked the confidential donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative organization that opposes gay marriage. NOM’s donor list, contained in a Form 990 Schedule B, which it is required by law to file with the IRS, was obtained in March 2012 by its chief political opponent, the Human Rights Campaign, and subsequently became the subject of several national news stories that centered on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s donation to the group.
Though the House Ways and Means Committee, which began investigating the scandal in the wake of revelations that the IRS had inappropriately singled out conservative groups, has identified the individual who divulged the information as an employee in the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division, it can’t divulge his name to the public or to NOM. It can’t even confirm when the leak took place, whether the perpetrator was disciplined, or even whether he is still employed by the IRS or the U.S. government. ....
Embattled IRS plans employee bonuses for 2013 work to ‘boost morale’
Citing the need to boost employee morale, the Internal Revenue Service’s new commissioner said Monday that he will pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to agency employees, reversing a decision his predecessor made to save money amid the sequester budget cuts and other belt-tightening last year.
The agency remains under fire for targeting tea party groups, but Commissioner John Koskinen said the bonuses are needed to retain and attract good employees in a time of cutbacks.
“This is money best spent on our existing employees,” he said in an email to agency employees. “The performance award payouts are in recognition of that great work done in very trying circumstances. I firmly believe that this investment in our employees will directly benefit taxpayers and the tax system.”
The move didn’t sit well with congressional critics who have been stupefied by the agency’s targeting of tea party groups and, more recently, proposed rules to crack down on an even broader class of political activities by tax-exempt groups....
NBC: Communism is “one of history’s pivotal experiments”
It didn’t take long for NBC to offer up all of its credibility in payment to Vladimir Putin in exchange for the television rights to the Sochi Olympics, did it? In its intro to the opening ceremonies — in which Putin’s Russia trotted out a gigantic hammer and sicle to celebrate its nation — NBC called perhaps the bloodiest and most oppressive tyrannies in human history “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments”
A pivotal experiment? Perhaps … in mass murder, subjugation, and paranoia. This “experiment” lasted more than 70 years and it was so “unsuccessful” that its satellites tried repeatedly to depart from it, resulting in brutal crackdowns from Moscow. The West didn’t lift a finger when Russians sent tanks into Hungary in 1956 to put down an end to that part of the “experiment,” nor did they do much in 1968 when the Czechs wanted to call the experiment a failure. Communism was an evil, tyrannical system of both government and economics, not an “experiment” in a lab somewhere....
It didn’t take long for NBC to offer up all of its credibility in payment to Vladimir Putin in exchange for the television rights to the Sochi Olympics, did it? In its intro to the opening ceremonies — in which Putin’s Russia trotted out a gigantic hammer and sicle to celebrate its nation — NBC called perhaps the bloodiest and most oppressive tyrannies in human history “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments”
A pivotal experiment? Perhaps … in mass murder, subjugation, and paranoia. This “experiment” lasted more than 70 years and it was so “unsuccessful” that its satellites tried repeatedly to depart from it, resulting in brutal crackdowns from Moscow. The West didn’t lift a finger when Russians sent tanks into Hungary in 1956 to put down an end to that part of the “experiment,” nor did they do much in 1968 when the Czechs wanted to call the experiment a failure. Communism was an evil, tyrannical system of both government and economics, not an “experiment” in a lab somewhere....
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Water crisis shows the harm of the global warming junk science
...But activists say 97 percent of scientists believe global warming is a threat, as if science were based on a show of hands.
The number comes from a study of 11,944 peer-reviewed articles from 1991 to 2011 by a team led by Professor John Cook of the University of Queensland.
Cook and company found 7,930 (or 66 percent) of the papers had no conclusion one way or another about man-made global warming.
However, Cook reported it as 97 percent because of the papers that had an opinion, 97 percent agreed with him.
Thus 32 percent became 97 percent....
...The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realized that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources - external anyway to their own particular organization," Paltridge wrote.
"The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion."...
...But activists say 97 percent of scientists believe global warming is a threat, as if science were based on a show of hands.
The number comes from a study of 11,944 peer-reviewed articles from 1991 to 2011 by a team led by Professor John Cook of the University of Queensland.
Cook and company found 7,930 (or 66 percent) of the papers had no conclusion one way or another about man-made global warming.
However, Cook reported it as 97 percent because of the papers that had an opinion, 97 percent agreed with him.
Thus 32 percent became 97 percent....
...The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realized that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources - external anyway to their own particular organization," Paltridge wrote.
"The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion."...
In the Name of Love
...There’s little doubt that “do what you love” (DWYL) is now the unofficial work mantra for our time. The problem with DWYL, however, is that it leads not to salvation but to the devaluation of actual work—and more importantly, the dehumanization of the vast majority of laborers.
Superficially, DWYL is an uplifting piece of advice, urging us to ponder what it is we most enjoy doing and then turn that activity into a wage-generating enterprise. But why should our pleasure be for profit? And who is the audience for this dictum?
DWYL is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. According to this way of thinking, labor is not something one does for compensation but is an act of love. If profit doesn’t happen to follow, presumably it is because the worker’s passion and determination were insufficient. Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace....
...One consequence of this isolation is the division that DWYL creates among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive, unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable-work camp are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status, education, society’s racial biases, and political clout, while comprising a small minority of the workforce.
For those forced into unlovable work, it’s a different story. Under the DWYL credo, labor that is done out of motives or needs other than love—which is, in fact, most labor—is erased. As in Jobs’ Stanford speech, unlovable but socially necessary work is banished from our consciousness....
...If we believe that working as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur or a museum publicist or a think-tank acolyte is essential to being true to ourselves, what do we believe about the inner lives and hopes of those who clean hotel rooms and stock shelves at big-box stores? The answer is: nothing...
...“Do what you love” disguises the fact that being able to choose a career primarily for personal reward is a privilege, a sign of socioeconomic class. Even if a self-employed graphic designer had parents who could pay for art school and co-sign a lease for a slick Brooklyn apartment, she can bestow DWYL as career advice upon those covetous of her success....
...There’s little doubt that “do what you love” (DWYL) is now the unofficial work mantra for our time. The problem with DWYL, however, is that it leads not to salvation but to the devaluation of actual work—and more importantly, the dehumanization of the vast majority of laborers.
Superficially, DWYL is an uplifting piece of advice, urging us to ponder what it is we most enjoy doing and then turn that activity into a wage-generating enterprise. But why should our pleasure be for profit? And who is the audience for this dictum?
DWYL is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. According to this way of thinking, labor is not something one does for compensation but is an act of love. If profit doesn’t happen to follow, presumably it is because the worker’s passion and determination were insufficient. Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace....
...One consequence of this isolation is the division that DWYL creates among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative, intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive, unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable-work camp are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status, education, society’s racial biases, and political clout, while comprising a small minority of the workforce.
For those forced into unlovable work, it’s a different story. Under the DWYL credo, labor that is done out of motives or needs other than love—which is, in fact, most labor—is erased. As in Jobs’ Stanford speech, unlovable but socially necessary work is banished from our consciousness....
...If we believe that working as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur or a museum publicist or a think-tank acolyte is essential to being true to ourselves, what do we believe about the inner lives and hopes of those who clean hotel rooms and stock shelves at big-box stores? The answer is: nothing...
...“Do what you love” disguises the fact that being able to choose a career primarily for personal reward is a privilege, a sign of socioeconomic class. Even if a self-employed graphic designer had parents who could pay for art school and co-sign a lease for a slick Brooklyn apartment, she can bestow DWYL as career advice upon those covetous of her success....
The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?
...In short, a focus on quite different priorities is, I submit, one of the reasons the financial fraud cases have not been brought, especially cases against high-level individuals that would take many years, many investigators, and a great deal of expertise to investigate. But a second, and less salutary, reason for not bringing such cases is the government’s own involvement in the underlying circumstances that led to the financial crisis.
On the one hand, the government, writ large, had a part in creating the conditions that encouraged the approval of dubious mortgages. Even before the start of the housing boom, it was the government, in the form of Congress, that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, thus allowing certain banks that had previously viewed mortgages as a source of interest income to become instead deeply involved in securitizing pools of mortgages in order to obtain the much greater profits available from trading. It was the government, in the form of both the executive and the legislature, that encouraged deregulation, thus weakening the power and oversight not only of the SEC but also of such diverse banking overseers as the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, both in the Treasury Department. It was the government, in the form of the Federal Reserve, that kept interest rates low, in part to encourage mortgages. It was the government, in the form of the executive, that strongly encouraged banks to make loans to individuals with low incomes who might have previously been regarded as too risky to warrant a mortgage.
Thus, in the year 2000, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo increased to 50 percent the percentage of low-income mortgages that the government-sponsored entities known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were required to purchase, helping to create the conditions that resulted in over half of all mortgages being subprime at the time the housing market began to collapse in 2007.
It was the government, pretty much across the board, that acquiesced in the ever-greater tendency not to require meaningful documentation as a condition of obtaining a mortgage, often preempting in this regard state regulations designed to assure greater mortgage quality and a borrower’s ability to repay. Indeed, in the year 2000, the Office of Thrift Supervision, having just finished a successful campaign to preempt state regulation of thrift underwriting, terminated its own underwriting regulations entirely.
The result of all this was the mortgages that later became known as “liars’ loans.” They were increasingly risky; but what did the banks care, since they were making their money from the securitizations. And what did the government care, since it was helping to create a boom in the economy and helping voters to realize their dream of owning a home?
Moreover, the government was also deeply enmeshed in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It was the government that proposed the shotgun marriages of, among others, Bank of America with Merrill Lynch, and of J.P. Morgan with Bear Stearns. If, in the process, mistakes were made and liabilities not disclosed, was it not partly the government’s fault? One does not necessarily have to adopt the view of Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general in charge of oversight of TARP, that regulators made almost no effort to hold accountable the financial institutions they were bailing out, to wonder whether the government, having helped create the conditions that led to the seeming widespread fraud in the mortgage-backed securities market, was all too ready to forgive its alleged perpetrators....
...In short, a focus on quite different priorities is, I submit, one of the reasons the financial fraud cases have not been brought, especially cases against high-level individuals that would take many years, many investigators, and a great deal of expertise to investigate. But a second, and less salutary, reason for not bringing such cases is the government’s own involvement in the underlying circumstances that led to the financial crisis.
On the one hand, the government, writ large, had a part in creating the conditions that encouraged the approval of dubious mortgages. Even before the start of the housing boom, it was the government, in the form of Congress, that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, thus allowing certain banks that had previously viewed mortgages as a source of interest income to become instead deeply involved in securitizing pools of mortgages in order to obtain the much greater profits available from trading. It was the government, in the form of both the executive and the legislature, that encouraged deregulation, thus weakening the power and oversight not only of the SEC but also of such diverse banking overseers as the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, both in the Treasury Department. It was the government, in the form of the Federal Reserve, that kept interest rates low, in part to encourage mortgages. It was the government, in the form of the executive, that strongly encouraged banks to make loans to individuals with low incomes who might have previously been regarded as too risky to warrant a mortgage.
Thus, in the year 2000, HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo increased to 50 percent the percentage of low-income mortgages that the government-sponsored entities known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were required to purchase, helping to create the conditions that resulted in over half of all mortgages being subprime at the time the housing market began to collapse in 2007.
It was the government, pretty much across the board, that acquiesced in the ever-greater tendency not to require meaningful documentation as a condition of obtaining a mortgage, often preempting in this regard state regulations designed to assure greater mortgage quality and a borrower’s ability to repay. Indeed, in the year 2000, the Office of Thrift Supervision, having just finished a successful campaign to preempt state regulation of thrift underwriting, terminated its own underwriting regulations entirely.
The result of all this was the mortgages that later became known as “liars’ loans.” They were increasingly risky; but what did the banks care, since they were making their money from the securitizations. And what did the government care, since it was helping to create a boom in the economy and helping voters to realize their dream of owning a home?
Moreover, the government was also deeply enmeshed in the aftermath of the financial crisis. It was the government that proposed the shotgun marriages of, among others, Bank of America with Merrill Lynch, and of J.P. Morgan with Bear Stearns. If, in the process, mistakes were made and liabilities not disclosed, was it not partly the government’s fault? One does not necessarily have to adopt the view of Neil Barofsky, former special inspector general in charge of oversight of TARP, that regulators made almost no effort to hold accountable the financial institutions they were bailing out, to wonder whether the government, having helped create the conditions that led to the seeming widespread fraud in the mortgage-backed securities market, was all too ready to forgive its alleged perpetrators....
The great LED lightbulb rip-off: One in four expensive 'long-life' bulbs doesn't last anything like as long as the makers claim
Many energy-efficient LED light bulbs failed before their advertised lifespan, tests have found.
Some did not even reach the EU’s new minimum of 6,000 hours which comes into force in March.
LED bulbs from Ikea and Technical Consumer Products (TCP) performed worst, according to Which?
The consumer watchdog and European partners tested five samples of 46 types of bulb. New EU regulations say that from March 1, 90 per cent of any batch of LED (light emitting diode) bulbs should last at least 6,000 hours.
The bulbs were switched on for 165 minutes, then switched off for 15 minutes, in a continuous cycle until they failed.
Five types of bulb, some costing more than £10, stopped working before 6,000 hours in the majority of samples tested....
Many energy-efficient LED light bulbs failed before their advertised lifespan, tests have found.
Some did not even reach the EU’s new minimum of 6,000 hours which comes into force in March.
LED bulbs from Ikea and Technical Consumer Products (TCP) performed worst, according to Which?
The consumer watchdog and European partners tested five samples of 46 types of bulb. New EU regulations say that from March 1, 90 per cent of any batch of LED (light emitting diode) bulbs should last at least 6,000 hours.
The bulbs were switched on for 165 minutes, then switched off for 15 minutes, in a continuous cycle until they failed.
Five types of bulb, some costing more than £10, stopped working before 6,000 hours in the majority of samples tested....
The Left Talks a Great Deal About the Evils of Income Inequality, But Is Very Happy to Perpetuate a Regime of Social Inequality
...Not an ordinary love story. But then these are not ordinary lovers. He is Sam Kass, executive director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move health initiative, senior policy adviser for nutrition policy, and food initiative coordinator in Barack Obama’s White House. She is Alex Wagner, host of “Now with Alex Wagner” on MSNBC, weekdays at 4 p.m. Kass’s friend is Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com, a political analyst for MSNBC, and the author of Renegade: The Making of the President, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House, and The Message: The Reselling of President Obama. The shindig where the couple started talking was MSNBC’s annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner after-party, the invitation-only event where Rachel Maddow mixes cocktails to demonstrate her working girl credentials. The bar where Kass and Wagner had drinks was Monkey Bar, in midtown Manhattan, where you can pair a $17 glass of Sauvignon Blanc with a $26 organic chicken paillard. They are planning a summer wedding....
... And it's important to note that this isn't just about politics for Wagner, or any other members of the New Class. It is standard human behavior to exploit one's competitive advantages to the fullest, while simultaneously working to undermine or reduce one's rivals' competitive advantages. People like Alex Wagner are filthy rich in social capital, but only very very comfortable when it comes to income. I mean, they just barely crack the lower levels of the upper class. They're not really rich, you know. (One wag noted that the media defines unnecessary wealth (which should be subject to confiscatory tax rates) as "one dollar more than a double-income marital team with top jobs in the media field could conceivably earn by age 45.")
Other people are richer in income, which gives them certain advantages-- the houses, the Caribbean getaways, the corporate jets (hey... they talk a lot about those!). The New Class doesn't like the truly wealthy having those advantages -- they want all advantages to come from educational and social capital, you know, the thing they have -- and so seek to reduce the rich's income while, noticeably, never so much as acknowledging about their own very significant, unfair competitive advantages.
Why, it's totally unfair that some rumpled-and-déclassé - hedge fund manager should be able to just swagger his way past the line at Nobu and get a table immediately, just because he's so rich and spends a ton.
That sort of privilege should be restricted to the truly worthy -- you know, people on TV, people that Vogue writes about. People that Jacob Weisberg is friends with and finds fashionable.
...Not an ordinary love story. But then these are not ordinary lovers. He is Sam Kass, executive director of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move health initiative, senior policy adviser for nutrition policy, and food initiative coordinator in Barack Obama’s White House. She is Alex Wagner, host of “Now with Alex Wagner” on MSNBC, weekdays at 4 p.m. Kass’s friend is Richard Wolffe, the executive editor of MSNBC.com, a political analyst for MSNBC, and the author of Renegade: The Making of the President, Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House, and The Message: The Reselling of President Obama. The shindig where the couple started talking was MSNBC’s annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner after-party, the invitation-only event where Rachel Maddow mixes cocktails to demonstrate her working girl credentials. The bar where Kass and Wagner had drinks was Monkey Bar, in midtown Manhattan, where you can pair a $17 glass of Sauvignon Blanc with a $26 organic chicken paillard. They are planning a summer wedding....
... And it's important to note that this isn't just about politics for Wagner, or any other members of the New Class. It is standard human behavior to exploit one's competitive advantages to the fullest, while simultaneously working to undermine or reduce one's rivals' competitive advantages. People like Alex Wagner are filthy rich in social capital, but only very very comfortable when it comes to income. I mean, they just barely crack the lower levels of the upper class. They're not really rich, you know. (One wag noted that the media defines unnecessary wealth (which should be subject to confiscatory tax rates) as "one dollar more than a double-income marital team with top jobs in the media field could conceivably earn by age 45.")
Other people are richer in income, which gives them certain advantages-- the houses, the Caribbean getaways, the corporate jets (hey... they talk a lot about those!). The New Class doesn't like the truly wealthy having those advantages -- they want all advantages to come from educational and social capital, you know, the thing they have -- and so seek to reduce the rich's income while, noticeably, never so much as acknowledging about their own very significant, unfair competitive advantages.
Why, it's totally unfair that some rumpled-and-déclassé - hedge fund manager should be able to just swagger his way past the line at Nobu and get a table immediately, just because he's so rich and spends a ton.
That sort of privilege should be restricted to the truly worthy -- you know, people on TV, people that Vogue writes about. People that Jacob Weisberg is friends with and finds fashionable.
NSA Reportedly Spied on Other Countries at Climate Conference
Developing countries have reacted angrily to revelations that the United States spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored communication between key countries before and during the conference to give their negotiators advance information about other positions at the high-profile meeting where world leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change.
Jairam Ramesh, the then Indian environment minister and a key player in the talks that involved 192 countries and 110 heads of state, said: "Why the hell did they do this and at the end of this, what did they get out of Copenhagen? They got some outcome but certainly not the outcome they wanted. It was completely silly of them. First of all, they didn't get what they wanted. With all their hi-tech gizmos and all their snooping, ultimately the Basic countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] bailed Obama out. With all their snooping what did they get?"...
Developing countries have reacted angrily to revelations that the United States spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored communication between key countries before and during the conference to give their negotiators advance information about other positions at the high-profile meeting where world leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change.
Jairam Ramesh, the then Indian environment minister and a key player in the talks that involved 192 countries and 110 heads of state, said: "Why the hell did they do this and at the end of this, what did they get out of Copenhagen? They got some outcome but certainly not the outcome they wanted. It was completely silly of them. First of all, they didn't get what they wanted. With all their hi-tech gizmos and all their snooping, ultimately the Basic countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] bailed Obama out. With all their snooping what did they get?"...
Obama's Weaponization of Government
...There are the new revelations about the Administration intimidating banks to prevent them from doing business with a number of legitimate businesses. The until recently covert Operation Choke Point administered through the Departments of Justice and Treasury is already having an impact on the financial industry and other legitimate businesses the Administration is targeting. According to the Wall Street Journal, J.P. Morgan , has been forced to cut ties with thousands of customers in the last year. Sources indicate that out of fear of government scrutiny, the bank is ending relationships with customers even if there isn’t any sign that the customer has done anything wrong. Other major banks have stopped offering certain popular, legal products or services because of government pressure.
Documents inadvertently leaked by the Department of the Treasury from a briefing on Operation Choke Point clearly show that the Administration is looking to significantly impact legal businesses because it believes the public needs to be protected from industries and customers deemed more likely to engage in criminal activity. According to the Administration, those industries interestingly include ammunition sales, gun sales, home-based charities, gambling, pharmaceutical sales, short-term loans, raffles, Amway and Mary Kay-style sales businesses, and credit repair services.
The Administration is refusing to answer any Congressional inquiries about Operation Choke Point.
Then there’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, once headed by Elizabeth Warren, also now a key cog in the Obama Administration’s effort to regulate industries and personal decision-making. The CPFB is rapidly becoming, next to the Justice Department, the Administration’s agency of choice for extending the reach of government into our daily lives and stretching the limits of the law. Unfortunately for Americans, this little-known agency is housed as part of the Federal Reserve so it exists outside of the direct pervue of Congress. How convenient for the President.
As the Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollack recently reported, “they assume all businesses are predatory,” which allegedly gives them the ability to collect up to 96 separate data points from more than 1 billion credit cards. That’s right – your government is now keeping tabs on how you spend your money.
Congress has asked CFPB questions about the consumer “snooping” program and has been given little in response. The head of CFPB Richard Cordray did however inform Members of Congress that Americans cannot opt out or prevent this personal data collection. That leaves us with the question – “Who’s going to protect us from the CFPB?”...
...There are the new revelations about the Administration intimidating banks to prevent them from doing business with a number of legitimate businesses. The until recently covert Operation Choke Point administered through the Departments of Justice and Treasury is already having an impact on the financial industry and other legitimate businesses the Administration is targeting. According to the Wall Street Journal, J.P. Morgan , has been forced to cut ties with thousands of customers in the last year. Sources indicate that out of fear of government scrutiny, the bank is ending relationships with customers even if there isn’t any sign that the customer has done anything wrong. Other major banks have stopped offering certain popular, legal products or services because of government pressure.
Documents inadvertently leaked by the Department of the Treasury from a briefing on Operation Choke Point clearly show that the Administration is looking to significantly impact legal businesses because it believes the public needs to be protected from industries and customers deemed more likely to engage in criminal activity. According to the Administration, those industries interestingly include ammunition sales, gun sales, home-based charities, gambling, pharmaceutical sales, short-term loans, raffles, Amway and Mary Kay-style sales businesses, and credit repair services.
The Administration is refusing to answer any Congressional inquiries about Operation Choke Point.
Then there’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, once headed by Elizabeth Warren, also now a key cog in the Obama Administration’s effort to regulate industries and personal decision-making. The CPFB is rapidly becoming, next to the Justice Department, the Administration’s agency of choice for extending the reach of government into our daily lives and stretching the limits of the law. Unfortunately for Americans, this little-known agency is housed as part of the Federal Reserve so it exists outside of the direct pervue of Congress. How convenient for the President.
As the Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollack recently reported, “they assume all businesses are predatory,” which allegedly gives them the ability to collect up to 96 separate data points from more than 1 billion credit cards. That’s right – your government is now keeping tabs on how you spend your money.
Congress has asked CFPB questions about the consumer “snooping” program and has been given little in response. The head of CFPB Richard Cordray did however inform Members of Congress that Americans cannot opt out or prevent this personal data collection. That leaves us with the question – “Who’s going to protect us from the CFPB?”...
Federal Agency Data-Mining Hundreds of Millions of Credit Card Accounts
..."Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are conducting a massive, NSA-esque data-mining project collecting account information on an estimated 991 million American credit card accounts. It was also learned at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that CFPB officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on a second data-mining effort, this one focused on the 53 million residential mortgages taken out by Americans since 1998. ...Later in the hearing, [Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas] remarked that CFPB 'and NSA are in a contest of who can collect the most information,' ... although the CFPB disagreed with that statement. In previous testimony before Rep. Jeb Hensarling's panel, Antonakes said 'the combined data represents approximately 85-90 percent of outstanding card balances.' The Argus contract specifies that the company must collect 96 'data points' from each of the participating card issuers for each credit card account on a monthly basis. The 96 data points include a unique card-account identification reference number, ZIP code, monthly ending balance, borrower's income, FICO score, credit limit, monthly payment amount, and days past due. 'Would you object to getting permission from consumers, those people who you work for, before you collect and monitor their information?' Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., asked Cordray. 'That would make it impossible to get the data,' Cordray replied."...
..."Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are conducting a massive, NSA-esque data-mining project collecting account information on an estimated 991 million American credit card accounts. It was also learned at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that CFPB officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on a second data-mining effort, this one focused on the 53 million residential mortgages taken out by Americans since 1998. ...Later in the hearing, [Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas] remarked that CFPB 'and NSA are in a contest of who can collect the most information,' ... although the CFPB disagreed with that statement. In previous testimony before Rep. Jeb Hensarling's panel, Antonakes said 'the combined data represents approximately 85-90 percent of outstanding card balances.' The Argus contract specifies that the company must collect 96 'data points' from each of the participating card issuers for each credit card account on a monthly basis. The 96 data points include a unique card-account identification reference number, ZIP code, monthly ending balance, borrower's income, FICO score, credit limit, monthly payment amount, and days past due. 'Would you object to getting permission from consumers, those people who you work for, before you collect and monitor their information?' Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., asked Cordray. 'That would make it impossible to get the data,' Cordray replied."...
How police could soon be able to turn cars off remotely 'at the flick of a switch' under secret new EU plans
A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today.
Leaked paperwork has revealed the 'remote stopping' technology could be activated by a switch in a control room, shutting off the fuel and cutting the ignition.
The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it.
The plans were immediately labelled as 'draconian' by critics, who questioned whether the Government would be liable if remote kill-switches caused collisions...
A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today.
Leaked paperwork has revealed the 'remote stopping' technology could be activated by a switch in a control room, shutting off the fuel and cutting the ignition.
The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it.
The plans were immediately labelled as 'draconian' by critics, who questioned whether the Government would be liable if remote kill-switches caused collisions...
The myth of the gender wage gap
...President Obama repeated the spurious gender wage gap statistic in his State of the Union address. “Today,” he said, “women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.”
What is wrong and embarrassing is the President of the United States reciting a massively discredited factoid. The 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. When all these relevant factors are taken into consideration, the wage gap narrows to about five cents. And no one knows if the five cents is a result of discrimination or some other subtle, hard-to-measure difference between male and female workers. In its fact-checking column on the State of the Union, the Washington Post included the president’s mention of the wage gap in its list of dubious claims. “There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women… make it difficult to make simple comparisons.”...
...President Obama repeated the spurious gender wage gap statistic in his State of the Union address. “Today,” he said, “women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.”
What is wrong and embarrassing is the President of the United States reciting a massively discredited factoid. The 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. When all these relevant factors are taken into consideration, the wage gap narrows to about five cents. And no one knows if the five cents is a result of discrimination or some other subtle, hard-to-measure difference between male and female workers. In its fact-checking column on the State of the Union, the Washington Post included the president’s mention of the wage gap in its list of dubious claims. “There is clearly a wage gap, but differences in the life choices of men and women… make it difficult to make simple comparisons.”...
Breaking: New Climate Data Rigging Scandal Rocks US Government
A newly-uncovered and monumental calculating error in official US government climate data shows beyond doubt that climate scientists unjustifiably added on a whopping one degree of phantom warming to the official "raw" temperature record. Skeptics believe the discovery may trigger the biggest of all “climate con” scandals in Congress and sound the death knell on American climate policy.
Independent data analyst, Steven Goddard, today (January 19, 2014) released his telling study of the officially adjusted and “homogenized” US temperature records relied upon by NASA, NOAA, USHCN and scientists around the world to “prove” our climate has been warming dangerously.
Goddard reports, “I spent the evening comparing graphs…and hit the NOAA motherlode.” His diligent research exposed the real reason why there is a startling disparity between the “raw” thermometer readings, as reported by measuring stations, and the “adjusted” temperatures, those that appear in official charts and government reports. In effect, the adjustments to the “raw” thermometer measurements made by the climate scientists “turns a 90 year cooling trend into a warming trend,” says the astonished Goddard.
Goddard’s plain-as-day evidence not only proves the officially-claimed one-degree increase in temperatures is entirely fictitious, it also discredits the reliability of any assertion by such agencies to possess a reliable and robust temperature record....
A newly-uncovered and monumental calculating error in official US government climate data shows beyond doubt that climate scientists unjustifiably added on a whopping one degree of phantom warming to the official "raw" temperature record. Skeptics believe the discovery may trigger the biggest of all “climate con” scandals in Congress and sound the death knell on American climate policy.
Independent data analyst, Steven Goddard, today (January 19, 2014) released his telling study of the officially adjusted and “homogenized” US temperature records relied upon by NASA, NOAA, USHCN and scientists around the world to “prove” our climate has been warming dangerously.
Goddard reports, “I spent the evening comparing graphs…and hit the NOAA motherlode.” His diligent research exposed the real reason why there is a startling disparity between the “raw” thermometer readings, as reported by measuring stations, and the “adjusted” temperatures, those that appear in official charts and government reports. In effect, the adjustments to the “raw” thermometer measurements made by the climate scientists “turns a 90 year cooling trend into a warming trend,” says the astonished Goddard.
Goddard’s plain-as-day evidence not only proves the officially-claimed one-degree increase in temperatures is entirely fictitious, it also discredits the reliability of any assertion by such agencies to possess a reliable and robust temperature record....
Great Caesar’s Ghost
The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.
It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.
It’s worse than the Oscars....
The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.
It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.
It’s worse than the Oscars....
"The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States of America."
-- Senator Barack Obama, March 31, 2008
-- Senator Barack Obama, March 31, 2008
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