10 myths about the Connecticut shootings
...School shootings are incredibly rare and, statistically, children are safer at school than they are at home, and they are far more likely to be killed by their parents than by anyone else. According to Gary Kleck, a child is more likely to be struck by lightning at school than a bullet. To put it in perspective, the homicide rate at primary schools in the UK – that nation most favoured by gun-control activists - is slightly higher than that in the United States, lest anyone thinks that school violence is endemic to the US. The fact that we have all heard of school shootings does not mean that there is much danger at all of them occurring....
...There is no direct causal link between gun ownership and homicide rates. Brazil, Argentina and South Africa all have much lower gun-ownership rates than the US but higher gun-homicide rates. Whereas the US has a homicide rate higher than many European countries, countries with very high gun-ownership rates, like Canada, Switzerland and Israel, also have some of the lowest gun-homicide rates.
As Gary Kleck has pointed out, in the first 30 years of the twentieth century, US per capita handgun ownership remained stable, but the homicide rate rose tenfold. Subsequently, between 1937 and 1963, handgun ownership rose by 250 per cent, but the homicide rate fell by 35.7 per cent...
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place. ...
Handgun crime 'up' despite ban
A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.
The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.
The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.
But the report suggests that despite the restrictions on ownership the use of handguns in crime is rising. ...
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.
The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place. ...
Handgun crime 'up' despite ban
A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned.
The research, commissioned by the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting, has concluded that existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.
The ban on ownership of handguns was introduced in 1997 as a result of the Dunblane massacre, when Thomas Hamilton opened fire at a primary school leaving 16 children and their teacher dead.
But the report suggests that despite the restrictions on ownership the use of handguns in crime is rising. ...
Assault Weapons Bans, in the Words of Some of Their Supporters
...In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate. I am not up for reelection. So let me elaborate the real logic of the ban:
It is simply crazy for a country as modern, industrial, advanced and now crowded as the United States to carry on its frontier infatuation with guns. Yes, we are a young country, but the frontier has been closed for 100 years. In 1992, there were 13,220 handgun murders in the United States. Canada (an equally young country, one might note) had 128; Britain, 33.
Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today.
Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic — purely symbolic — move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. Its purpose is to spark debate, highlight the issue, make the case that the arms race between criminals and citizens is as dangerous as it is pointless.
De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.......
...In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea, though for reasons its proponents dare not enunciate. I am not up for reelection. So let me elaborate the real logic of the ban:
It is simply crazy for a country as modern, industrial, advanced and now crowded as the United States to carry on its frontier infatuation with guns. Yes, we are a young country, but the frontier has been closed for 100 years. In 1992, there were 13,220 handgun murders in the United States. Canada (an equally young country, one might note) had 128; Britain, 33.
Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquillity of the kind enjoyed in sister democracies like Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today.
Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic — purely symbolic — move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. Its purpose is to spark debate, highlight the issue, make the case that the arms race between criminals and citizens is as dangerous as it is pointless.
De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades.......
Sunday, December 16, 2012
IPCC Admission Has Climate World Buzzing
Global warming hysteria has been driven largely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued four politically-driven and, in crucial ways, inconsistent reports. The IPCC is now working on report number five, and the current draft has been leaked. It contains a bombshell that may or may not survive in the final product; but in the meantime, the cat is out of the bag....
...So the IPCC, at the moment at least, stands ready to admit that the evidence supports a much larger role for solar activity, and a correspondingly much smaller role for CO2. Of course, other sections of the report implicitly contradict this admission. Watts Up With That has all the details on the controversy. I am not sure I agree with those who say this represents the death knell for climate alarmism, but it certainly does illustrate how flimsy the “science” underlying the hysterical position is....
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’
Global warming hysteria has been driven largely by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has issued four politically-driven and, in crucial ways, inconsistent reports. The IPCC is now working on report number five, and the current draft has been leaked. It contains a bombshell that may or may not survive in the final product; but in the meantime, the cat is out of the bag....
...So the IPCC, at the moment at least, stands ready to admit that the evidence supports a much larger role for solar activity, and a correspondingly much smaller role for CO2. Of course, other sections of the report implicitly contradict this admission. Watts Up With That has all the details on the controversy. I am not sure I agree with those who say this represents the death knell for climate alarmism, but it certainly does illustrate how flimsy the “science” underlying the hysterical position is....
IPCC AR5 draft leaked, contains game-changing admission of enhanced solar forcing – as well as a lack of warming to match model projections, and reversal on ‘extreme weather’
How we’re all being seduced by the state
...The trouble is, the government hasn’t really been doing very much of anything either to tackle the immediate crisis or to create the basis for long-term economic success. For all the talk of years of austerity ahead, the fact is that day-to-day public spending has been going up, not down. It is capital spending that has been slashed (by over £9 billion in the government’s second year in office - a policy inherited from the last Labour government). Public services and benefits have not been heavily affected yet. Osborne has now announced that welfare benefits will only rise by one per cent per year for the next three years - significantly below the rate of inflation - after being index-linked at a time of relatively high inflation. Even then, other measures will help people in work, particularly an above-inflation rise in income-tax allowances. Overall, Osborne’s latest plans are roughly revenue-neutral, satisfying neither those who would slash spending nor those demanding a Keynesian-style fiscal stimulus.
The use of the word ‘austerity’ needs to be questioned. In 2001, the year Tony Blair’s New Labour government was re-elected, public spending was £7,340 per person. By 2007, before the financial crisis really hit, it had risen to £9,167 per person. By 2011, it was over £10,000 per person. (All these figures are adjusted for inflation.) State spending is now equivalent to 45 per cent of UK GDP. It is only now that spending is starting to fall and it is not expected to drop back to 2007 levels in the foreseeable future. This is hardly comparable with the austerity being experienced in the weaker Eurozone countries like Ireland and Greece. The Irish government announced a further austerity budget only last week.
Yet this hasn’t stopped a hyperbolic overreaction from many liberal commentators. In yesterday’s Observer, columnist Will Hutton declared that Osborne’s plans represented the end of any sense of shared social responsibility: ‘The last vestiges of an approach to organising society based on a social contract have been shredded. In its place there is an emergent system of discretionary poor relief imposed from on high in which every claimant is defined not as a citizen exercising an entitlement because they have hit one of life’s many hazards, but as a dependent shirker or scrounger.’
In reality, all roads seem to lead to the state. As the Office for National Statistics pointed out earlier this year: ‘On average, households in the top two income quintiles paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, while households in the bottom three quintiles received more in benefits than they paid in taxes.’ In other words, most people receive more money from the state than they pay in taxes. The welfare state, originally envisaged as a safety net with a substantial contributory element, has been transformed into a dependent relationship with the state that extends far beyond the unemployed....
...If those figures are correct - they were prepared by Migration Watch from OECD figures as an argument against immigration, so they may well be a worst-case example - it hardly represents the tearing-up of the social contract, as Hutton believes. Nor does it mean we live in a scroungers’ society - the beneficiaries in the example above are as much businesses that can pay low wage rates knowing that the state will top them up into something approaching a ‘family wage’. What they do illustrate is a relationship, between the individual and businesses on one side and the state on the other, which distorts incentives and undermines autonomy. The culture of entitlement and dependency affects capitalists just as much as it affects individuals....
...The trouble is, the government hasn’t really been doing very much of anything either to tackle the immediate crisis or to create the basis for long-term economic success. For all the talk of years of austerity ahead, the fact is that day-to-day public spending has been going up, not down. It is capital spending that has been slashed (by over £9 billion in the government’s second year in office - a policy inherited from the last Labour government). Public services and benefits have not been heavily affected yet. Osborne has now announced that welfare benefits will only rise by one per cent per year for the next three years - significantly below the rate of inflation - after being index-linked at a time of relatively high inflation. Even then, other measures will help people in work, particularly an above-inflation rise in income-tax allowances. Overall, Osborne’s latest plans are roughly revenue-neutral, satisfying neither those who would slash spending nor those demanding a Keynesian-style fiscal stimulus.
The use of the word ‘austerity’ needs to be questioned. In 2001, the year Tony Blair’s New Labour government was re-elected, public spending was £7,340 per person. By 2007, before the financial crisis really hit, it had risen to £9,167 per person. By 2011, it was over £10,000 per person. (All these figures are adjusted for inflation.) State spending is now equivalent to 45 per cent of UK GDP. It is only now that spending is starting to fall and it is not expected to drop back to 2007 levels in the foreseeable future. This is hardly comparable with the austerity being experienced in the weaker Eurozone countries like Ireland and Greece. The Irish government announced a further austerity budget only last week.
Yet this hasn’t stopped a hyperbolic overreaction from many liberal commentators. In yesterday’s Observer, columnist Will Hutton declared that Osborne’s plans represented the end of any sense of shared social responsibility: ‘The last vestiges of an approach to organising society based on a social contract have been shredded. In its place there is an emergent system of discretionary poor relief imposed from on high in which every claimant is defined not as a citizen exercising an entitlement because they have hit one of life’s many hazards, but as a dependent shirker or scrounger.’
In reality, all roads seem to lead to the state. As the Office for National Statistics pointed out earlier this year: ‘On average, households in the top two income quintiles paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, while households in the bottom three quintiles received more in benefits than they paid in taxes.’ In other words, most people receive more money from the state than they pay in taxes. The welfare state, originally envisaged as a safety net with a substantial contributory element, has been transformed into a dependent relationship with the state that extends far beyond the unemployed....
...If those figures are correct - they were prepared by Migration Watch from OECD figures as an argument against immigration, so they may well be a worst-case example - it hardly represents the tearing-up of the social contract, as Hutton believes. Nor does it mean we live in a scroungers’ society - the beneficiaries in the example above are as much businesses that can pay low wage rates knowing that the state will top them up into something approaching a ‘family wage’. What they do illustrate is a relationship, between the individual and businesses on one side and the state on the other, which distorts incentives and undermines autonomy. The culture of entitlement and dependency affects capitalists just as much as it affects individuals....
Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. ...
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.
The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.
In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.
In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled. ...
Sunday, December 09, 2012
Why the NHS is bad for us
Another lonely death. Another preventable death. Another reason why you must challenge your most deeply held beliefs.
Last week's report into the case of Thomas Rogers, the 74-year-old grandfather who bled to death after lying undiagnosed on a trolley in an accident and emergency ward at Whipps Cross Hospital for nine hours, is shocking. What is even more shocking is that it is hardly unusual. Equally awful stories worm their way out past NHS obstruction every week. And nothing changes.
Even as you read this, in almost every hospital in the country, there will be elderly, vulnerable people left for hours and sometimes days on trolleys. Each year, thousands of British people - the young, the old, the rich, the poor - die unnecessarily from lack of diagnosis, lack of treatment and lack of drugs. They die and suffer unnecessarily for different reasons, but there is just one root cause: the blind faith the Government has in the ideology of the National Health Service, and our unwillingness to accept not just that it doesn't work, but that it can never work. Bernard Kouchner, the health minister of France, widely thought of as having the best health system in the world, recognised this last week when he condemned the NHS as 'medieval' and 'intolerable'.
I used to be a believer. I grew up cocooned in the affection and pride that the British public had in the NHS, the glorious creation of postwar Britain that offered free, modern health care to all. Poor and rich got equal treatment; no longer would health depend on wealth. It was the only institution, it was claimed, that worked on an ethical principle.
But then, two years ago, I became health editor of The Observer , the very same day that Alan Milburn became Health Secretary. And what I have learnt about the health service and its workings has appalled me and completely eroded my faith in the NHS. Bombarded by the desperate pain of relatives and medical professionals, challenged by endless think-tanks, semi nars and government initiatives, I struggled with my beliefs like a troubled Catholic, until I came to the only conclusion that my heart, intellect and integrity would allow me: we must abolish the NHS as we know it, abandon our unique obsession that all health care should be free, and become as comfortable with mixed public and private medicine as they are elsewhere in the developed world. My beliefs make me a heretic among the Left. ...
...It is inevitable that a state monopoly offering free services will treat patients like mindless sheep, forcing them to accept whatever they are given, and it deprives the health service of a powerful force for good. The determination of sick people and their relatives to find the best treatment and care is wondrous to behold, but this energy is not harnessed by the NHS but crushed by it, forcing people into soul-destroying battles. The desire of millions of patients to improve their treatment should be a huge power for reform in the NHS, but, instead, reform is driven by civil servants sitting in offices in Whitehall issuing diktats. ...
Another lonely death. Another preventable death. Another reason why you must challenge your most deeply held beliefs.
Last week's report into the case of Thomas Rogers, the 74-year-old grandfather who bled to death after lying undiagnosed on a trolley in an accident and emergency ward at Whipps Cross Hospital for nine hours, is shocking. What is even more shocking is that it is hardly unusual. Equally awful stories worm their way out past NHS obstruction every week. And nothing changes.
Even as you read this, in almost every hospital in the country, there will be elderly, vulnerable people left for hours and sometimes days on trolleys. Each year, thousands of British people - the young, the old, the rich, the poor - die unnecessarily from lack of diagnosis, lack of treatment and lack of drugs. They die and suffer unnecessarily for different reasons, but there is just one root cause: the blind faith the Government has in the ideology of the National Health Service, and our unwillingness to accept not just that it doesn't work, but that it can never work. Bernard Kouchner, the health minister of France, widely thought of as having the best health system in the world, recognised this last week when he condemned the NHS as 'medieval' and 'intolerable'.
I used to be a believer. I grew up cocooned in the affection and pride that the British public had in the NHS, the glorious creation of postwar Britain that offered free, modern health care to all. Poor and rich got equal treatment; no longer would health depend on wealth. It was the only institution, it was claimed, that worked on an ethical principle.
But then, two years ago, I became health editor of The Observer , the very same day that Alan Milburn became Health Secretary. And what I have learnt about the health service and its workings has appalled me and completely eroded my faith in the NHS. Bombarded by the desperate pain of relatives and medical professionals, challenged by endless think-tanks, semi nars and government initiatives, I struggled with my beliefs like a troubled Catholic, until I came to the only conclusion that my heart, intellect and integrity would allow me: we must abolish the NHS as we know it, abandon our unique obsession that all health care should be free, and become as comfortable with mixed public and private medicine as they are elsewhere in the developed world. My beliefs make me a heretic among the Left. ...
...It is inevitable that a state monopoly offering free services will treat patients like mindless sheep, forcing them to accept whatever they are given, and it deprives the health service of a powerful force for good. The determination of sick people and their relatives to find the best treatment and care is wondrous to behold, but this energy is not harnessed by the NHS but crushed by it, forcing people into soul-destroying battles. The desire of millions of patients to improve their treatment should be a huge power for reform in the NHS, but, instead, reform is driven by civil servants sitting in offices in Whitehall issuing diktats. ...
How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor
... Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be. [3]
The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war....
... Roosevelt had already led the United States into war with Germany in the spring of 1941—into a shooting war on a small scale. From then on, he gradually increased U.S. military participation. Japan's attack on December 7 enabled him to increase it further and to obtain a war declaration. Pearl Harbor is more fully accounted for as the end of a long chain of events, with the U.S. contribution reflecting a strategy formulated after France fell. . . . In the eyes of Roosevelt and his advisers, the measures taken early in 1941 justified a German declaration of war on the United States—a declaration that did not come, to their disappointment. . . . Roosevelt told his ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that U.S. entry into war against Germany was certain but must wait for an "incident," which he was "confident that the Germans would give us." . . . Establishing a record in which the enemy fired the first shot was a theme that ran through Roosevelt's tactics. . . . He seems [eventually] to have concluded—correctly as it turned out—that Japan would be easier to provoke into a major attack on the Unites States than Germany would be. [3]
The claim that Japan attacked the United States without provocation was . . . typical rhetoric. It worked because the public did not know that the administration had expected Japan to respond with war to anti-Japanese measures it had taken in July 1941. . . . Expecting to lose a war with the United States—and lose it disastrously—Japan's leaders had tried with growing desperation to negotiate. On this point, most historians have long agreed. Meanwhile, evidence has come out that Roosevelt and Hull persistently refused to negotiate. . . . Japan . . . offered compromises and concessions, which the United States countered with increasing demands. . . . It was after learning of Japan's decision to go to war with the United States if the talks "break down" that Roosevelt decided to break them off. . . . According to Attorney General Francis Biddle, Roosevelt said he hoped for an "incident" in the Pacific to bring the United States into the European war....
Sportswriter says NRA the new KKK, or something
...Estimates vary widely on the number of households with firearms, but Gallup’s survey in 2005 put it at 42 percent. With roughly 150 million households in the U.S., that means that a gun is present in roughly 63 million households. Yet the number of murders committed by firearm in 2011, according to FBI statistics, was 8,583. That represents 0.0136 percent of all firearm-owning households. Murders by handgun came to 6,220, which makes that percentage 0.0099 percent. If guns caused murders, we’d be seeing a lot more murders. More than 99 percent of Americans seem to be capable of owning guns without committing murder, which demolishes the blame-the-gun argument...
...Estimates vary widely on the number of households with firearms, but Gallup’s survey in 2005 put it at 42 percent. With roughly 150 million households in the U.S., that means that a gun is present in roughly 63 million households. Yet the number of murders committed by firearm in 2011, according to FBI statistics, was 8,583. That represents 0.0136 percent of all firearm-owning households. Murders by handgun came to 6,220, which makes that percentage 0.0099 percent. If guns caused murders, we’d be seeing a lot more murders. More than 99 percent of Americans seem to be capable of owning guns without committing murder, which demolishes the blame-the-gun argument...
73% of New Jobs Created in Last 5 Months Are in Government
Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments.
By November, according to data BLS released today, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June.
In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall....
Seventy-three percent of the new civilian jobs created in the United States over the last five months are in government, according to official data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In June, a total of 142,415,000 people were employed in the U.S, according to the BLS, including 19,938,000 who were employed by federal, state and local governments.
By November, according to data BLS released today, the total number of people employed had climbed to 143,262,000, an overall increase of 847,000 in the six months since June.
In the same five-month period since June, the number of people employed by government increased by 621,000 to 20,559,000. These 621,000 new government jobs created in the last five months equal 73.3 percent of the 847,000 new jobs created overall....
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Female Teachers Give Male Pupils Lower Marks, Claims Study
Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.
Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender....
Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.
Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender....
Colleges have free speech on the run
...Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff, 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.” But as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things.
In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators. ...
...Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought....
...Liberals are most concentrated and untrammeled on campuses, so look there for evidence of what, given the opportunity, they would do to America. Ample evidence is in “Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” by Greg Lukianoff, 38, a graduate of Stanford Law School who describes himself as a liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, lifelong Democrat who belongs to “the notoriously politically correct Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn” and has never voted for a Republican “nor do I plan to.” But as president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), he knows that the most common justifications for liberal censorship are “sensitivity” about “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as academic liberals understand those things.
In recent years, a University of Oklahoma vice president has declared that no university resources, including e-mail, could be used for “the forwarding of political humor/commentary.” The College at Brockport in New York banned using the Internet to “annoy or otherwise inconvenience” anyone. Rhode Island College prohibited, among many other things, certain “attitudes.” Texas Southern University’s comprehensive proscriptions included “verbal harm” from damaging “assumptions” or “implications.” Texas A&M promised “freedom from indignity of any type.” Davidson banned “patronizing remarks.” Drexel University forbade “inappropriately directed laughter.” Western Michigan University banned “sexism,” including “the perception” of a person “not as an individual, but as a member of a category based on sex.” Banning “perceptions” must provide full employment for the burgeoning ranks of academic administrators. ...
...Such coercion is a natural augmentation of censorship. Next comes mob rule. Last year, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vice provost for diversity and climate — really; you can’t make this stuff up — encouraged students to disrupt a news conference by a speaker opposed to racial preferences. They did, which the vice provost called “awesome.” This is the climate on an especially liberal campus that celebrates “diversity” in everything but thought....
Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50p tax rate
In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.
This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.
The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.
It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes. ...
In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.
This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.
The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.
It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes. ...
UK doctor testifies that under socialized medicine, sick babies are sent home to die
A British physician’s disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration.
Newborn babies are being being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway for end-of-life care, a system originally allotted and designed for elderly or terminally ill adults. That end-of-life care involves the removal of food and fluid tubes, a method which can take an average of ten days to result in death.
The Daily Mail reports an investigation is being launched to determine “whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.”
The physician, who wishes to remain anonymous, recounted his experience in a submission to the British Medical Journal, titled “How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies.”...
A British physician’s disturbing testimony is shedding light on the increasingly common practice of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals sending sick or severely disabled newborn babies home or to hospices to die of starvation or dehydration.
Newborn babies are being being placed on the Liverpool Care Pathway for end-of-life care, a system originally allotted and designed for elderly or terminally ill adults. That end-of-life care involves the removal of food and fluid tubes, a method which can take an average of ten days to result in death.
The Daily Mail reports an investigation is being launched to determine “whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions.”
The physician, who wishes to remain anonymous, recounted his experience in a submission to the British Medical Journal, titled “How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies.”...
It’s not just UKIP parents who are under suspicion
The Rotherham foster family controversy has scandalised Britain. Understandably so. Rotherham council’s decision to remove three children from a fostering couple simply because the couple are members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) reeks of a McCarthy-like political authoritarianism. It is not surprising that the decision has been slammed by the press as ‘ugly’, ‘poisonous’, ‘prejudicial’, ‘Orwellian’ and ‘arrogant’.
Yet this very reaction, not only from the press but also from leading politicians, who have described Rotherham council’s behaviour as ‘indefensible’, gives the impression that what happened in Rotherham was a one-off, an act of extremism by a crazy council. It wasn’t. Rather, the Rotherham mess is the logical conclusion to the ever-more embedded idea that the state should get to say who would make a good parent and who would not; that the state has the right to determine which political, cultural and lifestyle attitudes it is okay for parents to have and which ones it is not okay for them to have. It is this idea - promoted by some of the same people now getting irate over Rotherham - which leads to a situation where foster parents who have the ‘wrong’ views can have their kids removed.
The most striking thing about the Rotherham case is how open the council was about its prejudices. Usually, when councils want to take children away from parents whom they decree to be ‘undesirable’, they will draw up a list of often exaggerated physical or moral harms facing those children as a way of justifying their actions. But in this case, officials were explicit about the fact that these kids were being removed because of the foster parents’ political views. The council’s director of children’s services, Joyce Thacker, said that because the three children are of Eastern European origin, it would be wrong to leave them with foster parents who support a party that is anti-EU and critical of the ideology of multiculturalism. ‘If the party mantra is, for example, ending the active promotion of multiculturalism, I have to think about that’, she said. ‘I have to think of [the children’s] longer-term needs.’
In essence, Thacker is saying that anyone who is critical of multiculturalism is not fit to be a foster parent - or, by extension, a natural parent - because they might inculcate children with views that Thacker considers to be wrong, insufficiently multicultural. This isn’t the first time a council in Britain has removed children from parents or foster parents who are seen as having problematic cultural views. Earlier this year, Toni McLeod, a mother-of-four in Durham, had her children taken from her, partly because, in the words of Durham council, she had developed ‘inappropriate friendships [through] the English Defence League’, a small far-right political group. ‘Inappropriate friendships’ was clearly code for ‘inappropriate views’....
The Rotherham foster family controversy has scandalised Britain. Understandably so. Rotherham council’s decision to remove three children from a fostering couple simply because the couple are members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) reeks of a McCarthy-like political authoritarianism. It is not surprising that the decision has been slammed by the press as ‘ugly’, ‘poisonous’, ‘prejudicial’, ‘Orwellian’ and ‘arrogant’.
Yet this very reaction, not only from the press but also from leading politicians, who have described Rotherham council’s behaviour as ‘indefensible’, gives the impression that what happened in Rotherham was a one-off, an act of extremism by a crazy council. It wasn’t. Rather, the Rotherham mess is the logical conclusion to the ever-more embedded idea that the state should get to say who would make a good parent and who would not; that the state has the right to determine which political, cultural and lifestyle attitudes it is okay for parents to have and which ones it is not okay for them to have. It is this idea - promoted by some of the same people now getting irate over Rotherham - which leads to a situation where foster parents who have the ‘wrong’ views can have their kids removed.
The most striking thing about the Rotherham case is how open the council was about its prejudices. Usually, when councils want to take children away from parents whom they decree to be ‘undesirable’, they will draw up a list of often exaggerated physical or moral harms facing those children as a way of justifying their actions. But in this case, officials were explicit about the fact that these kids were being removed because of the foster parents’ political views. The council’s director of children’s services, Joyce Thacker, said that because the three children are of Eastern European origin, it would be wrong to leave them with foster parents who support a party that is anti-EU and critical of the ideology of multiculturalism. ‘If the party mantra is, for example, ending the active promotion of multiculturalism, I have to think about that’, she said. ‘I have to think of [the children’s] longer-term needs.’
In essence, Thacker is saying that anyone who is critical of multiculturalism is not fit to be a foster parent - or, by extension, a natural parent - because they might inculcate children with views that Thacker considers to be wrong, insufficiently multicultural. This isn’t the first time a council in Britain has removed children from parents or foster parents who are seen as having problematic cultural views. Earlier this year, Toni McLeod, a mother-of-four in Durham, had her children taken from her, partly because, in the words of Durham council, she had developed ‘inappropriate friendships [through] the English Defence League’, a small far-right political group. ‘Inappropriate friendships’ was clearly code for ‘inappropriate views’....
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Global warming talks progress is 'slow but steady' – UN climate chief
...It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn't a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it's a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.
...It is the most inspiring job in the world because what we are doing here is we are inspiring government, private sector, and civil society to [make] the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken. The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn't a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation that is taking place because governments have decided that they need to listen to science. So it's a very, very different transformation and one that is going to make the life of everyone on the planet very different.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Spin Cycle on Overdrive: EPA Launders Fingerprints of Public Officials with "Richard Windsor" Account
...I believe that the EPA's Richard Windsor account was created during the Clinton Administration. Was it used by Carol Browner? Was it used by George W. Bush's EPA Administrator? If not, then we have a dormant account that may have been available to political operatives and activists of the party out of power during the Bush presidency, if I'm right about the account having been created twelve or more years ago.
When was the EPA's "Richard Windsor" account created? Who was granted access to it? And when was each custodian granted that access?
Getting back to "Richard Windsor".... The Politico has implied that Lisa Jackson has claimed that she had a dog named "Richard" when she lived in East Windsor Township. The EPA acknowledges that there's a "Richard Windsor" account used by Lisa Jackson. Let's return to the dead Richard Windsor that I wrote about when first taking an interest in this story:
Richard Windsor was a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforcement attorney who, in 1997, began working for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an article announcing Windsor's new job staffing a PEER sponsored environmental hotline, he had this to say:
``Once upon a time, Florida [had] an environmental agency that tried to enforce environmental laws,'' Windsor said. ``That's not the case now.''
Windsor was an attorney in a court case in 2000 involving Florida's DEP. That same year, he corresponded with then EPA director Carol Browner. We know that because of footnote #39 on page 20 of a 2004 letter from Eric Huber of the Sierra Club addressed to Michael Leavitt of the EPA. We know that Richard L. Windsor was an attorney involved in a 2003 case involving Florida's DEP.
And, sadly, The Florida Bar News reported that Richard Lee Windsor shuffled off his mortal coil on December 7th, 2008.
It turns out that the deceased environmental lawyer, Richard Windsor, worked with Carol Browner when Browner was head of Environmental Regulation in Florida. The article about the PEER sponsored environmental hotline notes: "Windsor and Medina worked for 11 years as state regulators." So, Windsor would've worked at DEP from 1986 to 1997 (roughly). Browner was Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida from 1991 to 1993....
...I believe that the EPA's Richard Windsor account was created during the Clinton Administration. Was it used by Carol Browner? Was it used by George W. Bush's EPA Administrator? If not, then we have a dormant account that may have been available to political operatives and activists of the party out of power during the Bush presidency, if I'm right about the account having been created twelve or more years ago.
When was the EPA's "Richard Windsor" account created? Who was granted access to it? And when was each custodian granted that access?
Getting back to "Richard Windsor".... The Politico has implied that Lisa Jackson has claimed that she had a dog named "Richard" when she lived in East Windsor Township. The EPA acknowledges that there's a "Richard Windsor" account used by Lisa Jackson. Let's return to the dead Richard Windsor that I wrote about when first taking an interest in this story:
Richard Windsor was a Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) enforcement attorney who, in 1997, began working for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). In an article announcing Windsor's new job staffing a PEER sponsored environmental hotline, he had this to say:
``Once upon a time, Florida [had] an environmental agency that tried to enforce environmental laws,'' Windsor said. ``That's not the case now.''
Windsor was an attorney in a court case in 2000 involving Florida's DEP. That same year, he corresponded with then EPA director Carol Browner. We know that because of footnote #39 on page 20 of a 2004 letter from Eric Huber of the Sierra Club addressed to Michael Leavitt of the EPA. We know that Richard L. Windsor was an attorney involved in a 2003 case involving Florida's DEP.
And, sadly, The Florida Bar News reported that Richard Lee Windsor shuffled off his mortal coil on December 7th, 2008.
It turns out that the deceased environmental lawyer, Richard Windsor, worked with Carol Browner when Browner was head of Environmental Regulation in Florida. The article about the PEER sponsored environmental hotline notes: "Windsor and Medina worked for 11 years as state regulators." So, Windsor would've worked at DEP from 1986 to 1997 (roughly). Browner was Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida from 1991 to 1993....
Hey, Barney Frank: The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
Congressman Frank makes assertions about who was responsible, but he, like all those who hold his position, have no data. He says that the banks were responsible, but cannot challenge the numbers I have outlined above. These numbers show, beyond question, that it was government housing policy that caused the financial crisis. Even he has admitted it. In an interview on Larry Kudlow's show in August 2010, he said "I hope by next year we'll have abolished Fannie and Freddie ... it was a great mistake to push lower-income people into housing they couldn't afford and couldn't really handle once they had it."...
Sunday, November 18, 2012
In 37 Chicago Precincts, Romney Received No Votes
NBC Chicago reports:
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote. So Ward Room decided to look at the results in the president’s hometown, and see if he won as many shutouts here. The answer: no. Romney was rejected by every voter in only 37 Chicago precincts, an embarrassing result, given that segregation and Machine politics are two of our city’s most notable qualities.
Any doubt there was some vote fraud? Check out this comment on NBC Chicago's website:
In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators....
NBC Chicago reports:
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that in 59 Philadelphia precincts, Mitt Romney did not receive a single vote. So Ward Room decided to look at the results in the president’s hometown, and see if he won as many shutouts here. The answer: no. Romney was rejected by every voter in only 37 Chicago precincts, an embarrassing result, given that segregation and Machine politics are two of our city’s most notable qualities.
Any doubt there was some vote fraud? Check out this comment on NBC Chicago's website:
In critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois there are a lot of precincts in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago which reported 100% of their votes cast for Obama. These add up to many 10's of thousands of votes for Obama and 0 for Romney. I repeat, 0 for Romney. I have read a number of articles about this and people knowlegable in Political Science and Statistics are starting to take notice of this.Statistically, even if among 10's of thousands of voters all wanted to vote for Obama, it would not be possible to receive 100% of the vote because at least a few would make a mistake and vote incorrectly for Romney. Not to mention the fact that a least a few of those 10's of thousands might actually disagree with Obama. These types of election returns are only seen in countries run by dictators....
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Administration Said To Have Delayed Petraeus Resignation Until After Election
Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
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