New ObamaCare angst as top insurer threatens to bail
A threat by the nation’s largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry’s growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say.
UnitedHealthcare’s warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers, whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president’s signature law.
In the last month alone, insurers have learned that the Obama administration has significantly lowered its expectations for new customers and will have far fewer federal dollars to help cushion insurer losses....
ObamaCare’s imploding even without repeal
It’s looking like ObamaCare won’t survive even if Congress can’t manage to repeal it.
The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, said last week that it’s losing too much — $425 million — from policies sold on the health exchanges, and may have to pull out by 2017.
The company admits it’s “a potentially huge blow” to the new system: “If a major publicly traded insurer bows out, others may follow and destabilize the entire individual market.”
Game over for ObamaCare?
UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley seems to imply just that: “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”
Mind you, UnitedHealth was a huge backer of the 2009 law. One of its top execs, Andrew Slavitt, then joined the administration to run the health exchanges.
What’s going on here? Basically, the long-feared “death spiral”: Not enough young, healthy folks are signing up for these plans, so insurers are losing money despite the hefty federal subsidies for the coverage. They’re raising premiums to even things out — but that drives even more folks away, so that only older, less-healthy customers remain, driving new losses . . ....
NYT: High Obamacare deductibles make mandated insurance practically useless
...Deductibles in the thousands of dollars are not uncommon. In fact, “in many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more.” Once you add in several hundred dollars per month for your plan premium, a rate that may or may not be lower than it used to be and add in a $3,000 or more deductible, the average individual could be paying over $5,000 out of pocket in a year before their “affordable” insurance kicks in. This is true for employer sponsored plans as well....
Many Obamacare Co-Ops Are Leaving Patients, Doctors In The Cold
...For the moment, New York customers are simply trying to find replacement coverage. But most don’t realize that without guaranty protection, there may be no money to cover their past medical bills.
Patients and medical providers will get “pennies on the dollar,” John Maldonado, president of the Medical Society of New York, told TheDCNF. “What you now have is an absolute fiasco.”
He said many doctors caring for Health Republic patients are not being paid for past medical services, and some have found the co-op’s checks are bouncing.
“As of two weeks ago, I know that two practices that had (Health Republic) checks that bounced,” Maldonado told TheDCNF....
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Here’s An Inside Look At China’s Frightening New Move To Control Social Behavior
...As the name implies, the system holds a score on every citizen and business based on their social behavior. The things you buy and people you socialize with are subject for review. Every word typed and posted on the Internet will decide whether a person is “raising the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society.”...
...As the name implies, the system holds a score on every citizen and business based on their social behavior. The things you buy and people you socialize with are subject for review. Every word typed and posted on the Internet will decide whether a person is “raising the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society.”...
The women who haven't had sex for more than a decade: What it's like to be celibate and why it's all men's fault
...This was certainly true for thrice-divorced Shirley Yanez, 59, who has been celibate for 15 years....
HuffPo: 'I Left My Husband For Him, But He Didn't Return The Favor'
...A year ago, I was THAT mom -- the one who seemed to have it all together, who had it all in some ways: two beautiful boys, a nice home, a good man and father to our kids. I cooked the meals and coordinated professional family photos, planned vacations, sent out Christmas cards, etc. I had a rigid schedule but made time to run and managed to be in decent physical shape.
But something was missing. In my marriage, I felt alone. Why wasn't I happy?...
...He thought my tattoos were cool when my husband did not, we shared an appreciation for swear words, his sweet tooth was just as terrible as mine and we shared a Starbucks addiction. One day, I looked at him in a different light and realized that I loved him as more than a friend. He knew more about me than anyone, made me feel beautiful, embraced my quirkiness... I knew at that moment he was the love of my life and my heart belonged to him. There was a problem: He was married and so was I....
Scalia: Supreme Court Is ‘Liberal,’ Destroying ‘Our Democratic System’
...According to SFGate.com, the conservative judge took particular issue with how some of his fellow justices imagine the country is guided by a “living Constitution.” In Scalia’s opinion, this translates to: “the meaning of this document shall be whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is.”...
...According to SFGate.com, the conservative judge took particular issue with how some of his fellow justices imagine the country is guided by a “living Constitution.” In Scalia’s opinion, this translates to: “the meaning of this document shall be whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is.”...
Scientists cheering for NOAA chief to not be “bullied” into showing their work on climate data
...But on a far more basic level, we’re talking about the scientific process here. Since when is the process for critically examining data and arriving at substantive conclusions some sort of clandestine, secret process? We’re not talking about an agency that’s guarding sensitive national security secrets. This is allegedly science. The entire concept of solid research involves extensive peer reviews where other experts can put your theories and conclusions to the test and see if they can either replicate or repudiate your results. What do these scientists have to hide from the public even if they weren’t being funded on the taxpayer’s dime?...
...But on a far more basic level, we’re talking about the scientific process here. Since when is the process for critically examining data and arriving at substantive conclusions some sort of clandestine, secret process? We’re not talking about an agency that’s guarding sensitive national security secrets. This is allegedly science. The entire concept of solid research involves extensive peer reviews where other experts can put your theories and conclusions to the test and see if they can either replicate or repudiate your results. What do these scientists have to hide from the public even if they weren’t being funded on the taxpayer’s dime?...
Sunday, November 08, 2015
NOAA withholds climate documents from Congress
...“Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee,” the agency told Nature. “It is a long-standing practice in the scientific community to protect the confidentiality of deliberative scientific discussions.”...
Global Warming Activists Don’t Like When Someone Follows The Money
...In the case of Al Gore, prominently featured in the video, the former vice president has levied his global warming activism from a net worth of $700,000 in 2000 into an estimated net worth of $172.5 million by 2015. He’s not alone in his financial endeavor....
...Studies that receive financial support from the public sector don’t have to disclose it as a conflict of interest, even when that support is in the millions of dollars. Recent studies that the Environmental Protection Agency is using to support the scientific case for its Clean Power Plan saw the EPA itself give $31.2 million, $9.5 million, and $3.65 million in public funds to lead authors according to EPA public disclosures.
The author who received $3.65 million, Charles Driscoll, even admitted to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the result of his study was predetermined, saying “in doing this study we wanted to bring attention to the additional benefits from carbon controls.”
Universities typically received about 50 percent of the money that their researchers get in public funds if their research finds positive results, making them deeply dependent upon federal funding and likely to encourage studies which will come to conclusions that the government wants.
Even counting only private money, environmental groups massively outspend their opposition. Opposition to global warming activism only raises $46 million annually across 91 conservative think tanks according to analysis by Forbes. That’s almost 6 times less than Greenpeace’s 2011 budget of $260 million, and Greenpeace is only one of many environmental groups. The undeniable truth is that global warming activists raise and spend far more money than their opponents....
...“Because the confidentiality of these communications among scientists is essential to frank discourse among scientists, those documents were not provided to the Committee,” the agency told Nature. “It is a long-standing practice in the scientific community to protect the confidentiality of deliberative scientific discussions.”...
Global Warming Activists Don’t Like When Someone Follows The Money
...In the case of Al Gore, prominently featured in the video, the former vice president has levied his global warming activism from a net worth of $700,000 in 2000 into an estimated net worth of $172.5 million by 2015. He’s not alone in his financial endeavor....
...Studies that receive financial support from the public sector don’t have to disclose it as a conflict of interest, even when that support is in the millions of dollars. Recent studies that the Environmental Protection Agency is using to support the scientific case for its Clean Power Plan saw the EPA itself give $31.2 million, $9.5 million, and $3.65 million in public funds to lead authors according to EPA public disclosures.
The author who received $3.65 million, Charles Driscoll, even admitted to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the result of his study was predetermined, saying “in doing this study we wanted to bring attention to the additional benefits from carbon controls.”
Universities typically received about 50 percent of the money that their researchers get in public funds if their research finds positive results, making them deeply dependent upon federal funding and likely to encourage studies which will come to conclusions that the government wants.
Even counting only private money, environmental groups massively outspend their opposition. Opposition to global warming activism only raises $46 million annually across 91 conservative think tanks according to analysis by Forbes. That’s almost 6 times less than Greenpeace’s 2011 budget of $260 million, and Greenpeace is only one of many environmental groups. The undeniable truth is that global warming activists raise and spend far more money than their opponents....
Obamacare Premiums To Soar 3 Times Faster Than Feds Claim
Obamacare premium costs will soar 20.3 percent on average in 2016 instead of the 7.5 percent increase claimed by federal officials, according to an analysis by The Daily Caller News Foundation....
Did New York’s Obamacare Co-op Deliberately Mislead Regulators?
Insurance regulators said Friday the financial condition of Health Republic of New York, the largest of 23 health insurance co-ops established by a $2.4 billion Obamacare program, is “substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings.”...
The Maggie Simpson delusion: the NHS is not ‘ours’
...Dear NHS worshippers, sorry to be a killjoy, but look, the NHS is not ‘yours’, and never has been. You have no control over it. You feel like you are in control when you spin your little toy wheel, but try steering the car in any direction other than the one where it is already heading, and see what happens. The ones who really drive the car are the political class and the medical establishment. ‘Democratic accountability’ is a mirage. All it really means is that healthcare managers answer to bureaucrats, who answer to other bureaucrats, who also answer to other bureaucrats, who, after some more detours, answer to some politician. That’s democratic accountability. Feel powerful now?
Accountability through the political system is about the weakest form of accountability one could imagine, and in healthcare it is even weaker than in other areas. We can go to the ballot box every five years or so, but we do not vote specifically on healthcare policies, we vote for jumbo policy packages of which healthcare is but a small part. More importantly, even if healthcare was the decisive issue for an election outcome, it would still only give us control over macro variables. We can vote for a party that credibly promises to deliver the kind of healthcare policy we support, but there is only so much of a connection between those system-level decisions and our actual experience of healthcare delivery on the ground....
ObamaCare premiums soar 60% in Mississippi
...The state already is near the bottom when it comes to the percentage of the subsidy-eligible individuals who are enrolled via HealthCare.gov — just 38%. Now Mississippi’s subsidized premiums are about to jump far more than any of the 36 other states using HealthCare.gov.
For 30-year-olds in Yazoo City earning about $25,000 (214% of the poverty level), the after-subsidy cost of the cheapest bronze plan will spike by $554, or 60%, in 2016....
Feds Hide Secret List Of 11 Staggering Obamacare Insurers
Federal officials have a secret list of 11 Obamacare health insurance co-ops they fear are on the verge of failure, but they refuse to disclose them to the public or to Congress, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has learned.
Just in the last three weeks, five of the original 24 Obamacare co-ops announced plans to close, bringing the total of failures to eight barely two years after their launch with $2 billion in start-up capital from the taxpayers under the Affordable Care Act.
All 24 received 15-year loans in varying amounts to offer health insurance to poor and low income customers and provide publicly funded competition to private, for-profit insurers. The eight co-ops to announce closings served populations in ten states: Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado.
Nearly half a million failing co-op customers will have to find new coverage in 2016. More than $900 million of the original $2 billion in loans has been lost....
ObamaCare is entering its dreaded 'death spiral'
The Obama administration is having trouble selling insurance plans to healthy people. That’s a big problem: When the young and healthy don’t enroll, premiums have to be hiked to cover the costs of older, sicker people, discouraging even more young people from signing up.
Last Thursday, the administration predicted enrollment for 2016 will be less than half what the Congressional Budget Office predicted in March.
Despite subsidies to help with premiums and out-of-pocket costs, most of the uninsured who are eligible for ObamaCare are saying “no thanks.” Only one in seven is expected to sign up. That’s despite a hefty increase in the financial penalty next year for not having insurance.
The president sees the writing on the wall. You won’t be seeing the customary nationwide TV campaign to encourage sign-ups, as there were in previous years. Remember the young guy in plaid pajamas — “Pajama Boy,” to conservatives — well, he won’t be back this winter.
Bad enough that healthy people aren’t buying. Worse is that the administration is spending billions of your tax dollars covering up the problem, paying insurers to keep offering the plans, even though they’re losing their shirts. But facts are facts — and there’s no hiding these.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell predicts ObamaCare enrollment will inch up by 1 million or so, to 10 million people — half what the CBO forecasted. Open enrollment for the coming year, which begins Nov. 1, “is going to be a challenge,” she said....
Obamacare premium costs will soar 20.3 percent on average in 2016 instead of the 7.5 percent increase claimed by federal officials, according to an analysis by The Daily Caller News Foundation....
Did New York’s Obamacare Co-op Deliberately Mislead Regulators?
Insurance regulators said Friday the financial condition of Health Republic of New York, the largest of 23 health insurance co-ops established by a $2.4 billion Obamacare program, is “substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings.”...
The Maggie Simpson delusion: the NHS is not ‘ours’
...Dear NHS worshippers, sorry to be a killjoy, but look, the NHS is not ‘yours’, and never has been. You have no control over it. You feel like you are in control when you spin your little toy wheel, but try steering the car in any direction other than the one where it is already heading, and see what happens. The ones who really drive the car are the political class and the medical establishment. ‘Democratic accountability’ is a mirage. All it really means is that healthcare managers answer to bureaucrats, who answer to other bureaucrats, who also answer to other bureaucrats, who, after some more detours, answer to some politician. That’s democratic accountability. Feel powerful now?
Accountability through the political system is about the weakest form of accountability one could imagine, and in healthcare it is even weaker than in other areas. We can go to the ballot box every five years or so, but we do not vote specifically on healthcare policies, we vote for jumbo policy packages of which healthcare is but a small part. More importantly, even if healthcare was the decisive issue for an election outcome, it would still only give us control over macro variables. We can vote for a party that credibly promises to deliver the kind of healthcare policy we support, but there is only so much of a connection between those system-level decisions and our actual experience of healthcare delivery on the ground....
ObamaCare premiums soar 60% in Mississippi
...The state already is near the bottom when it comes to the percentage of the subsidy-eligible individuals who are enrolled via HealthCare.gov — just 38%. Now Mississippi’s subsidized premiums are about to jump far more than any of the 36 other states using HealthCare.gov.
For 30-year-olds in Yazoo City earning about $25,000 (214% of the poverty level), the after-subsidy cost of the cheapest bronze plan will spike by $554, or 60%, in 2016....
Feds Hide Secret List Of 11 Staggering Obamacare Insurers
Federal officials have a secret list of 11 Obamacare health insurance co-ops they fear are on the verge of failure, but they refuse to disclose them to the public or to Congress, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has learned.
Just in the last three weeks, five of the original 24 Obamacare co-ops announced plans to close, bringing the total of failures to eight barely two years after their launch with $2 billion in start-up capital from the taxpayers under the Affordable Care Act.
All 24 received 15-year loans in varying amounts to offer health insurance to poor and low income customers and provide publicly funded competition to private, for-profit insurers. The eight co-ops to announce closings served populations in ten states: Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado.
Nearly half a million failing co-op customers will have to find new coverage in 2016. More than $900 million of the original $2 billion in loans has been lost....
ObamaCare is entering its dreaded 'death spiral'
The Obama administration is having trouble selling insurance plans to healthy people. That’s a big problem: When the young and healthy don’t enroll, premiums have to be hiked to cover the costs of older, sicker people, discouraging even more young people from signing up.
Last Thursday, the administration predicted enrollment for 2016 will be less than half what the Congressional Budget Office predicted in March.
Despite subsidies to help with premiums and out-of-pocket costs, most of the uninsured who are eligible for ObamaCare are saying “no thanks.” Only one in seven is expected to sign up. That’s despite a hefty increase in the financial penalty next year for not having insurance.
The president sees the writing on the wall. You won’t be seeing the customary nationwide TV campaign to encourage sign-ups, as there were in previous years. Remember the young guy in plaid pajamas — “Pajama Boy,” to conservatives — well, he won’t be back this winter.
Bad enough that healthy people aren’t buying. Worse is that the administration is spending billions of your tax dollars covering up the problem, paying insurers to keep offering the plans, even though they’re losing their shirts. But facts are facts — and there’s no hiding these.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell predicts ObamaCare enrollment will inch up by 1 million or so, to 10 million people — half what the CBO forecasted. Open enrollment for the coming year, which begins Nov. 1, “is going to be a challenge,” she said....
The Public Sector: Standing in Our Way until We Pay Up
...The problem with the standover business model, obviously, is the same as the problem of scorched-earth banditry: It drives away exactly the sort of activity that the criminal needs to make his own living — it’s a crime on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve. For this reason, banditry frequently degenerates into a protection racket, a relatively modest tax on criminal enterprises and non-criminal enterprises alike. Protection rackets have their own challenges: For one thing, you actually do have to provide some protection, mainly from other predators like you. Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in the European context — is that this is where governments come from: protection rackets that survive for a long enough period of time that they take on a patina of legitimacy. At some point, Romulus-and-Remus stories are invented to explain that the local Mafiosi have not only historical roots but divine sanction....
...In reality, we have governments for lots of reasons, most of them illegitimate: That ancient instinct toward banditry is powerful, and the desire to make a living by simply commanding economic resources rather than earning them through trade or labor seems to be a fixed feature of a certain subset of human beings. Patronage and clientelism are very strong forces, too, and government can be used to create public-sector salaries or welfare benefits that are well in excess of the wages that political clients could expect to earn in honest work. In the United States, our swollen public-sector payrolls, particularly at the state and local level, are little more than a supplementary welfare state, providing a more dignified form of public dependency for relatively low-skilled and mainly unenterprising people....
...When it comes to government, if you aren’t involved in the provision of actual public goods, you are involved in extortion. It may be legal. It may have the blessing of the mayor, the city council, and your union representative, but it’s still extortion. And you should be ashamed of yourself. If your only purpose is getting in the way until somebody hands you money, then you are part of a protection racket. And you might want to think about going into a more honorable line of work.
...The problem with the standover business model, obviously, is the same as the problem of scorched-earth banditry: It drives away exactly the sort of activity that the criminal needs to make his own living — it’s a crime on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve. For this reason, banditry frequently degenerates into a protection racket, a relatively modest tax on criminal enterprises and non-criminal enterprises alike. Protection rackets have their own challenges: For one thing, you actually do have to provide some protection, mainly from other predators like you. Over the years, economic success and administrative demands eventually transform bands of roving bandits into bands of stationary bandits. One popular theory of the state — one that is pretty well-supported by the historical evidence in the European context — is that this is where governments come from: protection rackets that survive for a long enough period of time that they take on a patina of legitimacy. At some point, Romulus-and-Remus stories are invented to explain that the local Mafiosi have not only historical roots but divine sanction....
...In reality, we have governments for lots of reasons, most of them illegitimate: That ancient instinct toward banditry is powerful, and the desire to make a living by simply commanding economic resources rather than earning them through trade or labor seems to be a fixed feature of a certain subset of human beings. Patronage and clientelism are very strong forces, too, and government can be used to create public-sector salaries or welfare benefits that are well in excess of the wages that political clients could expect to earn in honest work. In the United States, our swollen public-sector payrolls, particularly at the state and local level, are little more than a supplementary welfare state, providing a more dignified form of public dependency for relatively low-skilled and mainly unenterprising people....
...When it comes to government, if you aren’t involved in the provision of actual public goods, you are involved in extortion. It may be legal. It may have the blessing of the mayor, the city council, and your union representative, but it’s still extortion. And you should be ashamed of yourself. If your only purpose is getting in the way until somebody hands you money, then you are part of a protection racket. And you might want to think about going into a more honorable line of work.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Is there really a ‘war on cops’? The data show that 2015 will likely be one of the safest years in history for police
...According to data available from the “Officer Down Memorial Page” on the annual number of non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities, 2015 is on track to be the safest year for law enforcement in the US since 1887 (except for a slightly safer year in 2013), more than 125 years ago (see top chart above). And adjusted for the country’s growing population, the years 2013 and 2015 will be the two safest years for police in US history (see bottom chart above), measured by the annual number of firearm-related police fatalities per 1 million people....
How Dangerous Is It to Be a Cop? (Redux)
...And no matter how you slice it, police work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities and murders of police have been falling for decades — per resident, per officer, and even in absolute terms....
...The Washington Post’s Wonkblog took a look at that using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data on fatal work injuries. Unfortunately, the BLS only collects data on “patrol officers,” not all police, but even so, policing isn’t even in the top ten most dangerous professions....
...Another way to look at it is to compare homicide rates from around country to the rate for police. Here the comparison is even more striking: it’s safer to be a cop than it is to simply live in many US cities.
It’s hard to estimate the current murder rate for police, but in 2008 (the last time we had good data on the total number of officers), there were 5.2 murders per 100,000 full-time equivalent sworn officers — below the then national average of 5.4 murders per 100,000....
...In 2008, you were 12 times more likely to be killed living in New Orleans than wearing a badge....
...According to data available from the “Officer Down Memorial Page” on the annual number of non-accidental, firearm-related police fatalities, 2015 is on track to be the safest year for law enforcement in the US since 1887 (except for a slightly safer year in 2013), more than 125 years ago (see top chart above). And adjusted for the country’s growing population, the years 2013 and 2015 will be the two safest years for police in US history (see bottom chart above), measured by the annual number of firearm-related police fatalities per 1 million people....
How Dangerous Is It to Be a Cop? (Redux)
...And no matter how you slice it, police work has been getting a lot safer. Fatalities and murders of police have been falling for decades — per resident, per officer, and even in absolute terms....
...The Washington Post’s Wonkblog took a look at that using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data on fatal work injuries. Unfortunately, the BLS only collects data on “patrol officers,” not all police, but even so, policing isn’t even in the top ten most dangerous professions....
...Another way to look at it is to compare homicide rates from around country to the rate for police. Here the comparison is even more striking: it’s safer to be a cop than it is to simply live in many US cities.
It’s hard to estimate the current murder rate for police, but in 2008 (the last time we had good data on the total number of officers), there were 5.2 murders per 100,000 full-time equivalent sworn officers — below the then national average of 5.4 murders per 100,000....
...In 2008, you were 12 times more likely to be killed living in New Orleans than wearing a badge....
‘There’s no stigma’: why so many Danish women are opting to become single mothers
...Rehlsdorph is one of a growing tribe of elective single mothers or “solomor” in Denmark, where one in 10 babies conceived with donor sperm is born to a woman without a partner. “It’s a trend we’ve really seen growing since single women were offered free fertility treatment in 2007,” says Karin Erb, lab director at the fertility unit of Odense University hospital. Researchers collected the personal data of single women undergoing assisted reproduction at public and private clinics for the first time last year. “And, as Denmark has the highest number of births by assisted fertility treatment in the world, these solomor represent a significant number,” says Erb. “Everyone knows someone who’s a solomor or thinking of becoming one.” Sperm banks have also noticed a rise in demand from single, heterosexual women. “Around 50% of our clients are now single,” says Ole Schou, director of Cryos International, the world’s largest sperm bank in Aarhus, Jutland. “We’re seeing an avalanche of educated older women – 85% are aged between 31-45 and half have masters degrees or higher. More and more of them are going it alone and we predict that by 2020, 70% of our clients will be single.”...
...Rehlsdorph is one of a growing tribe of elective single mothers or “solomor” in Denmark, where one in 10 babies conceived with donor sperm is born to a woman without a partner. “It’s a trend we’ve really seen growing since single women were offered free fertility treatment in 2007,” says Karin Erb, lab director at the fertility unit of Odense University hospital. Researchers collected the personal data of single women undergoing assisted reproduction at public and private clinics for the first time last year. “And, as Denmark has the highest number of births by assisted fertility treatment in the world, these solomor represent a significant number,” says Erb. “Everyone knows someone who’s a solomor or thinking of becoming one.” Sperm banks have also noticed a rise in demand from single, heterosexual women. “Around 50% of our clients are now single,” says Ole Schou, director of Cryos International, the world’s largest sperm bank in Aarhus, Jutland. “We’re seeing an avalanche of educated older women – 85% are aged between 31-45 and half have masters degrees or higher. More and more of them are going it alone and we predict that by 2020, 70% of our clients will be single.”...
DON’T MAKE A MORAL MELODRAMA OUT OF THE MIGRANT CRISIS
...Most depressingly of all, the new narrative is explicitly about evading public engagement on this issue. A democratic discussion is the last thing Euro-officials want. But if Europe is to be turned into the new home for dispersed humanity, with hundreds of thousands coming here, surely publics should get to discuss it first? Seems not. After all, ‘public attitudes’ are bad. And so we have Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and EU officials devising quotas for each EU nation, effectively instructing us on how many refugees we must take. This highly undemocratic solution to the refugee crisis shows how utterly distrusted European publics are. Indeed, through the refugee crisis EU officials are seeking to recover their moral authority, which was called into question during the Greek financial crisis of recent months, particularly their authority to impose on nations, and their publics, preordained political set-ups. The pseudo ‘open borders’ approach among European officials is not a genuinely liberal sentiment; it is the latest expression of the EU’s long-term project of weakening national and popular sovereignty and concentrating decision-making on important political matters in the hands of elites, far from ‘public attitudes’.
spiked is about as open borders as you can get. But in Europe right now, there is a bigger problem than border control, and that is the cynical weakening of national borders, and of the popular sovereignty within those national borders, by an EU oligarchy not remotely interested in freedom and autonomy but rather determined to water down democracy itself in the name of allowing small cliques to set quotas, write regulations and determine national destinies. Here is the great tragedy of the refugee crisis: it’s being used to dilute democracy further. And we need democracy so that we might make a real case for freedom of movement, to the public, and win the argument in a meaningful, lasting, liberty-boosting way....
...Most depressingly of all, the new narrative is explicitly about evading public engagement on this issue. A democratic discussion is the last thing Euro-officials want. But if Europe is to be turned into the new home for dispersed humanity, with hundreds of thousands coming here, surely publics should get to discuss it first? Seems not. After all, ‘public attitudes’ are bad. And so we have Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and EU officials devising quotas for each EU nation, effectively instructing us on how many refugees we must take. This highly undemocratic solution to the refugee crisis shows how utterly distrusted European publics are. Indeed, through the refugee crisis EU officials are seeking to recover their moral authority, which was called into question during the Greek financial crisis of recent months, particularly their authority to impose on nations, and their publics, preordained political set-ups. The pseudo ‘open borders’ approach among European officials is not a genuinely liberal sentiment; it is the latest expression of the EU’s long-term project of weakening national and popular sovereignty and concentrating decision-making on important political matters in the hands of elites, far from ‘public attitudes’.
spiked is about as open borders as you can get. But in Europe right now, there is a bigger problem than border control, and that is the cynical weakening of national borders, and of the popular sovereignty within those national borders, by an EU oligarchy not remotely interested in freedom and autonomy but rather determined to water down democracy itself in the name of allowing small cliques to set quotas, write regulations and determine national destinies. Here is the great tragedy of the refugee crisis: it’s being used to dilute democracy further. And we need democracy so that we might make a real case for freedom of movement, to the public, and win the argument in a meaningful, lasting, liberty-boosting way....
Heritage: The Redistributive State — The Allocation Of Government Benefits, Services, And Taxes In The United States
...The analysis finds that the lowest three income quintiles are in fiscal deficit, while the two highest income quintiles are in surplus. Overall, there was a transfer of roughly $1 trillion in economic resources from the top 40 percent of households to the bottom 60 percent. This sum represents about 9.5 percent of total national income in 2004....
...The analysis finds that the lowest three income quintiles are in fiscal deficit, while the two highest income quintiles are in surplus. Overall, there was a transfer of roughly $1 trillion in economic resources from the top 40 percent of households to the bottom 60 percent. This sum represents about 9.5 percent of total national income in 2004....
Feds Admit More Obamacare Co-Op Flops Ahead
Federal officials admitted for the first time Monday that the collapse of the largest and most costly of nearly two dozen Obamacare-funded health insurance co-ops may not be the program’s last failure.
The admission followed the collapse Friday of Health Republic of New York after regulators ordered the co-op “to cease writing new health insurance policies,” leaving 155,000 customers scrambling to find new coverage by the end of the year....
Doctors On Edge As Healthcare Gears Up For 70,000 Ways To Classify Ailments
Melinda Beck reports in the WSJ that doctors, hospitals and insurers are bracing for possible disruptions on October 1 when the U.S. health-care system switches to ICD-10, a massive new set of codes for describing illnesses and injuries that expands the way ailments are described from 14,000 to 70,000. Hospitals and physician practices have spent billions of dollars on training programs, boot camps, apps, flashcards and practice drills to prepare for the conversion, which has been postponed three times since the original date in 2011. With the move to ICD-10, the one code for suturing an artery will become 195 codes, designating every single artery, among other variables, according to OptumInsight, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc. A single code for a badly healed fracture could now translate to 2,595 different codes, the firm calculates. Each signals information including what bone was broken, as well as which side of the body it was on.
Propoenents says ICD-10 will help researchers better identify public-health problems, manage diseases and evaluate outcomes, and over time, will create a much more detailed body of data about patients' health—conveying a wealth of information in a single seven-digit code—and pave the way for changes in reimbursement as the nation moves toward value-based payment plans. "A clinician whose practice is filled with diabetic patients with multiple complications ought to get paid more for keeping them healthy than a clinician treating mostly cheerleaders," says Dr. Rogers. "ICD-10 will give us the precision to do that." As the changeover deadline approaches some fear a replay of the Affordable Care Act rollout debacle in 2013 that choked computer networks, delaying bills and claims for several months. Others recollect the end-of-century anxiety of Y2K, the Year 2000 computer bug that failed to materialize. "We're all hoping for the best and expecting the worst," says Sharon Ahearn. "I have built up what I call my war chest. That's to make sure we have enough working capital to see us through six to eight weeks of slow claims."
So the DEA has been seizing patient records without a warrant
...Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been accessing personal medical files without a warrant, generating a backlash from doctors and privacy advocates who say the practice is intrusive and unconstitutional — and have taken the agency to court.
“It’s just not right,” Texas attorney Terri Moore said.
The controversial record searches are part of the government’s effort to crack down on illegal “pill mills” and prescription drug abuse. But they’ve set up a clash over privacy rights, and a legal battle is now playing out in the 5th and 9th Circuit appeals courts. Lower courts have issued conflicting rulings to date, with one backing the DEA and another demanding the agency get warrants if it wants to look at patient records....
Federal officials admitted for the first time Monday that the collapse of the largest and most costly of nearly two dozen Obamacare-funded health insurance co-ops may not be the program’s last failure.
The admission followed the collapse Friday of Health Republic of New York after regulators ordered the co-op “to cease writing new health insurance policies,” leaving 155,000 customers scrambling to find new coverage by the end of the year....
Doctors On Edge As Healthcare Gears Up For 70,000 Ways To Classify Ailments
Melinda Beck reports in the WSJ that doctors, hospitals and insurers are bracing for possible disruptions on October 1 when the U.S. health-care system switches to ICD-10, a massive new set of codes for describing illnesses and injuries that expands the way ailments are described from 14,000 to 70,000. Hospitals and physician practices have spent billions of dollars on training programs, boot camps, apps, flashcards and practice drills to prepare for the conversion, which has been postponed three times since the original date in 2011. With the move to ICD-10, the one code for suturing an artery will become 195 codes, designating every single artery, among other variables, according to OptumInsight, a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc. A single code for a badly healed fracture could now translate to 2,595 different codes, the firm calculates. Each signals information including what bone was broken, as well as which side of the body it was on.
Propoenents says ICD-10 will help researchers better identify public-health problems, manage diseases and evaluate outcomes, and over time, will create a much more detailed body of data about patients' health—conveying a wealth of information in a single seven-digit code—and pave the way for changes in reimbursement as the nation moves toward value-based payment plans. "A clinician whose practice is filled with diabetic patients with multiple complications ought to get paid more for keeping them healthy than a clinician treating mostly cheerleaders," says Dr. Rogers. "ICD-10 will give us the precision to do that." As the changeover deadline approaches some fear a replay of the Affordable Care Act rollout debacle in 2013 that choked computer networks, delaying bills and claims for several months. Others recollect the end-of-century anxiety of Y2K, the Year 2000 computer bug that failed to materialize. "We're all hoping for the best and expecting the worst," says Sharon Ahearn. "I have built up what I call my war chest. That's to make sure we have enough working capital to see us through six to eight weeks of slow claims."
So the DEA has been seizing patient records without a warrant
...Drug Enforcement Administration agents have been accessing personal medical files without a warrant, generating a backlash from doctors and privacy advocates who say the practice is intrusive and unconstitutional — and have taken the agency to court.
“It’s just not right,” Texas attorney Terri Moore said.
The controversial record searches are part of the government’s effort to crack down on illegal “pill mills” and prescription drug abuse. But they’ve set up a clash over privacy rights, and a legal battle is now playing out in the 5th and 9th Circuit appeals courts. Lower courts have issued conflicting rulings to date, with one backing the DEA and another demanding the agency get warrants if it wants to look at patient records....
OBAMA AND GUNS: THEN AND NOW
...Here’s Obama in 2008:
“I just want to be absolutely clear. Alright, So I don’t want any misunderstanding when you all go home and you are talking to your buddies and you say, ah ‘He wants to take your guns away.’ You’ve heard it here, I’m on television so everybody knows it. I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.”...
Wendy Davis only supported open-carry to get elected
...During her gubernatorial campaign, Davis said she supported an expansion of gun rights in Texas that included open-carry.
Davis now says that she has “always been true to my core beliefs.” Except, of course, when she wasn't....
Australia’s 1996 Gun Confiscation Didn’t Work – And it Wouldn’t Work in America
...Did the Australian model at least reduce gun-related homicides?
That is hotly disputed.
University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi concluded their 2008 report on the matter with the statement, “There is little evidence to suggest that [the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides.”
“Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears,” the reported continued, “the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.”
A 2007 report, “Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Did the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Make a Difference?” by Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran similarly concluded that the buyback program did not have a significant long-term effect on the Australian homicide rate....
...Here’s Obama in 2008:
“I just want to be absolutely clear. Alright, So I don’t want any misunderstanding when you all go home and you are talking to your buddies and you say, ah ‘He wants to take your guns away.’ You’ve heard it here, I’m on television so everybody knows it. I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.”...
Wendy Davis only supported open-carry to get elected
...During her gubernatorial campaign, Davis said she supported an expansion of gun rights in Texas that included open-carry.
Davis now says that she has “always been true to my core beliefs.” Except, of course, when she wasn't....
Australia’s 1996 Gun Confiscation Didn’t Work – And it Wouldn’t Work in America
...Did the Australian model at least reduce gun-related homicides?
That is hotly disputed.
University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi concluded their 2008 report on the matter with the statement, “There is little evidence to suggest that [the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides.”
“Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears,” the reported continued, “the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.”
A 2007 report, “Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Did the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Make a Difference?” by Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran similarly concluded that the buyback program did not have a significant long-term effect on the Australian homicide rate....
Guardian Columnist Julie Bindel Says Put All Males ‘In Some Kind of Camp’
... I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.
I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive, actually. I would like to see a truce on heterosexuality. I would like an amnesty on heterosexuality until we have sorted ourselves out. Because under patriarchy it’s sh–.
And I am sick of hearing from individual women that their men are all right. Those men have been shored up by the advantages of patriarchy and they are complacent, they are not stopping other men from being sh–.
I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”...
... I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.
I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive, actually. I would like to see a truce on heterosexuality. I would like an amnesty on heterosexuality until we have sorted ourselves out. Because under patriarchy it’s sh–.
And I am sick of hearing from individual women that their men are all right. Those men have been shored up by the advantages of patriarchy and they are complacent, they are not stopping other men from being sh–.
I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”...
$18 trillion and counting
...Take, for example, the domestic economic policy initiatives he supports. His fiscal irresponsibility, his desire to tax and spend, and his willingness to let the federal government control the economy are staggering, even when compared to other Democrats who have run for president in recent years.
He has called for new spending that (for now!) totals $18 trillion over the next 10 years. This massive sum is to be spent, among other things, on single-payer health care, an expansion of Social Security and a massive taxpayer-funded infrastructure program.
Under his plan, the federal government would directly control 30 percent of spending in the economy, compared to the 20 percent we have seen in recent decades. For a comparison, the European Union’s “federal” budget equals about 1 percent of the economy of its member states.
He has so far announced new taxes that are supposed to raise some $6.5 trillion over the 10-year window, with more to come. To put that number into perspective, Obamacare increased taxes by “only” about half a trillion dollars over a similar period. But even such an enormous package of tax increases would not be enough to avoid a future of disastrous deficits and a rapidly escalating federal debt burden, as his spending proposals exceed his proposed tax hikes by well more than $10 trillion....
...How do Sanders and his acolytes in the media defend his destructive policy proposals? They argue that these costs are exaggerated. Why are they exaggerated? Because, they say, there is no new spending: The money he wants the government to spend is simply money that consumers are spending right now. ...
...Take, for example, the domestic economic policy initiatives he supports. His fiscal irresponsibility, his desire to tax and spend, and his willingness to let the federal government control the economy are staggering, even when compared to other Democrats who have run for president in recent years.
He has called for new spending that (for now!) totals $18 trillion over the next 10 years. This massive sum is to be spent, among other things, on single-payer health care, an expansion of Social Security and a massive taxpayer-funded infrastructure program.
Under his plan, the federal government would directly control 30 percent of spending in the economy, compared to the 20 percent we have seen in recent decades. For a comparison, the European Union’s “federal” budget equals about 1 percent of the economy of its member states.
He has so far announced new taxes that are supposed to raise some $6.5 trillion over the 10-year window, with more to come. To put that number into perspective, Obamacare increased taxes by “only” about half a trillion dollars over a similar period. But even such an enormous package of tax increases would not be enough to avoid a future of disastrous deficits and a rapidly escalating federal debt burden, as his spending proposals exceed his proposed tax hikes by well more than $10 trillion....
...How do Sanders and his acolytes in the media defend his destructive policy proposals? They argue that these costs are exaggerated. Why are they exaggerated? Because, they say, there is no new spending: The money he wants the government to spend is simply money that consumers are spending right now. ...
Meanwhile in the Future: To Stop Climate Change, We Must Genetically Engineer Humans
...Another modification that Liao proposed was an induced allergy to meat, to help people reduce their consumption of animals. ...
Scientists Ask Obama To Prosecute Global Warming Skeptics
The science on global warming is settled, so settled that 20 climate scientists are asking President Barack Obama to prosecute people who disagree with them on the science behind man-made global warming.
Scientists from several universities and research centers even asked Obama to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute groups that “have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”
RICO was a law designed to take down organized crime syndicates, but scientists now want it to be used against scientists, activists and organizations that voice their disagreement with the so-called “consensus” on global warming. The scientists repeated claims made by environmentalists that groups, especially those with ties to fossil fuels, have engaged in a misinformation campaign to confuse the public on global warming.
“The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peer-reviewed academic research and in recent books,” the scientists wrote.
But these riled up academics aren’t the first to suggest using RICO to go after global warming skeptics. The idea was first put forward by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who argued using RICO was effective at taking down the tobacco industry....
This is why media coverage of climate debate has been corrupted
...News journalists are being bribed by the United Nations and the Oxfam charity to write scare stories about climate change ahead of the global climate treaty negotiations in Paris later this year.
Details of the bribes – which take the form of ego-boosting “awards”, global travel in CO2 generating airliners and financial payments – are contained in a news release just published by the UNDP today, an organisation headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Journalists’ codes of ethics prohibit being induced to give favourable coverage, but those rules have increasingly been ignored in recent years by the use of backdoor mechanisms like funding journalism “awards” as a means of generating content and rewarding propaganda-writers.
New Zealand’s major media, like the TV3 network, have frequently covered climate stories in the Pacific with the financial “assistance” of lobby groups like Oxfam and Greenpeace....
Report: Climate scientist who wants to bring skeptics up on RICO charges makes $750K/yr thanks to taxpayers
...Another modification that Liao proposed was an induced allergy to meat, to help people reduce their consumption of animals. ...
Scientists Ask Obama To Prosecute Global Warming Skeptics
The science on global warming is settled, so settled that 20 climate scientists are asking President Barack Obama to prosecute people who disagree with them on the science behind man-made global warming.
Scientists from several universities and research centers even asked Obama to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute groups that “have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change.”
RICO was a law designed to take down organized crime syndicates, but scientists now want it to be used against scientists, activists and organizations that voice their disagreement with the so-called “consensus” on global warming. The scientists repeated claims made by environmentalists that groups, especially those with ties to fossil fuels, have engaged in a misinformation campaign to confuse the public on global warming.
“The actions of these organizations have been extensively documented in peer-reviewed academic research and in recent books,” the scientists wrote.
But these riled up academics aren’t the first to suggest using RICO to go after global warming skeptics. The idea was first put forward by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who argued using RICO was effective at taking down the tobacco industry....
This is why media coverage of climate debate has been corrupted
...News journalists are being bribed by the United Nations and the Oxfam charity to write scare stories about climate change ahead of the global climate treaty negotiations in Paris later this year.
Details of the bribes – which take the form of ego-boosting “awards”, global travel in CO2 generating airliners and financial payments – are contained in a news release just published by the UNDP today, an organisation headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.
Journalists’ codes of ethics prohibit being induced to give favourable coverage, but those rules have increasingly been ignored in recent years by the use of backdoor mechanisms like funding journalism “awards” as a means of generating content and rewarding propaganda-writers.
New Zealand’s major media, like the TV3 network, have frequently covered climate stories in the Pacific with the financial “assistance” of lobby groups like Oxfam and Greenpeace....
Report: Climate scientist who wants to bring skeptics up on RICO charges makes $750K/yr thanks to taxpayers
China: Harbinger of a Brave New World
...China’s Communist government is rolling out a plan to assign everyone in the country “citizenship scores.” According to the ACLU, “China appears to be leveraging all the tools of the information age—electronic purchasing data, social networks, algorithmic sorting—to construct the ultimate tool of social control. It is, as one commentator put it, ‘authoritarianism, gamified.’ ” In the system, everyone is measured by a score ranging from 350 to 950, and that score is linked to a national ID card. In addition to measuring your financial credit, it will also measure political compliance. Expressing the wrong opinion—or merely having friends who express the wrong opinion—will hurt your score. The higher your score, the more privileges the government will grant you....
...China’s Communist government is rolling out a plan to assign everyone in the country “citizenship scores.” According to the ACLU, “China appears to be leveraging all the tools of the information age—electronic purchasing data, social networks, algorithmic sorting—to construct the ultimate tool of social control. It is, as one commentator put it, ‘authoritarianism, gamified.’ ” In the system, everyone is measured by a score ranging from 350 to 950, and that score is linked to a national ID card. In addition to measuring your financial credit, it will also measure political compliance. Expressing the wrong opinion—or merely having friends who express the wrong opinion—will hurt your score. The higher your score, the more privileges the government will grant you....
GAB Official’s Relationship with IRS’s Lerner Spanned Personal to Professional
E-mails obtained by a Republican lawmaker and a conservative organization, along with travel records and expense reports portray a wide-ranging relationship between Wisconsin’s controversial top elections official and the disgraced former head of the federal Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division. The relationship between Kevin Kennedy, head of the Government Accountability Board, and Lois Lerner, the Obama Administration IRS official who used her perch to harass and threaten conservative non-profit groups, was first revealed by the Wall Street Journal and further explained by the MacIver Institute....
...State Rep. Dave Craig, a Republican who is leading the fight to reform Wisconsin’s John Doe investigation process, first obtained e-mails between Kennedy and Lerner in an open records request. Under Kennedy’s leadership, the GAB worked in tandem with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office to use the state’s current John Doe law to harass, investigate and bully conservatives. The e-mails were also obtained by True the Vote, a conservative Texas-based election watchdog that was targeted by Lerner and the IRS. True the Vote also obtained several years’ worth of Kennedy’s travel schedules.
The e-mails show that Kennedy and Lerner, in addition to sending each other a few e-mails about professional work, would share travel details – including hotel addresses – with each other and circulate random photographs and generic poems with a tight circle of acquaintances....
More Wisconsin Emails
...So let’s review the bidding. The GAB and prosecutors tried to rig Supreme Court review of a constitutional challenge to their probe. They used information they had collected through kitchen-sink subpoenas to search for information well outside their already voluminous writ. Then they targeted conservative justices while giving liberals a pass. The good news is that in July Wisconsin’s Supreme Court shut down their investigation as unconstitutional....
E-mails obtained by a Republican lawmaker and a conservative organization, along with travel records and expense reports portray a wide-ranging relationship between Wisconsin’s controversial top elections official and the disgraced former head of the federal Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division. The relationship between Kevin Kennedy, head of the Government Accountability Board, and Lois Lerner, the Obama Administration IRS official who used her perch to harass and threaten conservative non-profit groups, was first revealed by the Wall Street Journal and further explained by the MacIver Institute....
...State Rep. Dave Craig, a Republican who is leading the fight to reform Wisconsin’s John Doe investigation process, first obtained e-mails between Kennedy and Lerner in an open records request. Under Kennedy’s leadership, the GAB worked in tandem with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office to use the state’s current John Doe law to harass, investigate and bully conservatives. The e-mails were also obtained by True the Vote, a conservative Texas-based election watchdog that was targeted by Lerner and the IRS. True the Vote also obtained several years’ worth of Kennedy’s travel schedules.
The e-mails show that Kennedy and Lerner, in addition to sending each other a few e-mails about professional work, would share travel details – including hotel addresses – with each other and circulate random photographs and generic poems with a tight circle of acquaintances....
More Wisconsin Emails
...So let’s review the bidding. The GAB and prosecutors tried to rig Supreme Court review of a constitutional challenge to their probe. They used information they had collected through kitchen-sink subpoenas to search for information well outside their already voluminous writ. Then they targeted conservative justices while giving liberals a pass. The good news is that in July Wisconsin’s Supreme Court shut down their investigation as unconstitutional....
SHOCK CLAIM: World is on brink of 50 year ICE AGE and BRITAIN will bear the brunt
...Climate experts warn a rare pattern of water cooling in the north Atlantic will trigger a chain reaction of events leading to a “fully-blown ice age”.
The say the UK is on alert for a “serious climate situation” with regular winter whiteouts pushing emergency services to the limit....
...Climate experts warn a rare pattern of water cooling in the north Atlantic will trigger a chain reaction of events leading to a “fully-blown ice age”.
The say the UK is on alert for a “serious climate situation” with regular winter whiteouts pushing emergency services to the limit....
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
‘It’s not free’: Canadian health care insurance almost doubles in cost during last decade as average family pays $12K
...An average Canadian family pays $12,000 per year for health care insurance and those costs have nearly doubled in the last decade, according to a Fraser Institute report.
“Contrary to the way we find (health care insurance) is characterized, it isn’t free,” Bacchus Barua, co-author of the study said.
The think-tank found that health care insurance costs for all Canadians increased by 48.5 per cent to an estimated $8,205 from $5,527 in the last decade.
Health care insurance costs are also rising 1.6 times faster than the average Canadian income, the report says, leading Barua to have an issue with the system.
“When health care insurance is growing faster than income, it’s an indication you can’t sustain it,” Barua said.
The increase in health care costs are substantial when compared to the rising costs of food and shelter. The report finds that spending on shelter grew by 35.9 per cent and food costs grew by 18 per cent. Only the cost of clothing — a 64.1 per cent increase — grew at a higher rate.
Barua said many Canadians may believe health care insurance is free because they never see a bill for medical costs and it doesn’t have a dedicated tax. It is instead funded by general government revenue that is collected from multiple sources such as Employment Insurance, the Canadian Pension Plan, property taxes, sales taxes, and import duties....
...An average Canadian family pays $12,000 per year for health care insurance and those costs have nearly doubled in the last decade, according to a Fraser Institute report.
“Contrary to the way we find (health care insurance) is characterized, it isn’t free,” Bacchus Barua, co-author of the study said.
The think-tank found that health care insurance costs for all Canadians increased by 48.5 per cent to an estimated $8,205 from $5,527 in the last decade.
Health care insurance costs are also rising 1.6 times faster than the average Canadian income, the report says, leading Barua to have an issue with the system.
“When health care insurance is growing faster than income, it’s an indication you can’t sustain it,” Barua said.
The increase in health care costs are substantial when compared to the rising costs of food and shelter. The report finds that spending on shelter grew by 35.9 per cent and food costs grew by 18 per cent. Only the cost of clothing — a 64.1 per cent increase — grew at a higher rate.
Barua said many Canadians may believe health care insurance is free because they never see a bill for medical costs and it doesn’t have a dedicated tax. It is instead funded by general government revenue that is collected from multiple sources such as Employment Insurance, the Canadian Pension Plan, property taxes, sales taxes, and import duties....
Steven Spielberg and the Temple of Obama
...This effort began in November 2012, shortly after his reelection, when the president hosted filmmaker Steven Spielberg at the White House for a screening of Lincoln. President Obama was “spellbound,” the Times reports, as Spielberg held forth “about the use of technology to tell stories.”
Such technology, Spielberg went on, could also be used to tell Obama’s story—to somehow convince future Americans, against all evidence to the contrary, that his presidency was an experience they would like to repeat. “Ideally, one adviser said, a person in Kenya could put on a pair of virtual reality goggles and be transported to Mr. Obama’s 2008 speech on race in Philadelphia.” I’m sure they’ll be banging on the door to get into that exhibit....
...He’s happy because planning for his retirement allows Obama to corral large groups of extremely rich and powerful people for the express purpose of discussing his favorite subject: himself. People like Spielberg, with a net worth of $3.6 billion, who’s “helping to develop a ‘narrative’ for Mr. Obama in the years after he leaves office.” And people like Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and who dined with the creator of E.T. and President Obama “at a Beverly Hills hotel in California”—as opposed to a Beverly Hills hotel in Latvia—“in June.”...
...This effort began in November 2012, shortly after his reelection, when the president hosted filmmaker Steven Spielberg at the White House for a screening of Lincoln. President Obama was “spellbound,” the Times reports, as Spielberg held forth “about the use of technology to tell stories.”
Such technology, Spielberg went on, could also be used to tell Obama’s story—to somehow convince future Americans, against all evidence to the contrary, that his presidency was an experience they would like to repeat. “Ideally, one adviser said, a person in Kenya could put on a pair of virtual reality goggles and be transported to Mr. Obama’s 2008 speech on race in Philadelphia.” I’m sure they’ll be banging on the door to get into that exhibit....
...He’s happy because planning for his retirement allows Obama to corral large groups of extremely rich and powerful people for the express purpose of discussing his favorite subject: himself. People like Spielberg, with a net worth of $3.6 billion, who’s “helping to develop a ‘narrative’ for Mr. Obama in the years after he leaves office.” And people like Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and who dined with the creator of E.T. and President Obama “at a Beverly Hills hotel in California”—as opposed to a Beverly Hills hotel in Latvia—“in June.”...
Obamacare Gives Big Windfall To Insurance Companies As Quality of Healthcare Declines
...Most still remember the president’s famous words, “if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.” But for many, that’s turned out to be another unfulfilled Obamacare promise. Now, insurance companies are preparing to gouge consumers with massive premium increases. Estimates for 2016 show that insurance companies around the country are seeking premium rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under Obamacare turned out to be sicker than expected.
Not only are insurance companies shifting more costs onto patients, but across the country, insurers are restricting access to care and choice by limiting the number of doctors and hospitals they provide in a coverage network. Insurance plans on government-run Obamacare exchanges on average have 34 percent fewer hospitals and doctors — including specialists — in their provider networks than health policies sold outside those exchanges or offered by employers....
...Meanwhile, as Americans are suffering from rising costs and less access to quality health care, the biggest winners from the passage of Obamacare are the insurance giants. In the aftermath of the government health care takeover, there has been an explosion of health insurance company profits, windfalls and megamergers. As “stock market darlings,” health insurance company profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs and stocks have split even thanks to the health care law.
Reports show the so-called “Big Five” health insurers – UnitedHealth, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, and Anthem – have all outperformed the broader stock market by a wide margin since Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010. That’s why America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s main trade group, filed an amicus brief to defend the Obama administration in the recent Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell. And when the law was upheld, it was no surprise that there was a boost in health insurance company stocks....
...Most still remember the president’s famous words, “if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.” But for many, that’s turned out to be another unfulfilled Obamacare promise. Now, insurance companies are preparing to gouge consumers with massive premium increases. Estimates for 2016 show that insurance companies around the country are seeking premium rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under Obamacare turned out to be sicker than expected.
Not only are insurance companies shifting more costs onto patients, but across the country, insurers are restricting access to care and choice by limiting the number of doctors and hospitals they provide in a coverage network. Insurance plans on government-run Obamacare exchanges on average have 34 percent fewer hospitals and doctors — including specialists — in their provider networks than health policies sold outside those exchanges or offered by employers....
...Meanwhile, as Americans are suffering from rising costs and less access to quality health care, the biggest winners from the passage of Obamacare are the insurance giants. In the aftermath of the government health care takeover, there has been an explosion of health insurance company profits, windfalls and megamergers. As “stock market darlings,” health insurance company profits have skyrocketed to all-time highs and stocks have split even thanks to the health care law.
Reports show the so-called “Big Five” health insurers – UnitedHealth, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, and Anthem – have all outperformed the broader stock market by a wide margin since Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010. That’s why America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s main trade group, filed an amicus brief to defend the Obama administration in the recent Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell. And when the law was upheld, it was no surprise that there was a boost in health insurance company stocks....
The long, slow death of the rule of law in America
...While this trend has been at work for decades – you can thank both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for hastening the decline – it has reached escape velocity during the Obama years. The Justice Department, for example, already took a pass on prosecuting Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the scandal in which conservative groups were singled out for special scrutiny by the federal government on the basis of their political beliefs. If there’s anything that ought to be a matter of consensus in American politics, it’s that holding the reins of power doesn’t give you carte blanche to turn the power of the state against your partisan rivals. Yet Ms. Lerner, having done that very thing, doesn’t seem to be much worse for the wear....
...While this trend has been at work for decades – you can thank both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for hastening the decline – it has reached escape velocity during the Obama years. The Justice Department, for example, already took a pass on prosecuting Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the scandal in which conservative groups were singled out for special scrutiny by the federal government on the basis of their political beliefs. If there’s anything that ought to be a matter of consensus in American politics, it’s that holding the reins of power doesn’t give you carte blanche to turn the power of the state against your partisan rivals. Yet Ms. Lerner, having done that very thing, doesn’t seem to be much worse for the wear....
Inspector Gotcha
...It empowers him to subpoena any document he wants from anyone doing business in the state; to keep an investigation totally secret or to make it totally public; and to choose between filing civil or criminal charges whenever he wants. People called in for questioning during Martin Act investigations do not have a right to counsel or a right against self-incrimination. Combined, the act’s powers exceed those given any regulator in any other state. Now for the scary part: To win a case, the attorney general doesn’t have to prove that the defendant intended to defraud anyone, that a transaction took place, or that anyone actually was defrauded. Plus, when the prosecution is over, trial lawyers can gain access to the hoards of documents that the case has churned up and use them as the basis for civil suits....
...It empowers him to subpoena any document he wants from anyone doing business in the state; to keep an investigation totally secret or to make it totally public; and to choose between filing civil or criminal charges whenever he wants. People called in for questioning during Martin Act investigations do not have a right to counsel or a right against self-incrimination. Combined, the act’s powers exceed those given any regulator in any other state. Now for the scary part: To win a case, the attorney general doesn’t have to prove that the defendant intended to defraud anyone, that a transaction took place, or that anyone actually was defrauded. Plus, when the prosecution is over, trial lawyers can gain access to the hoards of documents that the case has churned up and use them as the basis for civil suits....
CALIFORNIA: "LAND OF POVERTY"
...The press release announcing release of the first edition (for 2011) said that: "California, often thought of as the land of plenty" in the words Center on Poverty and Inequality director Professor David Grusky, is "in fact the land of poverty."
The latest California Poverty Measure estimate, for 2012, shows a statewide poverty rate of 21.8 percent, somewhat below the Supplemental Poverty Measure and well above the Official Poverty Measure that does not adjust for housing costs (16.5 percent)....
...The original Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality press release cited California's dismal poverty rate as resulting from "a weak labor market and California's notoriously expensive housing." ...
...The press release announcing release of the first edition (for 2011) said that: "California, often thought of as the land of plenty" in the words Center on Poverty and Inequality director Professor David Grusky, is "in fact the land of poverty."
The latest California Poverty Measure estimate, for 2012, shows a statewide poverty rate of 21.8 percent, somewhat below the Supplemental Poverty Measure and well above the Official Poverty Measure that does not adjust for housing costs (16.5 percent)....
...The original Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality press release cited California's dismal poverty rate as resulting from "a weak labor market and California's notoriously expensive housing." ...
Faked peer reviews prompt 64 retractions
A leading scientific publisher has retracted 64 articles in 10 journals, after an internal investigation discovered fabricated peer-review reports linked to the articles’ publication.
Berlin-based Springer announced the retractions in an 18 August statement. In May, Springer merged with parts of Macmillan Science and Education — which publishes Nature — to form the new company Springer Nature.
The cull comes after similar discoveries of ‘fake peer review’ by several other major publishers, including London-based BioMed Central, an arm of Springer, which began retracting 43 articles in March citing "reviews from fabricated reviewers". The practice can occur when researchers submitting a paper for publication suggest reviewers, but supply contact details for them that actually route requests for review back to the researchers themselves....
Deceptive temperature record claims
...But government spokespeople rarely mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being set by less than the uncertainty in the statistics. NOAA claims an uncertainty of 14 one-hundredths of a degree in its temperature averages, or near twice the amount by which they say the record was set. NASA says that their data is typically accurate to one tenth of a degree, five times the amount by which their new record was set.
So, the new temperature records are meaningless. Neither agency knows whether a record was set.
Such misrepresentations are now commonplace in NOAA and NASA announcements. They are regularly proclaiming monthly and yearly records set by less than the uncertainties in the measurements. Scientists within the agencies know that this is dishonest.
They also know that calculating so-called global average temperatures to hundredths of a degree is irrational. After all, there is very little data for the 70 percent of Earth’s surface that is ocean. There is also little data for mountainous and desert regions, not to mention the Antarctic. Much of the coverage is so sparse that NASA is forced to make the ridiculous claim that regions are adequately covered if there is a temperature-sensing station within nearly 750 miles. This is the distance between Ottawa, Canada, and Myrtle Beach, S.C. cities with very different climates. Yet, according to NASA, only one temperature sensing station is necessary for the two cities and the vast area between them to be adequately represented in their network....
OF 100 PUBLISHED PSYCHOLOGY STUDIES, LESS THAN HALF COULD BE REPRODUCED SUCCESSFULLY
One of the pillars of scientific research--perhaps the one that makes science as definitive as it is--is that any study should be capable of being repeated under the same methods and conditions and if the research holds true, the same result will be found every time the experiment is performed--something known as a study’s reproducibility.
A group of researchers found that when they actually tried to reproduce 100 psychology studies, they managed to replicate the results in less than half the cases. Their results were published today in Science, and online as a resource for other scientists at The Reproducibility Project.
These new results piggyback on previous studies that attempted to replicate study results already published in scientific journals. This report also follows in the wake of a highly-publicized psychology study, originally published in Science about attitudes towards same-sex marriage, which was found to be inaccurate, and was retracted from Science in May....
The Real Winner Of Obama’s ‘War On Coal': George Soros
The real winner of President Barack Obama’s so-called “war on coal” isn’t the EPA, nor is it the natural gas industry. It’s liberal billionaire George Soros.
Last week, Obama’s EPA announced sweeping regulations for U.S. power plants, forcing them to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030. The news sent shockwaves through the coal industry, sending stocks tumbling and forcing the industry’s two biggest players to consider bankruptcy filings.
That’s where liberal billionaire Soros steps in. In the days after the Clean Power Plan was announced, Soros bought more than 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal — the country’s two biggest publicly-traded coal companies.
Both Peabody and Arch Coal “have seen their market values plummet” due to “competition from cheap natural gas, new environmental regulations and a slowing export market,” according to SNL Financial. Soros was able to pick up these coal stocks on the cheap, in part, due to Obama administration regulations targeting coal-fired power plants and coal mines....
A leading scientific publisher has retracted 64 articles in 10 journals, after an internal investigation discovered fabricated peer-review reports linked to the articles’ publication.
Berlin-based Springer announced the retractions in an 18 August statement. In May, Springer merged with parts of Macmillan Science and Education — which publishes Nature — to form the new company Springer Nature.
The cull comes after similar discoveries of ‘fake peer review’ by several other major publishers, including London-based BioMed Central, an arm of Springer, which began retracting 43 articles in March citing "reviews from fabricated reviewers". The practice can occur when researchers submitting a paper for publication suggest reviewers, but supply contact details for them that actually route requests for review back to the researchers themselves....
Deceptive temperature record claims
...But government spokespeople rarely mention the inconvenient fact that these records are being set by less than the uncertainty in the statistics. NOAA claims an uncertainty of 14 one-hundredths of a degree in its temperature averages, or near twice the amount by which they say the record was set. NASA says that their data is typically accurate to one tenth of a degree, five times the amount by which their new record was set.
So, the new temperature records are meaningless. Neither agency knows whether a record was set.
Such misrepresentations are now commonplace in NOAA and NASA announcements. They are regularly proclaiming monthly and yearly records set by less than the uncertainties in the measurements. Scientists within the agencies know that this is dishonest.
They also know that calculating so-called global average temperatures to hundredths of a degree is irrational. After all, there is very little data for the 70 percent of Earth’s surface that is ocean. There is also little data for mountainous and desert regions, not to mention the Antarctic. Much of the coverage is so sparse that NASA is forced to make the ridiculous claim that regions are adequately covered if there is a temperature-sensing station within nearly 750 miles. This is the distance between Ottawa, Canada, and Myrtle Beach, S.C. cities with very different climates. Yet, according to NASA, only one temperature sensing station is necessary for the two cities and the vast area between them to be adequately represented in their network....
OF 100 PUBLISHED PSYCHOLOGY STUDIES, LESS THAN HALF COULD BE REPRODUCED SUCCESSFULLY
One of the pillars of scientific research--perhaps the one that makes science as definitive as it is--is that any study should be capable of being repeated under the same methods and conditions and if the research holds true, the same result will be found every time the experiment is performed--something known as a study’s reproducibility.
A group of researchers found that when they actually tried to reproduce 100 psychology studies, they managed to replicate the results in less than half the cases. Their results were published today in Science, and online as a resource for other scientists at The Reproducibility Project.
These new results piggyback on previous studies that attempted to replicate study results already published in scientific journals. This report also follows in the wake of a highly-publicized psychology study, originally published in Science about attitudes towards same-sex marriage, which was found to be inaccurate, and was retracted from Science in May....
The Real Winner Of Obama’s ‘War On Coal': George Soros
The real winner of President Barack Obama’s so-called “war on coal” isn’t the EPA, nor is it the natural gas industry. It’s liberal billionaire George Soros.
Last week, Obama’s EPA announced sweeping regulations for U.S. power plants, forcing them to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030. The news sent shockwaves through the coal industry, sending stocks tumbling and forcing the industry’s two biggest players to consider bankruptcy filings.
That’s where liberal billionaire Soros steps in. In the days after the Clean Power Plan was announced, Soros bought more than 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal — the country’s two biggest publicly-traded coal companies.
Both Peabody and Arch Coal “have seen their market values plummet” due to “competition from cheap natural gas, new environmental regulations and a slowing export market,” according to SNL Financial. Soros was able to pick up these coal stocks on the cheap, in part, due to Obama administration regulations targeting coal-fired power plants and coal mines....
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Democrat Tammy Baldwin: The First Amendment doesn’t extend ‘far beyond’ ‘institutions of faith’
...Tammy Baldwin: “Certainly the First Amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. But I don’t think it extends far beyond that. We’ve seen the set of arguments play out in issues such as access to contraception. Should it be the individual pharmacist whose religious beliefs guides whether a prescription is filled, or in this context, they’re talking about expanding this far beyond our churches and synagogues to businesses and individuals across this country. I think there are clear limits that have been set in other contexts and we ought to abide by those in this new context across America.”...
...Tammy Baldwin: “Certainly the First Amendment says that in institutions of faith that there is absolute power to, you know, to observe deeply held religious beliefs. But I don’t think it extends far beyond that. We’ve seen the set of arguments play out in issues such as access to contraception. Should it be the individual pharmacist whose religious beliefs guides whether a prescription is filled, or in this context, they’re talking about expanding this far beyond our churches and synagogues to businesses and individuals across this country. I think there are clear limits that have been set in other contexts and we ought to abide by those in this new context across America.”...
Great news, Oregon. 15 year olds can now get govt funded sex change surgery without parental permission
...The list of things 15-year-olds are not legally allowed to do in Oregon is long: Drive, smoke, donate blood, get a tattoo — even go to a tanning bed.
But, under a first-in-the-nation policy quietly enacted in January that many parents are only now finding out about, 15-year-olds are now allowed to get a sex-change operation. Many residents are stunned to learn they can do it without parental notification — and the state will even pay for it through its Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.
“It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children,” said Lori Porter of Parents’ Rights in Education. “They’re our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it’s mindboggling.”
In a statement, Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman Susan Wickstrom explained it this way: “Age of medical consent varies by state. Oregon law — which applies to both Medicaid and non-Medicaid Oregonians — states that the age of medical consent is 15.”...
...The list of things 15-year-olds are not legally allowed to do in Oregon is long: Drive, smoke, donate blood, get a tattoo — even go to a tanning bed.
But, under a first-in-the-nation policy quietly enacted in January that many parents are only now finding out about, 15-year-olds are now allowed to get a sex-change operation. Many residents are stunned to learn they can do it without parental notification — and the state will even pay for it through its Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.
“It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children,” said Lori Porter of Parents’ Rights in Education. “They’re our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it’s mindboggling.”
In a statement, Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman Susan Wickstrom explained it this way: “Age of medical consent varies by state. Oregon law — which applies to both Medicaid and non-Medicaid Oregonians — states that the age of medical consent is 15.”...
US: More than 21 million affected by government data breach
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers stole Social Security numbers, health histories and other highly sensitive data from more than 21 million people, the Obama administration said Thursday, acknowledging that the breach of U.S. government computer systems was far more severe than previously disclosed.
The scope of the data breach — believed to be the biggest in U.S. history — has grown dramatically since the government first disclosed earlier this year that hackers had gotten into the Office of Personnel Management’s personnel database and stolen records for about 4.2 million people. Since then, the Obama administration has acknowledged a second, related breach of the systems housing private data that individuals submit during background investigations to obtain security clearances.
That second attack affected more than 19 million people who applied for clearances, as well as nearly 2 million of their spouses, housemates and others who never applied for security clearances, the administration said. Among the data the hackers stole: criminal, financial, health, employment and residency histories, as well as information about their families and acquaintances....
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers stole Social Security numbers, health histories and other highly sensitive data from more than 21 million people, the Obama administration said Thursday, acknowledging that the breach of U.S. government computer systems was far more severe than previously disclosed.
The scope of the data breach — believed to be the biggest in U.S. history — has grown dramatically since the government first disclosed earlier this year that hackers had gotten into the Office of Personnel Management’s personnel database and stolen records for about 4.2 million people. Since then, the Obama administration has acknowledged a second, related breach of the systems housing private data that individuals submit during background investigations to obtain security clearances.
That second attack affected more than 19 million people who applied for clearances, as well as nearly 2 million of their spouses, housemates and others who never applied for security clearances, the administration said. Among the data the hackers stole: criminal, financial, health, employment and residency histories, as well as information about their families and acquaintances....
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Glenn Loury, John McWhorter Discuss the Religion of Antiracism, and Its Current Pope Ta-Nehisi Coates
...McWhorter is chiefly there to put forth what I'll call the Ace of Spaces Conjecture that most of tribal signaling -- genuflecting to Ta-Nehisi Coates, for example -- is not a form of politics, but is properly understood as a form of religion. You're not supposed to ask about the parts of Ta-Nehisi Coates' claims that don't make sense, in the same way you're not really supposed to ask how Noah fit all those animals on the ark. These are not political arguments, he asserts, but "sermons."...
...McWhorter is chiefly there to put forth what I'll call the Ace of Spaces Conjecture that most of tribal signaling -- genuflecting to Ta-Nehisi Coates, for example -- is not a form of politics, but is properly understood as a form of religion. You're not supposed to ask about the parts of Ta-Nehisi Coates' claims that don't make sense, in the same way you're not really supposed to ask how Noah fit all those animals on the ark. These are not political arguments, he asserts, but "sermons."...
Bernie Sanders Says ‘Real’ Unemployment Rate Is Actually 10.5 Percent, DOUBLE The Official Rate [VIDEO]
“When you talk about the economy we also have to have an honest assessment of unemployment in America,” Sanders told a crowd of 7,500 gathered at a presidential campaign rally in Portland, Maine.
“Once a month the government publishes a set of figures, and the last figures they published said that official unemployment was 5.4 percent,” the Democratic nominee continued, slightly misstating the Labor Department’s most recent report which put June’s unemployment rate at 5.3 percent.
“But there is another set of government statistics,” Sanders continued, “and that that real unemployment if you include those people who have given up looking for work and the millions of others who are working part-time 20, 25 hours a week when they want to work full-time, when you all of that together, real unemployment is 10.5 percent.”...
“When you talk about the economy we also have to have an honest assessment of unemployment in America,” Sanders told a crowd of 7,500 gathered at a presidential campaign rally in Portland, Maine.
“Once a month the government publishes a set of figures, and the last figures they published said that official unemployment was 5.4 percent,” the Democratic nominee continued, slightly misstating the Labor Department’s most recent report which put June’s unemployment rate at 5.3 percent.
“But there is another set of government statistics,” Sanders continued, “and that that real unemployment if you include those people who have given up looking for work and the millions of others who are working part-time 20, 25 hours a week when they want to work full-time, when you all of that together, real unemployment is 10.5 percent.”...
Another Mass Homicide But Guess Why You’re Not Hearing About THIS One?
On Wednesday night, while all the news was ablaze with a shooting that killed several people and injured more in a movie theater, another heinous mass murder that claimed five lives was taking place. In the small community of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, eighteen year old Robert Beaver was killing almost every member of his family. He murdered his three siblings and both of his parents.
The question is, why has this not made the mainstream media with the same furor as the theater shootings? The answer is simple.
The murderer used a knife, instead of a gun!...
On Wednesday night, while all the news was ablaze with a shooting that killed several people and injured more in a movie theater, another heinous mass murder that claimed five lives was taking place. In the small community of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, eighteen year old Robert Beaver was killing almost every member of his family. He murdered his three siblings and both of his parents.
The question is, why has this not made the mainstream media with the same furor as the theater shootings? The answer is simple.
The murderer used a knife, instead of a gun!...
Remember 'Memogate'? Makers of a Dan Rather Film Don't
...They rushed the documents onto air, and then, when the story exploded in their face, they spent an unconscionably long time attacking the people who had pointed out the glaring issues with their source material. They clung to theories along the lines of Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian assiduously fiddling with the margin stops on his typewriter, such that they coincidentally lined up exactly with the defaults in as-yet-uninvented Microsoft Word. For two weeks, they dragged their network through a professional embarrassment of a scale that has rarely been reached again, because they didn't do the most basic thing we're paid for: properly vet their story before they started hurling serious, potentially election-altering accusations at a sitting president....
Gleick Confesses
...I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.
Peter Gleick
...They rushed the documents onto air, and then, when the story exploded in their face, they spent an unconscionably long time attacking the people who had pointed out the glaring issues with their source material. They clung to theories along the lines of Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian assiduously fiddling with the margin stops on his typewriter, such that they coincidentally lined up exactly with the defaults in as-yet-uninvented Microsoft Word. For two weeks, they dragged their network through a professional embarrassment of a scale that has rarely been reached again, because they didn't do the most basic thing we're paid for: properly vet their story before they started hurling serious, potentially election-altering accusations at a sitting president....
Gleick Confesses
...I will not comment on the substance or implications of the materials; others have and are doing so. I only note that the scientific understanding of the reality and risks of climate change is strong, compelling, and increasingly disturbing, and a rational public debate is desperately needed. My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded, and coordinated — to attack climate science and scientists and prevent this debate, and by the lack of transparency of the organizations involved. Nevertheless I deeply regret my own actions in this case. I offer my personal apologies to all those affected.
Peter Gleick
Friday, August 14, 2015
Sara Thornton: Police may no longer attend burglaries
...Ms Thornton said burglary was an important crime for police. "But think of the threat to our children from sexual offences, from sexual abuse, from online abuse, that's what we've got to prioritise," she added.
...Ms Thornton said burglary was an important crime for police. "But think of the threat to our children from sexual offences, from sexual abuse, from online abuse, that's what we've got to prioritise," she added.
Three scientists investigating melting Arctic ice may have been assassinated, professor claims
A Cambridge Professor has made the astonishing claim that three scientists investigating the melting of Arctic ice may have been assassinated within the space of a few months. Professor Peter Wadhams said he feared being labelled a “looney” over his suspicion that the deaths of the scientists were more than just an ‘extraordinary’ coincidence. But he insisted the trio could have been murdered and hinted that the oil industry or else sinister government forces might be implicated....
A Cambridge Professor has made the astonishing claim that three scientists investigating the melting of Arctic ice may have been assassinated within the space of a few months. Professor Peter Wadhams said he feared being labelled a “looney” over his suspicion that the deaths of the scientists were more than just an ‘extraordinary’ coincidence. But he insisted the trio could have been murdered and hinted that the oil industry or else sinister government forces might be implicated....
Hospital consultant becomes first man in UK to be ordered to pay EVERY penny of his £550,000 assets to his GP ex-wife in extraordinary divorce case
A hospital consultant has become the first man to be ordered to pay all of his £550,000 assets to his ex-wife, following an extraordinary divorce ruling.
Anaesthetist Dr Essam Aly, 54, 'washed his hands' of his family after leaving wife Enas, 46, in 2011 and moving to Bahrain - and has not paid a penny in maintenance or child support since 2012.
Out of the reach of the British authorities and courts, it was feared the 'serial defaulter' from Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, would never again pay to support her or their two children....
We Spoke to Lauren Chief Elk, the Woman Behind #GiveYourMoneytoWomen, About the Power of Cold Hard Cash
When #GiveYourMoneyToWomen started surfacing on my social feeds last month, I thought it might have something to do with the way in which women are underpaid at the office. Brilliant, I thought, Give your money to women as a way of balancing out gender-based income inequality. But the idea behind the hashtag was even better than that: Women were banding together to demand payment for all the emotional work we do that goes completely unpaid—the exhausting work of being a tolerant, gentle, nurturing, listening woman in our relationships with men, at all times. Women put up with a lot of bullshit, and we have a science-backed term for it: Emotional labor. And as with any kind of labor, women are now ready and eager to get paid.
In the words of Jess Zimmerman, "Men like to act as if commanding women's attention is their birthright, their natural due, and they are rarely contradicted. It's a radical act to refuse them that attention. It's even more radical to propose that if they want it so fucking much, they can buy it." Bitch better have my money, indeed....
New Planned Parenthood video: Organs harvested without informed consent
...That pressure ends up pushing technicians to get blood and organs even when the women expressly forbid it. In one case O’Donnell recalls, a late-term mother refused consent, which O’Donnell explained to the other technician. “You have to make sure you get her,” O’Donnell’s colleague told her, but O’Donnell said she had refused consent. That didn’t stop the technician, however. “If there was a higher gestation, and the technicians needed it, there were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”...
A hospital consultant has become the first man to be ordered to pay all of his £550,000 assets to his ex-wife, following an extraordinary divorce ruling.
Anaesthetist Dr Essam Aly, 54, 'washed his hands' of his family after leaving wife Enas, 46, in 2011 and moving to Bahrain - and has not paid a penny in maintenance or child support since 2012.
Out of the reach of the British authorities and courts, it was feared the 'serial defaulter' from Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, would never again pay to support her or their two children....
We Spoke to Lauren Chief Elk, the Woman Behind #GiveYourMoneytoWomen, About the Power of Cold Hard Cash
When #GiveYourMoneyToWomen started surfacing on my social feeds last month, I thought it might have something to do with the way in which women are underpaid at the office. Brilliant, I thought, Give your money to women as a way of balancing out gender-based income inequality. But the idea behind the hashtag was even better than that: Women were banding together to demand payment for all the emotional work we do that goes completely unpaid—the exhausting work of being a tolerant, gentle, nurturing, listening woman in our relationships with men, at all times. Women put up with a lot of bullshit, and we have a science-backed term for it: Emotional labor. And as with any kind of labor, women are now ready and eager to get paid.
In the words of Jess Zimmerman, "Men like to act as if commanding women's attention is their birthright, their natural due, and they are rarely contradicted. It's a radical act to refuse them that attention. It's even more radical to propose that if they want it so fucking much, they can buy it." Bitch better have my money, indeed....
New Planned Parenthood video: Organs harvested without informed consent
...That pressure ends up pushing technicians to get blood and organs even when the women expressly forbid it. In one case O’Donnell recalls, a late-term mother refused consent, which O’Donnell explained to the other technician. “You have to make sure you get her,” O’Donnell’s colleague told her, but O’Donnell said she had refused consent. That didn’t stop the technician, however. “If there was a higher gestation, and the technicians needed it, there were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”...
Slate shocked, shocked that ObamaCare didn’t fix cost curve
...Er … no, not really. The lunatic fringe that discuss FEMA camps aren’t using ObamaCare for that argument, and even if they were, they’d be no more germane to ObamaCare criticism than Illuminati paranoids discussing monetary policy. It’s a cheap way to throw a sop to Slate’s audience, a wink and a nudge that says I’m one of you! before explaining the results of the ACA — among which actually included the loss of preferred providers despite Barack Obama’s promises....
ObamaCare: Still failing after all these years
...Insurance plans sold on government-run Obamacare exchanges on average have 34 percent fewer hospitals and doctors—including specialists—in their provider networks than health policies sold outside those exchanges or offered by employers, a new analysis finds....
...At the same time, deductibles have also skyrocketed, leaving people with higher monthly payments and even less ability to access the insurance that those premiums provide. Slate’s Helaine Olen heaps scorn on Obamacare opponents and fails to admit that their predictions of spiraling costs have come true, but she does admit that the system does not work at controlling costs – the most significant reason to have government overhaul the health-insurance system in the first place....
...Provider networks have narrowed considerably, making access even more difficult than before. Emergency room visits for routine care have actually increased. The bureaucracy that runs all of this cannot fix its fraud problem, not even after having it specifically pointed out to them by the GAO and given a year to resolve. ...
Everybody Has To Pay This New Obamacare Tax
All Americans who bought health insurance policies this year – not just those enrolled in Obamacare – face a 41 percent increase in excise taxes because of hidden fees contained in an obscure section of the Affordable Care Act, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Virtually everyone who pays for health care insurance this year will be affected by the tax. The little-known tax was imposed on all consumers regardless of whether they obtained their insurance through Obamacare or through their employer or as individuals in the private market.
This year the tax will cost individuals more than $500 in extra premiums according to one actuarial estimate. Families who purchased insurance will see their premiums go up by more than $700....
...Er … no, not really. The lunatic fringe that discuss FEMA camps aren’t using ObamaCare for that argument, and even if they were, they’d be no more germane to ObamaCare criticism than Illuminati paranoids discussing monetary policy. It’s a cheap way to throw a sop to Slate’s audience, a wink and a nudge that says I’m one of you! before explaining the results of the ACA — among which actually included the loss of preferred providers despite Barack Obama’s promises....
ObamaCare: Still failing after all these years
...Insurance plans sold on government-run Obamacare exchanges on average have 34 percent fewer hospitals and doctors—including specialists—in their provider networks than health policies sold outside those exchanges or offered by employers, a new analysis finds....
...At the same time, deductibles have also skyrocketed, leaving people with higher monthly payments and even less ability to access the insurance that those premiums provide. Slate’s Helaine Olen heaps scorn on Obamacare opponents and fails to admit that their predictions of spiraling costs have come true, but she does admit that the system does not work at controlling costs – the most significant reason to have government overhaul the health-insurance system in the first place....
...Provider networks have narrowed considerably, making access even more difficult than before. Emergency room visits for routine care have actually increased. The bureaucracy that runs all of this cannot fix its fraud problem, not even after having it specifically pointed out to them by the GAO and given a year to resolve. ...
Everybody Has To Pay This New Obamacare Tax
All Americans who bought health insurance policies this year – not just those enrolled in Obamacare – face a 41 percent increase in excise taxes because of hidden fees contained in an obscure section of the Affordable Care Act, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Virtually everyone who pays for health care insurance this year will be affected by the tax. The little-known tax was imposed on all consumers regardless of whether they obtained their insurance through Obamacare or through their employer or as individuals in the private market.
This year the tax will cost individuals more than $500 in extra premiums according to one actuarial estimate. Families who purchased insurance will see their premiums go up by more than $700....
Insipidness Guaranteed
...It’s intriguing that the people who most self-righteously criticize the likes of McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch, pop rock, and builders of ‘cookie-cutter’ houses for being bland and failing to experiment with the Bold and the Edgy – those who condemn conformity, sneer at the crowds in Wal-Mart, and trumpet their devotion to diversity – are especially likely to be among those who glorify politics and to find in democratic elections the possibility of transcendence and of discovering and empowering the bold, the different, and the courageous trend-bucking leader.
No one should be surprised that candidates for the U.S. presidency transact mostly in platitudes and are forever performing deeds on the campaign trail that any self-respecting person with independent judgment and a genuine sense and appreciation of his or her uniqueness would never in a million years dream of doing. And the closer a candidate gets to the political promised land, the more intense becomes the pressure for him or her to be the political equivalent of a Bud Lite.
...It’s intriguing that the people who most self-righteously criticize the likes of McDonald’s, Anheuser-Busch, pop rock, and builders of ‘cookie-cutter’ houses for being bland and failing to experiment with the Bold and the Edgy – those who condemn conformity, sneer at the crowds in Wal-Mart, and trumpet their devotion to diversity – are especially likely to be among those who glorify politics and to find in democratic elections the possibility of transcendence and of discovering and empowering the bold, the different, and the courageous trend-bucking leader.
No one should be surprised that candidates for the U.S. presidency transact mostly in platitudes and are forever performing deeds on the campaign trail that any self-respecting person with independent judgment and a genuine sense and appreciation of his or her uniqueness would never in a million years dream of doing. And the closer a candidate gets to the political promised land, the more intense becomes the pressure for him or her to be the political equivalent of a Bud Lite.
OMBama Yoga - "Invoke the Spirit of Obama's Own Phrase"
... The silver-tongued Barack Obama's words are on tee shirts selling at Om Time, an oasis of tranquility sandwiched between the Colorado Democratic headquarters on one corner, and the center for the Obama campaign on the other, along with a slice of tattoo shop and art gallery garnish. "The Union may never be perfect but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected," proclaims the tee-shirt in the Om Time window.
It hangs just south of the shri shrine, and the peace and love tee shirts you'd expect. Walk by quickly and you'd think the silk-screened image of Obama's close-shaved head was Ghandi's....
"No one saw him coming ... like Jesus being born in a manger"
"Lord, we have again come to you in prayer, and you have heard our cries from heaven, and you have sent us again from the state called Illinois, a man called Barack to heal our land," said Younginer, a 62-year-old retired information systems worker at Coca Cola in Atlanta. "We pray that you will build a hedge around him that will protect him from those who would do him harm."
Younginer, like many others, is convinced that Obama was destined to be president. The mere fact that he won the presidency against the odds has caused some Christians, particularly African-Americans, to see the hand of God in his victory after so many years of struggle.
[...]
[Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel] said many people look for a sign from God when times are turbulent. And, he said, there are many elements to Obama's win in which Christians can find spiritual significance.
"It is powerful and significant on a spiritual level that there is the emergence of Barack Obama 40 years after the passing of Dr. King," said Carter. "No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger."
"Prepare your heart to fill with hope; Prepare your mind to embrace the change!"
Between now and November 4... Let's spend one minute a day... Envisioning Barack Obama... As our President... Prepare your heart to fill with hope... Prepare your mind to embrace the change... Envision Barack victorious on election night... ...Taking the oath of office... On Inauguration Day... Believe that this great moment in American history is already a reality... Say the words to yourself... To your family... To your friends and neighbors... Say it to the world... Your vision is a sacred trust... You are a sanctuary of a sacred vision for a renewed America... Envision it... Say it... Feel it... Believe it... Make it our reality... Manifest Obama, America!
"You'll have to measure time by `Before Obama' and `After Obama'"
..."When that happens, it will change everything. ... You'll have to measure time by `Before Obama' and `After Obama,'" Lee said during the panel. "It's an exciting time to be alive now." ...
"Everything's going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe," he said...
"I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by disciple-like devotion ..."
Barack Obama must be elected President of the United States. It’s his worldview, his clarity of judgment, and his just plain right-mindedness that resonate with me. Figuring that my efforts were best spent raising money for the campaign, I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion. It’s intense and intoxicating. ...
...Then, in a moment of divine intervention, he saw me, clad in my red stop-sign of a dress, back-tracked ever so slightly in his procession, grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, "I’ll never wash this hand again."
"God of All Things"
...In its November 22, 2010 issue, Obama has been shown by Newsweek on its cover page with multiple arms balancing several policy issues while raising his left leg mimicking the cosmic dance of the Hindu deity; considered a manifestation of Lord Shiva.
... Newsweek has named Obama "god of all things" on its cover.
"He has brought us out of the dark and into the light."
...Obama told the estimated crowd of 450 people that her husband is "the kind of president this country deserves. "
Obama closed by asking the crowd three times: "Are you in?"
She responded to her own question by saying: "Because I am so in."
"We have an amazing story to tell," she said. "This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light."...
The Gospel According to The Apostle Barack
...Yes, Barack had worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people, especially those who elected him in 2008. His followers needed to re-elect him to a second term, so that he could continue to accomplish the promises he made, thus, realizing his vision of America as a more perfect political union or “heaven here on earth.” Then, as I began to contemplate ways to assist Barack in his 2012 re-election bid something miraculous happened. I felt God’s (His) Spirit beckoning me in my dreams at night. Listening, cautiously, I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor. Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side. He had the answers to unlock the kingdom of “heaven here on earth” for his followers. The answers were repeated – over and over – in speeches Barack had made from his presidential announcement to his inaugural address. Those speeches or his teachings contained the answers to the middle class and working poor people living in a “heaven here on earth.” For when the answers were unlocked and enacted, Apostle Barack’s vision of America would be realized...
"God sent us Barack Obama"
....Standing at the pulpit, he first invoked God and then Barack Obama, portraying himself as the president’s apostle, put on Earth to protect Harlem and his president from those awful white Southern Republicans. “They hate the president,” he told the Antioch faithful, a message he had repeat at five other church drop-ins on that sunny summer Sunday. “God sent us Barack Obama,” he told a congregation in 116th St. half an hour later, before heading up to West 153rd St. “These people carry hate in their heart … all of them come from states that used to hold Africans as slaves,” he told a packed house at the Bethany Baptist Church under a stained-glass window of Christ in prayer. “All of them hated Abe Lincoln! All of them really think that the Civil War is not over!”...
"The presence of the Divine"
...Rabbi David Saperstein, reading from Psalms in English and Hebrew, noticed from the altar that the good men and women of the congregation that day, including the Bidens and other dignitaries, had not yet stood. Finally Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Church asked that everyone rise. At that moment Saperstein saw something from his angle of vision: "If I had seen it in a movie I would have groaned and said, 'Give me a break. That's so trite.'" A beam of morning light shown [sic] through the stained-glass windows and illuminated the president-elect's face. Several of the clergy and choir on the altar who also saw it marveled afterward about the presence of the Divine....
Obama to Disciples: "You will experience an epiphany"
"My job is to be so persuasive that if there's anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama"
Lebanon Opera House, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
... The silver-tongued Barack Obama's words are on tee shirts selling at Om Time, an oasis of tranquility sandwiched between the Colorado Democratic headquarters on one corner, and the center for the Obama campaign on the other, along with a slice of tattoo shop and art gallery garnish. "The Union may never be perfect but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected," proclaims the tee-shirt in the Om Time window.
It hangs just south of the shri shrine, and the peace and love tee shirts you'd expect. Walk by quickly and you'd think the silk-screened image of Obama's close-shaved head was Ghandi's....
"No one saw him coming ... like Jesus being born in a manger"
"Lord, we have again come to you in prayer, and you have heard our cries from heaven, and you have sent us again from the state called Illinois, a man called Barack to heal our land," said Younginer, a 62-year-old retired information systems worker at Coca Cola in Atlanta. "We pray that you will build a hedge around him that will protect him from those who would do him harm."
Younginer, like many others, is convinced that Obama was destined to be president. The mere fact that he won the presidency against the odds has caused some Christians, particularly African-Americans, to see the hand of God in his victory after so many years of struggle.
[...]
[Lawrence Carter, dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel] said many people look for a sign from God when times are turbulent. And, he said, there are many elements to Obama's win in which Christians can find spiritual significance.
"It is powerful and significant on a spiritual level that there is the emergence of Barack Obama 40 years after the passing of Dr. King," said Carter. "No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger."
"Prepare your heart to fill with hope; Prepare your mind to embrace the change!"
Between now and November 4... Let's spend one minute a day... Envisioning Barack Obama... As our President... Prepare your heart to fill with hope... Prepare your mind to embrace the change... Envision Barack victorious on election night... ...Taking the oath of office... On Inauguration Day... Believe that this great moment in American history is already a reality... Say the words to yourself... To your family... To your friends and neighbors... Say it to the world... Your vision is a sacred trust... You are a sanctuary of a sacred vision for a renewed America... Envision it... Say it... Feel it... Believe it... Make it our reality... Manifest Obama, America!
"You'll have to measure time by `Before Obama' and `After Obama'"
..."When that happens, it will change everything. ... You'll have to measure time by `Before Obama' and `After Obama,'" Lee said during the panel. "It's an exciting time to be alive now." ...
"Everything's going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe," he said...
"I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by disciple-like devotion ..."
Barack Obama must be elected President of the United States. It’s his worldview, his clarity of judgment, and his just plain right-mindedness that resonate with me. Figuring that my efforts were best spent raising money for the campaign, I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion. It’s intense and intoxicating. ...
...Then, in a moment of divine intervention, he saw me, clad in my red stop-sign of a dress, back-tracked ever so slightly in his procession, grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, "I’ll never wash this hand again."
"God of All Things"
...In its November 22, 2010 issue, Obama has been shown by Newsweek on its cover page with multiple arms balancing several policy issues while raising his left leg mimicking the cosmic dance of the Hindu deity; considered a manifestation of Lord Shiva.
... Newsweek has named Obama "god of all things" on its cover.
"He has brought us out of the dark and into the light."
...Obama told the estimated crowd of 450 people that her husband is "the kind of president this country deserves. "
Obama closed by asking the crowd three times: "Are you in?"
She responded to her own question by saying: "Because I am so in."
"We have an amazing story to tell," she said. "This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light."...
The Gospel According to The Apostle Barack
...Yes, Barack had worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people, especially those who elected him in 2008. His followers needed to re-elect him to a second term, so that he could continue to accomplish the promises he made, thus, realizing his vision of America as a more perfect political union or “heaven here on earth.” Then, as I began to contemplate ways to assist Barack in his 2012 re-election bid something miraculous happened. I felt God’s (His) Spirit beckoning me in my dreams at night. Listening, cautiously, I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor. Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side. He had the answers to unlock the kingdom of “heaven here on earth” for his followers. The answers were repeated – over and over – in speeches Barack had made from his presidential announcement to his inaugural address. Those speeches or his teachings contained the answers to the middle class and working poor people living in a “heaven here on earth.” For when the answers were unlocked and enacted, Apostle Barack’s vision of America would be realized...
"God sent us Barack Obama"
....Standing at the pulpit, he first invoked God and then Barack Obama, portraying himself as the president’s apostle, put on Earth to protect Harlem and his president from those awful white Southern Republicans. “They hate the president,” he told the Antioch faithful, a message he had repeat at five other church drop-ins on that sunny summer Sunday. “God sent us Barack Obama,” he told a congregation in 116th St. half an hour later, before heading up to West 153rd St. “These people carry hate in their heart … all of them come from states that used to hold Africans as slaves,” he told a packed house at the Bethany Baptist Church under a stained-glass window of Christ in prayer. “All of them hated Abe Lincoln! All of them really think that the Civil War is not over!”...
"The presence of the Divine"
...Rabbi David Saperstein, reading from Psalms in English and Hebrew, noticed from the altar that the good men and women of the congregation that day, including the Bidens and other dignitaries, had not yet stood. Finally Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Church asked that everyone rise. At that moment Saperstein saw something from his angle of vision: "If I had seen it in a movie I would have groaned and said, 'Give me a break. That's so trite.'" A beam of morning light shown [sic] through the stained-glass windows and illuminated the president-elect's face. Several of the clergy and choir on the altar who also saw it marveled afterward about the presence of the Divine....
Obama to Disciples: "You will experience an epiphany"
"My job is to be so persuasive that if there's anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama"
Lebanon Opera House, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
WHAT NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT BUT WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO WORRY ABOUT
...4. Hillary Clinton, as both a future Presidential candidate and a sitting Sec. of State would have been one of the Top 100 intelligence targets in the world and probably one of the top 10.
5. It’s thus certain that the Chinese and Russians would each have had a team focused on accessing her communications.
6. Every security expert I know of has said it’s a virtual certainty the Chinese and Russians both gained access to her server and all her emails. From what I know about their capabilities, I’d agree.
There are probably a bunch of folks in China and Russia who are praying (even if they’re atheists) for Hillary to be elected. If she wins, they own the President of the United States. I can just imagine in a meeting with Putin, Hillary being told to back off supporting Ukraine or he’ll release her emails (as he hands her a folder containing the most damaging ones for her to peruse). Put in that position, would Hillary fall on her sword or sacrifice a country like Ukraine? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to be living in Ukraine…...
Hillary Clinton’s Server Was In New Jersey This Whole Time. It’s Blank Now.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s mysterious email server has been in a private data center in New Jersey since 2013, that is, until the IT company the former secretary of state hired to maintain the hardware handed the “blank” device over to the FBI Wednesday....
Hillary: When you diss the government, you diss yourself
...“When people diss the government — we’re really dissing ourselves and dissing our democracy,” Clinton said....
...4. Hillary Clinton, as both a future Presidential candidate and a sitting Sec. of State would have been one of the Top 100 intelligence targets in the world and probably one of the top 10.
5. It’s thus certain that the Chinese and Russians would each have had a team focused on accessing her communications.
6. Every security expert I know of has said it’s a virtual certainty the Chinese and Russians both gained access to her server and all her emails. From what I know about their capabilities, I’d agree.
There are probably a bunch of folks in China and Russia who are praying (even if they’re atheists) for Hillary to be elected. If she wins, they own the President of the United States. I can just imagine in a meeting with Putin, Hillary being told to back off supporting Ukraine or he’ll release her emails (as he hands her a folder containing the most damaging ones for her to peruse). Put in that position, would Hillary fall on her sword or sacrifice a country like Ukraine? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to be living in Ukraine…...
Hillary Clinton’s Server Was In New Jersey This Whole Time. It’s Blank Now.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s mysterious email server has been in a private data center in New Jersey since 2013, that is, until the IT company the former secretary of state hired to maintain the hardware handed the “blank” device over to the FBI Wednesday....
Hillary: When you diss the government, you diss yourself
...“When people diss the government — we’re really dissing ourselves and dissing our democracy,” Clinton said....
IRS Used Donor Lists to Target Conservatives for Audits
A request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the investigative group Judicial Watch reveals that the Internal Revenue Service used donor lists of tax-exempt organizations to target them for audits....
A request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the investigative group Judicial Watch reveals that the Internal Revenue Service used donor lists of tax-exempt organizations to target them for audits....
Polish-born single mum hits out over what she calls lack of government help
...Permanent residents who become citizens must wait 104 weeks before receiving some welfare payments. Ms Swiatlowska became a citizen in March but will not be eligible to receive single parent payments until September. She wants the government to backpay her from March, claiming the $530 a fortnight she receives now is not enough....
...Permanent residents who become citizens must wait 104 weeks before receiving some welfare payments. Ms Swiatlowska became a citizen in March but will not be eligible to receive single parent payments until September. She wants the government to backpay her from March, claiming the $530 a fortnight she receives now is not enough....
Being the ex-President's daughter pays off: Hugo Chavez's ambassador daughter is Venezuela's richest woman
The daughter of Hugo Chavez, the former president who once declared 'being rich is bad,' may be the wealthiest woman in Venezuela, according to evidence reportedly in the hands of Venezuelan media outlets.
Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, the late president's second-oldest daughter, holds assets in American and Andorran banks totaling almost $4.2billion, Diario las Americas reports.
The figure would make Gabriela Chavez wealthier than media mogul Gustavo Cisneros, whom Forbes named the wealthiest Venezuelan earlier this year with $3.6billion in assets....
The daughter of Hugo Chavez, the former president who once declared 'being rich is bad,' may be the wealthiest woman in Venezuela, according to evidence reportedly in the hands of Venezuelan media outlets.
Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, the late president's second-oldest daughter, holds assets in American and Andorran banks totaling almost $4.2billion, Diario las Americas reports.
The figure would make Gabriela Chavez wealthier than media mogul Gustavo Cisneros, whom Forbes named the wealthiest Venezuelan earlier this year with $3.6billion in assets....
Sure Why Not
...She didn't present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions: Monogamy meant I controlled her sexual expression, and, not to get all women's-studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man's fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can't control....
...She didn't present it as an issue of feminism to me, but after much soul-searching about why the idea of my wife having sex with other men bothered me I came to a few conclusions: Monogamy meant I controlled her sexual expression, and, not to get all women's-studies major about it, patriarchal oppression essentially boils down to a man's fear that a woman with sexual agency is a woman he can't control....
The New York Times Admits Scientists Can Be Bought
...And this headline: "Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets." This is also the New York Times....
...If Coca-Cola can find scientists and get an opinion that they want from by paying them, do you think the same thing could happen to climate change scientists and a "consensus" of them? Do you think somebody could come along and offer those scientists enough money? I mean, the left, if anybody's paying attention, is writing their own obituary in this stuff. ...
...Do you know that climate change has become an industry? It is a $1.5 trillion industry. This is from an insurance website. They know this because all of these various industries have to buy insurance policies and the value of these policies is $1.5 trillion. "Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking. The $1.5 trillion global 'climate change industry' grew at between 17 and 24% annually from 2005-2008," and there are more details on this coming later. ...
6 Reasons You Can't Trust Science Anymore
Is Climate Change Now Its Own Industry?
...Included in this sub-segment, which the report shows is one of the fastest growing areas of the climate change industry, are environmental consultants and engineers, risk managers, assurance, as well as legal and other professional services....
Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish
...A 1997 US law mandated the registry’s creation, requiring researchers from 2000 to record their trial methods and outcome measures before collecting data. The study found that in a sample of 55 large trials testing heart-disease treatments, 57% of those published before 2000 reported positive effects from the treatments. But that figure plunged to just 8% in studies that were conducted after 2000. Study author Veronica Irvin, a health scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says this suggests that registering clinical studies is leading to more rigorous research. Writing on his NeuroLogica Blog, neurologist Steven Novella of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, called the study “encouraging” but also “a bit frightening” because it casts doubt on previous positive results....
...Irvin says that by having to state their methods and measurements before starting their trial, researchers cannot then cherry-pick data to find an effect once the study is over. “It’s more difficult for investigators to selectively report some outcomes and exclude others,” she says....
...And this headline: "Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets." This is also the New York Times....
...If Coca-Cola can find scientists and get an opinion that they want from by paying them, do you think the same thing could happen to climate change scientists and a "consensus" of them? Do you think somebody could come along and offer those scientists enough money? I mean, the left, if anybody's paying attention, is writing their own obituary in this stuff. ...
...Do you know that climate change has become an industry? It is a $1.5 trillion industry. This is from an insurance website. They know this because all of these various industries have to buy insurance policies and the value of these policies is $1.5 trillion. "Interest in climate change is becoming an increasingly powerful economic driver, so much so that some see it as an industry in itself whose growth is driven in large part by policymaking. The $1.5 trillion global 'climate change industry' grew at between 17 and 24% annually from 2005-2008," and there are more details on this coming later. ...
6 Reasons You Can't Trust Science Anymore
Is Climate Change Now Its Own Industry?
...Included in this sub-segment, which the report shows is one of the fastest growing areas of the climate change industry, are environmental consultants and engineers, risk managers, assurance, as well as legal and other professional services....
Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish
...A 1997 US law mandated the registry’s creation, requiring researchers from 2000 to record their trial methods and outcome measures before collecting data. The study found that in a sample of 55 large trials testing heart-disease treatments, 57% of those published before 2000 reported positive effects from the treatments. But that figure plunged to just 8% in studies that were conducted after 2000. Study author Veronica Irvin, a health scientist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says this suggests that registering clinical studies is leading to more rigorous research. Writing on his NeuroLogica Blog, neurologist Steven Novella of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, called the study “encouraging” but also “a bit frightening” because it casts doubt on previous positive results....
...Irvin says that by having to state their methods and measurements before starting their trial, researchers cannot then cherry-pick data to find an effect once the study is over. “It’s more difficult for investigators to selectively report some outcomes and exclude others,” she says....
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Church disciplines wife for wanting to divorce husband who admitted paedophile leanings
A Dallas megachurch is facing accusations that it has failed to deal with one of its members who viewed images of child abuse and instead made his wife a subject of church discipline.
The 10,000-member Village Church, whose lead pastor is Matt Chandler, supported two of its members, Jordan and Karen Root, in their work with the SIM USA mission organisation in East Asia. Jordan Root was found to have been viewing child pornography and his appointment with SIM was terminated following an investigation and his admission of guilt.
Jordan Root entered what the church called a "process of walking in repentance" and the church was told: "1 John 1:7 reminds us that he is washed clean of all unrighteousness, met with forgiveness, and granted fellowship with the body. Even with egregious sin, we are now called to reaffirm our love for him." He was removed from ministry and reported to the authorities. He was allowed to attend worship at the church if he was accompanied by a member, and also forbidden to enter the church's children's ministry building.
Karen Root – now Karen Hinkley – took steps to have her marriage annulled and resigned her membership of the church. However, The Village Church has a strict 'covenant' membership policy which includes the commitment: "I will seek to preserve the gift of marriage and agree to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at The Village Church before pursuing divorce from my spouse."...
A Dallas megachurch is facing accusations that it has failed to deal with one of its members who viewed images of child abuse and instead made his wife a subject of church discipline.
The 10,000-member Village Church, whose lead pastor is Matt Chandler, supported two of its members, Jordan and Karen Root, in their work with the SIM USA mission organisation in East Asia. Jordan Root was found to have been viewing child pornography and his appointment with SIM was terminated following an investigation and his admission of guilt.
Jordan Root entered what the church called a "process of walking in repentance" and the church was told: "1 John 1:7 reminds us that he is washed clean of all unrighteousness, met with forgiveness, and granted fellowship with the body. Even with egregious sin, we are now called to reaffirm our love for him." He was removed from ministry and reported to the authorities. He was allowed to attend worship at the church if he was accompanied by a member, and also forbidden to enter the church's children's ministry building.
Karen Root – now Karen Hinkley – took steps to have her marriage annulled and resigned her membership of the church. However, The Village Church has a strict 'covenant' membership policy which includes the commitment: "I will seek to preserve the gift of marriage and agree to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at The Village Church before pursuing divorce from my spouse."...
Obama’s awesome new race database even more awesome than you imagined
...Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds....
Obama Orders Cities And Towns To Racially Integrate
...Communities nationwide will be given a series of questions designed to help them figure out whether racial bias is causing segregated neighborhoods, racial or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, unequal access to opportunity or disproportionate housing needs in their jurisdiction. They will be required to set goals related to that data and publicly report on their progress every three to five years.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development rule is intended to prod communities to meet fair housing standards established in the Fair Housing Act of 1986, by making previously unavailable or unreliable data accessible to the public, which could then use the data as an impetus for change.
The Fair Housing Act requires the government to not only eliminate racial discrimination in housing, but also to encourage racially integrated neighborhoods...
Planned Parenthood Paid Disgraced Official More Than $200,000 On The Side
Backlash RIPS Lib Journo After She Blames Planned Parenthood Videos On ‘Patriarchy,’ ‘White Supremacy’
...Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds....
Obama Orders Cities And Towns To Racially Integrate
...Communities nationwide will be given a series of questions designed to help them figure out whether racial bias is causing segregated neighborhoods, racial or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, unequal access to opportunity or disproportionate housing needs in their jurisdiction. They will be required to set goals related to that data and publicly report on their progress every three to five years.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development rule is intended to prod communities to meet fair housing standards established in the Fair Housing Act of 1986, by making previously unavailable or unreliable data accessible to the public, which could then use the data as an impetus for change.
The Fair Housing Act requires the government to not only eliminate racial discrimination in housing, but also to encourage racially integrated neighborhoods...
Planned Parenthood Paid Disgraced Official More Than $200,000 On The Side
Backlash RIPS Lib Journo After She Blames Planned Parenthood Videos On ‘Patriarchy,’ ‘White Supremacy’
Satellites: Earth Is Nearly In Its 21st Year Without Global Warming
...Since September 1994, University of Alabama in Huntsville’s satellite temperature data has shown no statistically significant global warming trend. For over 20 years there’s been no warming trend apparent in the satellite records and will soon be entering into year 22 with no warming trend apparent in satellite data — which examines the lowest few miles of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Satellite data from the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) group also shows a prolonged “hiatus” in global warming. After November of this year, RSS data will be in its 22nd year without warming. Ironically, the so-called “hiatus” in warming started when then vice President Al Gore and environmental groups touted RSS satellite data as evidence a slight warming trend since 1979....
Contemplating Catastrophe, Environmentalists Embrace Existentialism
Giving up on climate change means giving up on being human.
...Walking away, Kingsnorth says, is not giving in to despair. Far from it: though he denies he’s a nihilist, he has a nihilist’s glee at the collapse of the phony world, the illusion that we can keep our technological society and our cars and computers and our cheap food grown half a world away, just by building more stuff and being smarter. The world, if not modern techno-civilization, will persist. We might destroy ourselves, but nature will outlive us. That’s all that really matters...
SETTLED SCIENCE, OR SELECTIVE IGNORANCE?
...Then there is a fact that, in my opinion, doesn’t get enough emphasis in these debates: in the course of preparing its most recent report, AR5, the IPCC slashed its estimate of future global warming by almost 50 percent. And this was at the end of 2013! How can the science be settled, when it isn’t even settled within the IPCC, a political body that was established by the U.N. to promote global warming alarmism?
It is obvious to any disinterested observer (i.e., anyone not funded by a government) that the alarmists are in disarray. Their models–the sole basis for their predictions of catastrophic warming–have been shown to have no ability to forecast the future. And, in fact, they don’t even hindcast very well. It is easy to create a model that matches the past better than the alarmists’ models, but to do that, you have to downgrade the importance of CO2–which is, in truth, a minor factor in the Earth’s climate....
Rice revolution? New rice could help feed world, fight climate change.
...Since September 1994, University of Alabama in Huntsville’s satellite temperature data has shown no statistically significant global warming trend. For over 20 years there’s been no warming trend apparent in the satellite records and will soon be entering into year 22 with no warming trend apparent in satellite data — which examines the lowest few miles of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Satellite data from the Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) group also shows a prolonged “hiatus” in global warming. After November of this year, RSS data will be in its 22nd year without warming. Ironically, the so-called “hiatus” in warming started when then vice President Al Gore and environmental groups touted RSS satellite data as evidence a slight warming trend since 1979....
Contemplating Catastrophe, Environmentalists Embrace Existentialism
Giving up on climate change means giving up on being human.
...Walking away, Kingsnorth says, is not giving in to despair. Far from it: though he denies he’s a nihilist, he has a nihilist’s glee at the collapse of the phony world, the illusion that we can keep our technological society and our cars and computers and our cheap food grown half a world away, just by building more stuff and being smarter. The world, if not modern techno-civilization, will persist. We might destroy ourselves, but nature will outlive us. That’s all that really matters...
SETTLED SCIENCE, OR SELECTIVE IGNORANCE?
...Then there is a fact that, in my opinion, doesn’t get enough emphasis in these debates: in the course of preparing its most recent report, AR5, the IPCC slashed its estimate of future global warming by almost 50 percent. And this was at the end of 2013! How can the science be settled, when it isn’t even settled within the IPCC, a political body that was established by the U.N. to promote global warming alarmism?
It is obvious to any disinterested observer (i.e., anyone not funded by a government) that the alarmists are in disarray. Their models–the sole basis for their predictions of catastrophic warming–have been shown to have no ability to forecast the future. And, in fact, they don’t even hindcast very well. It is easy to create a model that matches the past better than the alarmists’ models, but to do that, you have to downgrade the importance of CO2–which is, in truth, a minor factor in the Earth’s climate....
Rice revolution? New rice could help feed world, fight climate change.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
The Whitest Privilege
...The Left occasionally indulges in bouts of romantic exoticism — its pin-ups have included Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Mao Zedong; we might even count Benito Mussolini, “that admirable Italian gentleman” who would not have been counted sufficiently white to join Franklin Roosevelt’s country club — but the welfare states that progressives dream about are the whitest ones: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. The significance of this never quite seems to occur to progressives. When it is suggested that the central-planning, welfare-statist policies that they favor are bound to produce results familiar to the unhappy residents of, e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia — privation, chaos, repression, political violence — American progressives reliably reply: “No, no, we don’t want that kind of socialism. We want socialism like they have it in Finland."
Translation: “We want white socialism, not brown socialism!”...
The Stupidity of Sophisticates
...Claudine and I were talking about Germany in the Thirties - before the concentration camps and the Final Solution, before millions of dead bodies piled up in the gas chambers. So you need to have an imaginative capacity. It's not clear from your email that you do, but give it a go: Imagine being a middle-class German in 1933. No one's talking about exterminating millions of people - I mean, that would be just "lunatic" stuff, wouldn't it? And you belong to a people that regards itself as the most civilized on the planet - with unsurpassed achievements in literature and music and science. You might, if you were so minded, call it Teutonic Exceptionalism. And you're "progressive", too: you pioneered the welfare state under Bismarck, and prototype hate-speech laws under the Weimar republic. And yes, some of the beer-hall crowd are a bit rough, but German Jews are the most assimilated on the planet. The idea that such a society would commit genocide is not just "lunatic", it's literally unimaginable.
So don't even bother trying to imagine that. Instead try to imagine it's early 1933. The National Socialist German Workers Party is the largest party in parliament and thus President von Hindenburg has appointed its leader, Herr Hitler, as Chancellor - not der Führer, just Chancellor, the same position Frau Merkel holds today. And the National Socialist German Workers Party starts enacting its legislative programme, and so a few weeks later the Civil Service Restoration Law is introduced. Under this law, Jews would no longer be allowed to serve as civil servants, teachers or lawyers, the last two being professions in which Jews are very well represented.
But that wily old fox Hindenburg knows a thing or two. So as president he refuses to sign the bill into law unless certain exemptions are made - for those who've been in the civil service since August 1st 1914 (ie, the start of the Great War), and for those who served during the Great War, or had a father or son who died in action. And the practical effect of these amendments is that hardly any Jew in the public service has to lose his job.
And so in April 1933 it would be easy to say, if you were a middle-class German seeking nothing other than a quiet life, that, yes, these National Socialist chappies are a bit uncouth, but the checks and balances are still just about working. What's the worst they can do?
Paul von Hindenburg died the following year, and his amendments were scrapped....
...The Left occasionally indulges in bouts of romantic exoticism — its pin-ups have included Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Mao Zedong; we might even count Benito Mussolini, “that admirable Italian gentleman” who would not have been counted sufficiently white to join Franklin Roosevelt’s country club — but the welfare states that progressives dream about are the whitest ones: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc. The significance of this never quite seems to occur to progressives. When it is suggested that the central-planning, welfare-statist policies that they favor are bound to produce results familiar to the unhappy residents of, e.g., Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia — privation, chaos, repression, political violence — American progressives reliably reply: “No, no, we don’t want that kind of socialism. We want socialism like they have it in Finland."
Translation: “We want white socialism, not brown socialism!”...
The Stupidity of Sophisticates
...Claudine and I were talking about Germany in the Thirties - before the concentration camps and the Final Solution, before millions of dead bodies piled up in the gas chambers. So you need to have an imaginative capacity. It's not clear from your email that you do, but give it a go: Imagine being a middle-class German in 1933. No one's talking about exterminating millions of people - I mean, that would be just "lunatic" stuff, wouldn't it? And you belong to a people that regards itself as the most civilized on the planet - with unsurpassed achievements in literature and music and science. You might, if you were so minded, call it Teutonic Exceptionalism. And you're "progressive", too: you pioneered the welfare state under Bismarck, and prototype hate-speech laws under the Weimar republic. And yes, some of the beer-hall crowd are a bit rough, but German Jews are the most assimilated on the planet. The idea that such a society would commit genocide is not just "lunatic", it's literally unimaginable.
So don't even bother trying to imagine that. Instead try to imagine it's early 1933. The National Socialist German Workers Party is the largest party in parliament and thus President von Hindenburg has appointed its leader, Herr Hitler, as Chancellor - not der Führer, just Chancellor, the same position Frau Merkel holds today. And the National Socialist German Workers Party starts enacting its legislative programme, and so a few weeks later the Civil Service Restoration Law is introduced. Under this law, Jews would no longer be allowed to serve as civil servants, teachers or lawyers, the last two being professions in which Jews are very well represented.
But that wily old fox Hindenburg knows a thing or two. So as president he refuses to sign the bill into law unless certain exemptions are made - for those who've been in the civil service since August 1st 1914 (ie, the start of the Great War), and for those who served during the Great War, or had a father or son who died in action. And the practical effect of these amendments is that hardly any Jew in the public service has to lose his job.
And so in April 1933 it would be easy to say, if you were a middle-class German seeking nothing other than a quiet life, that, yes, these National Socialist chappies are a bit uncouth, but the checks and balances are still just about working. What's the worst they can do?
Paul von Hindenburg died the following year, and his amendments were scrapped....
Professor’s Manifesto: Vegans Must Illegally Overthrow Society to Save the World
...We endorse a form of abolition that (1) defends the use of high-pressure direct action tactics, along with illegal raids, rescues, and sabotage attacks; (2) views capitalism as an inherently irrational, exploitative, and destructive system, and sees the state as a corrupt tool whose function is to advance the economic and military interests of the corporate domination system and to repress opposition to its agenda; (3) has a broad, critical understanding of how different forms of oppression are interrelated, seeing human animal, nonhuman animal, and earth liberation as inseparable projects; and, thus, (4) promotes an anti-capitalist alliance politics with other rights, justice, and liberation movements who share the common goal of dismantling all systems of hierarchical domination and rebuilding societies through decentralization and democratization processes....
...We must link the liberation of other animals to human and Earth liberation, and build a revolutionary movement strong enough to vanquish capitalist hegemony and to remake society without the crushing loadstones of anthropocentrism, speciesism, patriarchy, racism, classism, statism, heterosexism, ableism, and every other pernicious form of hierarchical domination.
Humanity may not succeed in this endeavor, but it is one that we must undertake. It is no longer the classical choice between ‘revolution or barbarism,’ but now that of revolution or ecological collapse and mass extinction....
Academic: Constitution Is ‘Confederate Symbol,’ Censor It
...Bain isn’t calling for the creation of a new Constitution, but rather says the current one should simply be edited to remove parts he considers immoral and outdated....
...Modern copies of the Constitution (such as that at Archive.gov) typically show the text as it originally was, while also including a note that such clauses have been superseded by later amendments. That may seem reasonable, but Bain says that kind of approach is the reason nine people found themselves brutally gunned down in Charleston.
“One might justify this presentation of our national charter by saying that it commemorates an earlier time or instructs students on the nation’s political history,” says Bain. “That kind of thinking has prevailed for a long time in Charleston, only recently yielding in the face of an atrocity.”...
Movement To Rename Schools Honoring Confederate Leaders Widens To Reach Progressive Woodrow Wilson
...How much of a racist was Wilson? He was such a racist that AlterNet, the activist-progressive news outlet, labeled him as America’s most racist modern president....
...We endorse a form of abolition that (1) defends the use of high-pressure direct action tactics, along with illegal raids, rescues, and sabotage attacks; (2) views capitalism as an inherently irrational, exploitative, and destructive system, and sees the state as a corrupt tool whose function is to advance the economic and military interests of the corporate domination system and to repress opposition to its agenda; (3) has a broad, critical understanding of how different forms of oppression are interrelated, seeing human animal, nonhuman animal, and earth liberation as inseparable projects; and, thus, (4) promotes an anti-capitalist alliance politics with other rights, justice, and liberation movements who share the common goal of dismantling all systems of hierarchical domination and rebuilding societies through decentralization and democratization processes....
...We must link the liberation of other animals to human and Earth liberation, and build a revolutionary movement strong enough to vanquish capitalist hegemony and to remake society without the crushing loadstones of anthropocentrism, speciesism, patriarchy, racism, classism, statism, heterosexism, ableism, and every other pernicious form of hierarchical domination.
Humanity may not succeed in this endeavor, but it is one that we must undertake. It is no longer the classical choice between ‘revolution or barbarism,’ but now that of revolution or ecological collapse and mass extinction....
Academic: Constitution Is ‘Confederate Symbol,’ Censor It
...Bain isn’t calling for the creation of a new Constitution, but rather says the current one should simply be edited to remove parts he considers immoral and outdated....
...Modern copies of the Constitution (such as that at Archive.gov) typically show the text as it originally was, while also including a note that such clauses have been superseded by later amendments. That may seem reasonable, but Bain says that kind of approach is the reason nine people found themselves brutally gunned down in Charleston.
“One might justify this presentation of our national charter by saying that it commemorates an earlier time or instructs students on the nation’s political history,” says Bain. “That kind of thinking has prevailed for a long time in Charleston, only recently yielding in the face of an atrocity.”...
Movement To Rename Schools Honoring Confederate Leaders Widens To Reach Progressive Woodrow Wilson
...How much of a racist was Wilson? He was such a racist that AlterNet, the activist-progressive news outlet, labeled him as America’s most racist modern president....
Study Resurrects The Global Warming ‘Hiatus’
...“[T]he main story here is not the new findings… but that Science magazine is publishing a paper describing physical mechanisms behind the hiatus that was accepted in its final form on June 24th, three weeks after Science’s paper announcing the hiatus to be a non-event,” wrote Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, climate scientists with the libertarian Cato Institute.
“The new paper contains a lot of science while the earlier paper rehashed some old findings (published elsewhere) and then spun them to make it seem as if the hiatus didn’t exist,” the libertarian scientists added.
Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry argued the study presents a better picture of vertical and horizontal heat distribution in the oceans. Curry also added the study shows there’s no observational evidence that the “missing heat” from global warming is being trapped in the deep oceans....
Law Prof.: Obama’s Climate Agenda Is About Changing The Constitution
...Late last year, Obama committed the U.S. to cut CO2 emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Obama made the pledge in conjunction with China’s government, which promised to merely peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. Republicans immediately came out against Obama’s pledge, saying it was unworkable and they wouldn’t ratify it....
...Obama wants to make signing a global climate deal part of his presidential legacy, but knows such an agreement would never be ratified by a Republican-controlled Senate. Therefore, the administration is doing everything it can to argue a UN deal would not need lawmakers’ approval....
...“[T]he main story here is not the new findings… but that Science magazine is publishing a paper describing physical mechanisms behind the hiatus that was accepted in its final form on June 24th, three weeks after Science’s paper announcing the hiatus to be a non-event,” wrote Pat Michaels and Chip Knappenberger, climate scientists with the libertarian Cato Institute.
“The new paper contains a lot of science while the earlier paper rehashed some old findings (published elsewhere) and then spun them to make it seem as if the hiatus didn’t exist,” the libertarian scientists added.
Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry argued the study presents a better picture of vertical and horizontal heat distribution in the oceans. Curry also added the study shows there’s no observational evidence that the “missing heat” from global warming is being trapped in the deep oceans....
Law Prof.: Obama’s Climate Agenda Is About Changing The Constitution
...Late last year, Obama committed the U.S. to cut CO2 emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. Obama made the pledge in conjunction with China’s government, which promised to merely peak its CO2 emissions by 2030. Republicans immediately came out against Obama’s pledge, saying it was unworkable and they wouldn’t ratify it....
...Obama wants to make signing a global climate deal part of his presidential legacy, but knows such an agreement would never be ratified by a Republican-controlled Senate. Therefore, the administration is doing everything it can to argue a UN deal would not need lawmakers’ approval....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)