Boost your chances of getting a job or passing an exam... by thinking about your ancestors for five minutes
I don't have a lot of confidence in this finding but it is conservatives who are more likely to respect the past so it may be a straw in the wind
It seems an unlikely route to the top. But researchers have discovered that spending a few minutes thinking about your ancestors before an exam or job interview can significantly boost your chances of success. The so-called 'ancestor effect' appears to work by acting as a reminder to the brain that seemingly impossible hurdles can be overcome.
Psychologists think the effect may be rooted in the fact that those who familiarise themselves with their family history - such as in the hit TV series Who Do You Think You Are? - appear to gain a stronger sense of identity and self-esteem, which somehow boosts intellectual performance.
In intelligence tests on 80 volunteers, scientists found a marked improvement among those who, prior to the tasks, were asked to spend a short while considering what previous generations of their families had endured. Those who simply had to recall a more mundane memory, such as a recent shopping trip, did not fare as well.
The findings, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, suggest remembering the hardships of grandparents, great grandparents and even long forgotten ancestors, seems to have a direct benefit on the brain's ability to cope with demands on its intelligence.
Dr Peter Fischer, from the University of Graz in Austria and a member of the research team, said: 'Our ancestors managed to overcome a multitude of problems, such as severe illnesses, wars, loss of loved ones or severe economic declines. 'So when we think about them, we are reminded that humans who are genetically similar to us can successfully overcome a multitude of problems and adversities.'
More here. Journal abstract here. The tests used do not appear to have been IQ tests but rather ad hoc tests of some sort.
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Personal Well-Being Overshadows Income Inequality
Consider one conundrum in American politics. Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it.
Barack Obama may have been elected president after telling Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around. But large majorities in polls approved when Obama and congressional Democrats abandoned oft-repeated campaign promises to raise taxes on high earners in the lame duck session.
One reason is that economic statistics can miss important things that affect people's lives. Wages may not have risen much since 1973, but that's partly because the tax code encourages increased compensation in the form of benefits, including health insurance. And it's partly because the Consumer Price Index overstated the effect of inflation in the 1970s, making 1973 wages look higher in "real dollars."
Another is that inflation indexes can't fully account for product improvement and technological progress. I bought my first electronic calculator in 1970 for $110. Today you can buy the same gadget for $1.99 at your local drug store. The consumer electronics widely available today at declining prices simply didn't exist in the 1980s.
In addition, as George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen writes in The American Interest, "The inequality of personal well-being is sharply down over the past hundred years and perhaps over the past 20 years, as well." Bill Gates may have a bigger house than you do. But you have about the same access to good food, medical care and even to the Internet as he does.
Or consider something as prosaic as food. The supermarkets of the 1960s and 1970s didn't come close to matching the amazing selection of produce, meats and exotic foods as you find in supermarkets today -- and not just in high-income neighborhoods, but in modest-income places all over the country.
Or clothing. Firms like Walmart, Target and Kohl's have good quality clothes at astonishingly low prices -- you can outfit a kid in school clothes for $100 or so a year. Presidential candidate John Edwards claimed to have seen a little girl shivering in the winter because her parents could not buy a coat; you can get one for $5 at the Salvation Army.
It's a widespread assumption in some affluent circles that ordinary Americans are seething with envy because they can't afford to shop regularly at Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue. My sense is that most Americans just don't care. They're reasonably happy with what they've got, and would like a little more.
So I am inclined to agree with Cowen when he writes, "The broader change in income distribution, the one occurring beneath the very top earners, can be deconstructed in a manner that makes nearly all of it look harmless."
Cowen is worried that high earners in financial industries benefit hugely when they bet correctly but are sheltered from losses by government bailouts when they bet wrong. It's a problem that the financial regulation bill passed by the outgoing Congress addressed but, in his opinion and those of many others I respect, did not solve.
But there's little evidence that most Americans begrudge the exceedingly high earnings of the likes of Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg or J.K. Rowling. We believe they have earned their success and don't see how taking money away from them will make the rest of us better off.
We already take quite a bit. Current tax rates mean that the top 1 percent of earners account for 40 percent of federal income tax revenue -- a higher percentage than in many Western European countries. Higher tax rates would probably produce more tax avoidance -- rich people can adjust their affairs -- and lower revenues than forecast by static economic models.
Of course, not everyone is well off in a nation where unemployment has been 9.4 percent or higher for the last 19 months. And I suspect that most Americans would be thrilled to get a 13th month of pay. But they're not seething with envy at those who are better off.
So who does? One example is the cartoonist and author Garry Trudeau, a college classmate of George W. Bush, who has been spewing contempt for the Bushes for 40-some years. The strongest class envy in America, it turns out, may be the resentment of those who were one club above you at Yale.
SOURCE
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The ObamaCare Fraud
The law will penalize doctors to pay patients and penalize patients to pay doctors
There are a great many things wrong with Obamacare, but the biggest is perhaps one that neither party is paying any attention to: It is one huge entrapment scheme that will turn patients and providers into criminals.
The most blatant example of this is in the “doc fix” that Congress passed with major bipartisan support earlier this month, saving doctors from a nearly 23 percent cut in Medicare reimbursement that they would have otherwise faced this year. Congress has been passing this fix every year since 1997, but this time, in an effort to offset its $20 billion price tag, it has included a little twist to squeeze working families called “exchange recapture subsidy.” Under this provision, the government will go after low-wage families to return any excess subsidies they get under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
When the government hands out subsidies, it will use a household’s income in the previous year as the basis for guessing what the household is qualified to get in the current year. But if the household’s income grows midyear, the subsidy recapture provision will require it to repay anywhere from $600 to $3,500, compared to the $450 that the law originally called for.
This will make it very hazardous for poor working families to get ahead. In the original law, the loss of subsidy with rising income already meant absurdly high effective marginal tax rates—the implicit tax on every additional dollar of income earned. How high? The Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon puts them at 229 percent for families of four who increase their earnings by an amount equal to 5 percent of the federal poverty level or $1,100. In other words, a family that added this amount to an income of $44,700 would actually see its total income fall by $1,419 due to the loss of subsidies.
The subsidy recapture provision—essentially a tax collection scheme—means that low-wage, cash-strapped families will have no escape from these perverse tax rates. Many of them will find themselves owing the government thousands of dollars in back taxes. Since it is unlikely that they will have this kind of money sitting around, they will face a massive incentive to either fudge their returns or work for cash to avoid reporting additional income. Either way, Uncle Sam will come after them, just as it does with recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit, the negative income tax scheme that is the inspiration behind Obamacare’s subsidies. In 2004, EITC recipients were 1.76 times more likely to be audited than others, no doubt because it is easier for the government to recover unpaid taxes from poor people than “lawyered up” rich people. In other words, Obamacare will first create the temptation for low-income families to commit fraud, and then penalize them when they do.
But just because Obamacare sticks it to families doesn’t mean that physicians will have it good. They’ll face their own—even more draconian—crackdown. Indeed, just as Obamacare goes after working-class families to pay doctors, it goes after doctors to pay working-class families, putting everyone at war with everyone else.
The government loses about 10 percent of its total health-care spending—or about $60 billion—to “fraud” annually. Some of this is genuine fraud involving physicians—or people posing as physicians—submitting claims for services or equipment never delivered and indefensible therapies that have nothing to do with patient care. But the most common fraud allegedly involves “overbilling” by providers. Medicare’s billing codes are a complicated, convoluted mess and deciphering them can sometimes be more art than science. Naturally, doctors try and interpret them to extract the best possible payment from Uncle Sam. Both Republicans and Democrats huff and puff against “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicare. And they have already enacted Stasi-style laws such as the False Claims Act offering nurses, patients and other whistleblowers 15 percent to 30 percent of any money recovered if they report improper billing practices by providers. But the Obama administration has attacked the matter with renewed zeal because it is a key element in funding Obamacare’s generous new entitlements.
It has created a new interagency task force called HEAT (Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team) under which health-care officials will collaborate with the FBI to go after Medicare fraud. In addition, it has expanded to several cities the Medicaid Fraud Strike Force that authorizes FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency agents to jointly analyze Medicare claims data in real time to detect and investigate irregularities by area doctors.
More chillingly, however, the administration is defining Medicare fraud down to include “unnecessary” and “ineffective” care. And to root this out, it plans to make expanded use of private mercenaries—officially called Recovery Audit Contracts—who will be authorized to go to doctors’ offices and rummage through patients’ records, matching them with billing claims to uncover illicit charges. What’s more, Obamacare increases the fine for billing errors from $11,000 per item to $50,000 without the government even having to prove intent to defraud.
This is utter insanity. And it has been caused by the transformation of health care into a government-controlled industry where the natural, self-regulating forces of the market have been badly subverted. There is nothing left but the coercive apparatus of the state to keep patients and doctors in line. This would be unimaginable where the customers receiving or contracting for services are actually the ones paying for it. If Whole Foods “overbilled” its shoppers, they would just go to Trader Joe’s. No one would think of summoning the police. If a mechanic submitted unjustified bills to All State Insurance for car repairs, All State would contract with someone else. There would be no need for an FBI stakeout.
ObamaCare is pushing America down the road to serfdom, but neither its opponents nor advocates seem to have noticed. It is time for civil libertarians in both parties to wake up and strangle it before it strangles what’s left of American freedoms.
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
TN: TennCare funding problem persists despite overhaul: "Eight years ago, Phil Bredesen successfully campaigned on his pledge to fix TennCare or end it. Since then, the governor has steered the state's public healthcare program through the most turbulent changes of any of the 50 state Medicaid programs, drastically cutting enrollment, limiting benefits and reining in spending. Rising healthcare costs and new federal policy mean the Bredesen administration's eight-year effort to bring the TennCare budget under control has only bought Tennessee time."
Obama’s “comeback” — more like 1800 than 1994: "The lame-duck enactment of much of President Obama’s agenda has induced some to credit Obama with a comeback comparable to Bill Clinton’s triumphs after the electoral defeat of 1994. Not so fast. A better historical parallel than 1994 may be 1800, when lame-duck arrogance by a defeated party turned minor short-term victories into permanent defeat."
White House: “Catastrophe” if Congress cuts up the administration's credit card: "The White House's chief economist is warning there'll be a worse catastrophe than the 2008 financial meltdown if Congress doesn't increase the government's credit limit. 'I don't see why anybody's talking about playing chicken with the debt ceiling,' said Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers." [Maybe a catastrophe for the big spenders but a win for America]
Report: FEMA hasn’t tried to recoup $643 million: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency hasn't tried to recoup about $643 million in improper payments made to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters in the wake of a judge's order more than three years ago, according to a government audit issued Monday. The improper payments have gone uncollected for more than three years because FEMA hasn't given its final approval to a new process for recovering the money, auditors found in a report by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office."
Pathetic: New Jersey trying to seize unused gift card balances: "New Jersey residents with unused gift cards might want to make that trip to Target or Home Depot soon. The state legislature voted to seize the unused balances of all gift cards and traveler’s checks issued in the state before a certain date. A judge struck down the law, but the state is appealing the ruling. By stealing the gift card balances from their owners, the state could raise up to $80 million."
MA: Many toast liquor tax repeal: "For some Central Massachusetts imbibers, it was not the money that bothered them, but the principle of the sales tax on alcoholic beverages, which ended yesterday. 'It was a double tax,' said Ron Mason of Rutland. He and his wife, Angie Mason, voted in the November election to repeal the 6.25 percent sales tax that was imposed by the state a year ago."
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Monday, January 03, 2011
In Leftist Massachusetts, corruption is regarded as normal -- and even commendable
JOE DENUCCI, a onetime prizefighter turned Massachusetts politician, steps down this month after 34 years on Beacon Hill: 10 years as a state representative, followed by 24 years as state auditor. He is being celebrated in some circles as the last of a political breed -- an unpolished, down-to-earth, working-class guy who made good, had a big heart, and took care of his pals.
"To the end, championing others," ran the headline over a Boston Globe story last week marking the end of DeNucci's long run in politics. The retiring auditor "is of the old school and makes no apology for that," the Globe observed. "He is the product of a culture that prized helping those around you, which has permeated Massachusetts politics for as long as anyone can remember, but is under attack now." The story makes clear that DeNucci sees nothing wrong with patronage. "We all did it," he says. "It was about helping people; some I knew, some I didn't."
A lot of people have a soft spot for DeNucci; there's no denying he has a certain rough-around-the-edges charm. On the whole I imagine that Massachusetts state government would be a little less fetid if it contained fewer glossy lawyers and consultant-crafted professional operators, and more unpolished, down-to-earth, former boxers.
But frankly, state government would be a lot less fetid if it weren't for that "old school" mindset that sees something commendable in using public office and public payrolls to hand out favors to supporters and friends. DeNucci may not be the worst offender, but who in Massachusetts politics should be held to a "Caesar's wife" standard of integrity if not the auditor, the state's top fiscal and ethical watchdog? Yet the conviction that public office is a public trust has scarcely been the lodestar of DeNucci's political career.
Consider Gaetano Spezzano, hired by DeNucci as a "fraud examiner" in 2008, though no such position was vacant and no other candidates were considered for the job. "Spezzano did not have the skills or knowledge required of a fraud examiner," the State Ethics Commission charged in September, and hadn't even completed the second half of a two-page job application. The 75-year-old Spezzano had worked as a musician and a meat salesman -- honorable work, but not much of a preparation for rooting out fraud in state government. The only reason he was hired, according to the commission, is that he and the auditor are related. "I'm his only cousin, his only family," DeNucci told the Boston Herald. "He's all by himself, except for me."
Concern for family members is a fine thing, and who wouldn't admire DeNucci had he reached into his own pocket to help his cousin out? But he didn't. He reached into our pockets -- into the pockets of the Massachusetts citizens whose interests he was elected to protect. He did the same a few months ago when he handed out across-the-board 5 percent raises to everyone on his staff: a slap in the face to Bay State taxpayers at a time when 300,000 of them are out of work, and hundreds of thousands of others have been forced to absorb pay and benefit cuts.
Go through the clips of the DeNucci years, and you come across so much of this stuff.
Here's DeNucci in 1998, collecting campaign contributions from a rogue's gallery of convicted criminals and disgraced politicians. ("This is America," his political adviser tells the press. "You can contribute to anyone you please.") Here he is in 1995, the subject of a newspaper exposé on "No-show Joe," documenting his practice of working three-day weeks, and of hanging out on the golf links when his official schedule has him in his State House. ("I don't keep a schedule," DeNucci explains. "I work out of my hip pocket, OK?") Here's the auditor in 1990, the Globe reports, lobbying the state treasurer -- in the midst of an audit! -- to give his son-in-law a job.
"Old school" politics as usual? Maybe. But multiplied by all the politicians who see nothing wrong with it, across all the years they've been doing it, and it adds up to Beacon Hill's detestable, seemingly ineradicable, culture of corruption. What is the Probation Department scandal, if not the Spezzano case write large? "Hey, this is patronage," DeNucci told the Globe back in 1983, after pulling strings to get another ex-boxer a State House job. "I'm trying to help a friend."
They pick our pockets and pat themselves on the back, then wonder why so many of us are disgusted. DeNucci was far from the worst. More's the pity.
SOURCE
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The Moral Mush of Pacifism
By Jonah Goldberg
Colman McCarthy has a really exasperating op-ed in the Post today arguing that ROTC must remain banned from campuses, even after the DADT repeal. As I briefly mentioned in my column yesterday, the lifting of DADT is really inconvenient for peaceniks and other folks who hold anti-military views because it lends credibility to the military (among liberals and leftists).
If the point of the column was simply to honestly admit this, I’d find it admirable. But it gets worse. McCarthy adds this:
This is a riot of intellectual and moral confusion. First of all, the idea that any of the Ivies currently enjoys something that might be called “intellectual purity” is a compliment unearned (but such flattery will no doubt be eagerly accepted). Second, the notion that intellectualism is somehow at odds with military values or ethics is willfully dishonest (paging VDH!). Since when has “intellectual purity” or intellectualism of any kind been defined by its antipathy to the military? Third, the idea that nations cannot wage war for peace is one of the most easily disproved and transparently silly utopian notions out there. The post-WWII peace was bought with a lot of killing and destroying, not with a seminar.
And, last, there’s this execrable bit of moral equivalence: “To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices …”
This is the sort of obtuse even-handedness that drove Orwell crazy. Moreover McCarthy clearly doesn’t even believe it. Of course he’s anti-soldier. He believes they dedicate themselves to a “foul notion.”
Er, no. In America, they dedicate themselves to protecting America, her liberties and her Constitution. The Taliban’s priorities are very different and one cannot wave them away by prattling on about the “discipline” and “loyalty” of Jihadist murderers.
SOURCE
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America's slide into Fascism
If much of human action is economic activity, is there then no limit on what the federal government can mandate regarding human behavior? Apparently not, for now we have before us a mandate to purchase a private product, health care insurance, whether we wish to have that product or not. Under the new health care reform act passed by Congress and signed by the President, even economic inactivity is to be labeled an economic decision to be regulated under the Interstate Commerce Clause. If the courts allow this to stand, there is little human action that our federal government could not label as economic and find the authority to control.
The oft-repeated allegations that government intervention in health care and other market exchanges is socialism are off the mark. Socialism, by definition, is a political economy where the government owns and operates the means of production and manages the investment capital needed for economic growth. This definition does not accurately describe the developing economic trend in the United States. A more fitting description is another type of political economy that also relies on a symbiotic relationship between the government and business. This political economy is characterized by a government that pays lip-service to individual market exchange, private business and private property but extensively regulates and controls all economic activity for the “common good.” This is partially accomplished by forming partnerships and/or cartels linking government, business and, often, labor. (Think General Motors and the health care insurance industry.) This type of economy has a different name. It is called fascism.
Put aside for just a moment the visions of goose-stepping soldiers and horrific crimes against humanity, for at its core fascism is a type of political economy which, as was the case in fascist Italy, does not have to feature a landscape dotted with crematoria. As with pure socialism, however, fascism must become more and more authoritarian with harsh penalties for those who don’t comply or who challenge the status quo, for an economy can be controlled only by controlling people.
Be cautioned, without intervention, our government’s ever-expanding definition of economic activity requiring regulation will incrementally direct most human activity until we become mere serfs forced to serve the blossoming cartels springing up like noxious weeds on Uncle Sam’s Estate.
More HERE
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What Is 'American Exceptionalism?'
Most Americans believe in “American Exceptionalism,” even when they have never heard the term. This means that the history of the United States is unlike that of most of the world; we have neither hereditary nobility, king or dictator, nor a state-supported ethnic or religious identity.
One becomes American by birth or by choice (immigrants)—with identical rights. Our constitution is very much alive—changing as conditions in our world change, providing an adaptability very rare in the world. These factors, including two oceans to separate us from the old worlds of Europe and Asia, have kept us unusually safe. We also had a vast continent to settle and a homestead program that provided land ownership to those willing to work for it.
But of late, the term “American Exceptionalism” has been questioned by some who believe that America is not exceptional at all—and that those who think it is are right-wing political bigots. They remind us that our history included slavery, imperialism, the dreadful mistreatment of our Native Americans, and ask how that jibes with “exceptionalism.”
Even President Obama, when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism said yes, just as the French and British believe in their own exceptionalism. And this remark raised the hackles of those who believe that with all our flaws, we have managed to be exceptional in almost every way—including the constant effort to admit and correct our shortcomings.
A fascinating book has just come out that jumps into this fray: Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution, by professor Toby E. Huff. This book answers the most basic question: why has the West (Western Europe and its American and Australian offspring) dominated the world for the past four centuries while the other great civilizations declined?
Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, was asked that question by a New Guinea native who wanted to know why White Men have “cargo” but his people do not. He wanted to know if there was something that White people had that made them superior. Diamond thought a lot about this—and in his book, he showed that geography matters, and those lucky enough to come from places with temperate climate; an east-west axis of travel, trade, and diseases (developing immunities); and the right plants and animals to be domesticated; have more “cargo” (success and wealth).
Now Toby Huff adds to this explanation that the geography, history, legal practices, and religions of Western Civilization from Ancient Greece through the 17th century all provided the basis for the scientific revolution that made the West the great power it has been for the past four centuries.
He compares the intellectual curiosity of the West with the notable but static achievements of the three other great societies of the 17th century: China, India, and the Ottoman Turks. It turned out to be no contest.
Although there were brilliant Chinese, Indian, and Arab scholars, including inventors, their findings never made it into their school systems, which resisted the new knowledge, nor gained the support of their absolute monarchs. Even when the telescope found its way to China and India, it was gladly used—but neither improved nor spawned further inventions.
For a scientific revolution to happen as it did in the west, you would need continent-wide scholars who communicated and shared findings; the printing press and its spread of literacy; a school system that taught the new sciences; and a legal system that protected property and was the basis for economic expansion. None of these institutions thrived in imperial China, Moghul India, or Ottoman Turkey. Chinese schools were hidebound Mandarin, resistant to any changes. The Muslim madrassas taught (and still teach) memorization of the Koran, shunning other subjects. By the 20th century, all three great empires were backwaters.
Europe’s exceptionalism and scientific revolution spread to the United States, where it has gone even further. Huff shows us that this was no fluke, but was the consequence of good institutions and a civilization that supported intellectual curiosity.
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
Government employees face wrath of strapped taxpayers: "Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city, and town budgets and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan, and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions -- wage freezes, benefit cuts, and tougher work rules."
Low-cost, private-sector rival puts heat on NASA: "Early last month, a private company called SpaceX launched an unmanned version of its Dragon capsule into orbit, took it for a few spins around Earth, and then brought it home with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The total cost -- including design, manufacture, testing and launch of the company's Falcon 9 rocket and the capsule -- was roughly $800 million. In the world of government spaceflight, that's almost a rounding error. And the ability of SpaceX to do so much with so little money is raising some serious questions about NASA."
Air Force doubles manpower for Afghan attacks: "The Air Force has more than doubled the number of airmen in Afghanistan who call in airstrikes, as the use of bombs, missiles and strafing runs has spiked to its highest level since the war began. The Air Force has increased the number of joint terminal attack controllers — the airmen who work with soldiers to coordinate airstrikes — to 134 last year in Afghanistan, up from 53 in 2009, said Maj. Ike Williams, an operations officer at Air Combat Command in Langley, Va."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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JOE DENUCCI, a onetime prizefighter turned Massachusetts politician, steps down this month after 34 years on Beacon Hill: 10 years as a state representative, followed by 24 years as state auditor. He is being celebrated in some circles as the last of a political breed -- an unpolished, down-to-earth, working-class guy who made good, had a big heart, and took care of his pals.
"To the end, championing others," ran the headline over a Boston Globe story last week marking the end of DeNucci's long run in politics. The retiring auditor "is of the old school and makes no apology for that," the Globe observed. "He is the product of a culture that prized helping those around you, which has permeated Massachusetts politics for as long as anyone can remember, but is under attack now." The story makes clear that DeNucci sees nothing wrong with patronage. "We all did it," he says. "It was about helping people; some I knew, some I didn't."
A lot of people have a soft spot for DeNucci; there's no denying he has a certain rough-around-the-edges charm. On the whole I imagine that Massachusetts state government would be a little less fetid if it contained fewer glossy lawyers and consultant-crafted professional operators, and more unpolished, down-to-earth, former boxers.
But frankly, state government would be a lot less fetid if it weren't for that "old school" mindset that sees something commendable in using public office and public payrolls to hand out favors to supporters and friends. DeNucci may not be the worst offender, but who in Massachusetts politics should be held to a "Caesar's wife" standard of integrity if not the auditor, the state's top fiscal and ethical watchdog? Yet the conviction that public office is a public trust has scarcely been the lodestar of DeNucci's political career.
Consider Gaetano Spezzano, hired by DeNucci as a "fraud examiner" in 2008, though no such position was vacant and no other candidates were considered for the job. "Spezzano did not have the skills or knowledge required of a fraud examiner," the State Ethics Commission charged in September, and hadn't even completed the second half of a two-page job application. The 75-year-old Spezzano had worked as a musician and a meat salesman -- honorable work, but not much of a preparation for rooting out fraud in state government. The only reason he was hired, according to the commission, is that he and the auditor are related. "I'm his only cousin, his only family," DeNucci told the Boston Herald. "He's all by himself, except for me."
Concern for family members is a fine thing, and who wouldn't admire DeNucci had he reached into his own pocket to help his cousin out? But he didn't. He reached into our pockets -- into the pockets of the Massachusetts citizens whose interests he was elected to protect. He did the same a few months ago when he handed out across-the-board 5 percent raises to everyone on his staff: a slap in the face to Bay State taxpayers at a time when 300,000 of them are out of work, and hundreds of thousands of others have been forced to absorb pay and benefit cuts.
Go through the clips of the DeNucci years, and you come across so much of this stuff.
Here's DeNucci in 1998, collecting campaign contributions from a rogue's gallery of convicted criminals and disgraced politicians. ("This is America," his political adviser tells the press. "You can contribute to anyone you please.") Here he is in 1995, the subject of a newspaper exposé on "No-show Joe," documenting his practice of working three-day weeks, and of hanging out on the golf links when his official schedule has him in his State House. ("I don't keep a schedule," DeNucci explains. "I work out of my hip pocket, OK?") Here's the auditor in 1990, the Globe reports, lobbying the state treasurer -- in the midst of an audit! -- to give his son-in-law a job.
"Old school" politics as usual? Maybe. But multiplied by all the politicians who see nothing wrong with it, across all the years they've been doing it, and it adds up to Beacon Hill's detestable, seemingly ineradicable, culture of corruption. What is the Probation Department scandal, if not the Spezzano case write large? "Hey, this is patronage," DeNucci told the Globe back in 1983, after pulling strings to get another ex-boxer a State House job. "I'm trying to help a friend."
They pick our pockets and pat themselves on the back, then wonder why so many of us are disgusted. DeNucci was far from the worst. More's the pity.
SOURCE
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The Moral Mush of Pacifism
By Jonah Goldberg
Colman McCarthy has a really exasperating op-ed in the Post today arguing that ROTC must remain banned from campuses, even after the DADT repeal. As I briefly mentioned in my column yesterday, the lifting of DADT is really inconvenient for peaceniks and other folks who hold anti-military views because it lends credibility to the military (among liberals and leftists).
If the point of the column was simply to honestly admit this, I’d find it admirable. But it gets worse. McCarthy adds this:
To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices to be away from home. In recent years, I’ve had several Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans in my college classes. If only the peace movement were as populated by people of such resolve and daring.
ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace. If a school such as Harvard does sell out to the military, let it at least be honest and add a sign at its Cambridge front portal: Harvard, a Pentagon Annex.
This is a riot of intellectual and moral confusion. First of all, the idea that any of the Ivies currently enjoys something that might be called “intellectual purity” is a compliment unearned (but such flattery will no doubt be eagerly accepted). Second, the notion that intellectualism is somehow at odds with military values or ethics is willfully dishonest (paging VDH!). Since when has “intellectual purity” or intellectualism of any kind been defined by its antipathy to the military? Third, the idea that nations cannot wage war for peace is one of the most easily disproved and transparently silly utopian notions out there. The post-WWII peace was bought with a lot of killing and destroying, not with a seminar.
And, last, there’s this execrable bit of moral equivalence: “To oppose ROTC, as I have since my college days in the 1960s, when my school enticed too many of my classmates into joining, is not to be anti-soldier. I admire those who join armies, whether America’s or the Taliban’s: for their discipline, for their loyalty to their buddies and to their principles, for their sacrifices …”
This is the sort of obtuse even-handedness that drove Orwell crazy. Moreover McCarthy clearly doesn’t even believe it. Of course he’s anti-soldier. He believes they dedicate themselves to a “foul notion.”
Er, no. In America, they dedicate themselves to protecting America, her liberties and her Constitution. The Taliban’s priorities are very different and one cannot wave them away by prattling on about the “discipline” and “loyalty” of Jihadist murderers.
SOURCE
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America's slide into Fascism
If much of human action is economic activity, is there then no limit on what the federal government can mandate regarding human behavior? Apparently not, for now we have before us a mandate to purchase a private product, health care insurance, whether we wish to have that product or not. Under the new health care reform act passed by Congress and signed by the President, even economic inactivity is to be labeled an economic decision to be regulated under the Interstate Commerce Clause. If the courts allow this to stand, there is little human action that our federal government could not label as economic and find the authority to control.
The oft-repeated allegations that government intervention in health care and other market exchanges is socialism are off the mark. Socialism, by definition, is a political economy where the government owns and operates the means of production and manages the investment capital needed for economic growth. This definition does not accurately describe the developing economic trend in the United States. A more fitting description is another type of political economy that also relies on a symbiotic relationship between the government and business. This political economy is characterized by a government that pays lip-service to individual market exchange, private business and private property but extensively regulates and controls all economic activity for the “common good.” This is partially accomplished by forming partnerships and/or cartels linking government, business and, often, labor. (Think General Motors and the health care insurance industry.) This type of economy has a different name. It is called fascism.
Put aside for just a moment the visions of goose-stepping soldiers and horrific crimes against humanity, for at its core fascism is a type of political economy which, as was the case in fascist Italy, does not have to feature a landscape dotted with crematoria. As with pure socialism, however, fascism must become more and more authoritarian with harsh penalties for those who don’t comply or who challenge the status quo, for an economy can be controlled only by controlling people.
Be cautioned, without intervention, our government’s ever-expanding definition of economic activity requiring regulation will incrementally direct most human activity until we become mere serfs forced to serve the blossoming cartels springing up like noxious weeds on Uncle Sam’s Estate.
More HERE
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What Is 'American Exceptionalism?'
Most Americans believe in “American Exceptionalism,” even when they have never heard the term. This means that the history of the United States is unlike that of most of the world; we have neither hereditary nobility, king or dictator, nor a state-supported ethnic or religious identity.
One becomes American by birth or by choice (immigrants)—with identical rights. Our constitution is very much alive—changing as conditions in our world change, providing an adaptability very rare in the world. These factors, including two oceans to separate us from the old worlds of Europe and Asia, have kept us unusually safe. We also had a vast continent to settle and a homestead program that provided land ownership to those willing to work for it.
But of late, the term “American Exceptionalism” has been questioned by some who believe that America is not exceptional at all—and that those who think it is are right-wing political bigots. They remind us that our history included slavery, imperialism, the dreadful mistreatment of our Native Americans, and ask how that jibes with “exceptionalism.”
Even President Obama, when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism said yes, just as the French and British believe in their own exceptionalism. And this remark raised the hackles of those who believe that with all our flaws, we have managed to be exceptional in almost every way—including the constant effort to admit and correct our shortcomings.
A fascinating book has just come out that jumps into this fray: Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution, by professor Toby E. Huff. This book answers the most basic question: why has the West (Western Europe and its American and Australian offspring) dominated the world for the past four centuries while the other great civilizations declined?
Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, was asked that question by a New Guinea native who wanted to know why White Men have “cargo” but his people do not. He wanted to know if there was something that White people had that made them superior. Diamond thought a lot about this—and in his book, he showed that geography matters, and those lucky enough to come from places with temperate climate; an east-west axis of travel, trade, and diseases (developing immunities); and the right plants and animals to be domesticated; have more “cargo” (success and wealth).
Now Toby Huff adds to this explanation that the geography, history, legal practices, and religions of Western Civilization from Ancient Greece through the 17th century all provided the basis for the scientific revolution that made the West the great power it has been for the past four centuries.
He compares the intellectual curiosity of the West with the notable but static achievements of the three other great societies of the 17th century: China, India, and the Ottoman Turks. It turned out to be no contest.
Although there were brilliant Chinese, Indian, and Arab scholars, including inventors, their findings never made it into their school systems, which resisted the new knowledge, nor gained the support of their absolute monarchs. Even when the telescope found its way to China and India, it was gladly used—but neither improved nor spawned further inventions.
For a scientific revolution to happen as it did in the west, you would need continent-wide scholars who communicated and shared findings; the printing press and its spread of literacy; a school system that taught the new sciences; and a legal system that protected property and was the basis for economic expansion. None of these institutions thrived in imperial China, Moghul India, or Ottoman Turkey. Chinese schools were hidebound Mandarin, resistant to any changes. The Muslim madrassas taught (and still teach) memorization of the Koran, shunning other subjects. By the 20th century, all three great empires were backwaters.
Europe’s exceptionalism and scientific revolution spread to the United States, where it has gone even further. Huff shows us that this was no fluke, but was the consequence of good institutions and a civilization that supported intellectual curiosity.
SOURCE
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ELSEWHERE
Government employees face wrath of strapped taxpayers: "Across the nation, a rising irritation with public employee unions is palpable as a wounded economy has blown gaping holes in state, city, and town budgets and revealed that some public pension funds dangle perilously close to bankruptcy. In California, New York, Michigan, and New Jersey, states where public unions wield much power and the culture historically tends to be pro-labor, even longtime liberal political leaders have demanded concessions -- wage freezes, benefit cuts, and tougher work rules."
Low-cost, private-sector rival puts heat on NASA: "Early last month, a private company called SpaceX launched an unmanned version of its Dragon capsule into orbit, took it for a few spins around Earth, and then brought it home with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The total cost -- including design, manufacture, testing and launch of the company's Falcon 9 rocket and the capsule -- was roughly $800 million. In the world of government spaceflight, that's almost a rounding error. And the ability of SpaceX to do so much with so little money is raising some serious questions about NASA."
Air Force doubles manpower for Afghan attacks: "The Air Force has more than doubled the number of airmen in Afghanistan who call in airstrikes, as the use of bombs, missiles and strafing runs has spiked to its highest level since the war began. The Air Force has increased the number of joint terminal attack controllers — the airmen who work with soldiers to coordinate airstrikes — to 134 last year in Afghanistan, up from 53 in 2009, said Maj. Ike Williams, an operations officer at Air Combat Command in Langley, Va."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
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Sunday, January 02, 2011
Leftist Media Ignored GM Recall Issues at Toyota’s Expense
Bob McCarty
I disagree with the staff at Automotive News and their selection of the Toyota recall story as the top automobile-related news story of 2010. The story that deserves at least as much attention has to do with how members of the state-run media ignored recall issues at GM (a.k.a., “Government Motors”) at Toyota’s expense.
I covered the Toyota recall story thoroughly in three early-February posts:
In my first post Feb. 5, I examined the number of campaign contributions made by Toyota executives to Barack Obama since Jan. 1, 2007, and found that only two of 151 executives listed on the Toyota web site gave a combined total of $2,500 to Obama for America;
In my second post Feb. 5, I speculated about the possible reasons why the Obama Administration would want to bully Toyota; and, finally,
In a Feb. 8 post, I wondered why the federal government had not yet issued a recall for the Chevrolet Cobalt despite the fact that, according to a Feb. 2 Los Angeles Times report, 905,000 2005-’09 copies of the “Bow-Tie” vehicle, including the Cobalt SS, were the subject of a new investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration due to complaints of electric power steering failure.
It was in the latter post that I revealed the disturbing results of some simple math calculations:
During the days that followed, Edmund’s Inside Line, The New York Times Wheels blog and two other publications reported the same basic story, informing readers that the investigation was launched after more than 1,100 consumer complaints were received.
According to a Chicago Tribune report Jan. 26, the Toyota recall was based upon some 2,000 complaints related to 2.3 million vehicles sold.
In doing the math related to these recalls, I found the following:
• Only 1 in 1,000 (.001) consumers complained about the Chevrolet product; and
• Fewer than 1 in 1,000 (.00009) consumers complained about the Toyota product.
In short, the Chevrolet product has received more complaints per car sold than the Toyota products! So why hasn’t the federal government issued a recall on the Cobalt? Probably because Chevrolet is owned by General Motors (a.k.a. “Government Motors”), a taxpayer-owned company that stands to benefit greatly from having its foreign-owned competitors struggle with the public relations nightmares related to product recalls.
Did Toyota’s recall problems warrant selection as the “Top News” story of 2010? Perhaps. But the state-run media/government treatment of Toyota certainly deserves at least as much attention.
SOURCE
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Could France Go Even Further Right?
With less than a year and a half to go before the next French presidential election, and current President Nicolas Sarkozy at 35% popularity, could France end up shifting further to the right?
The possibility is a good one. Sarkozy won the 2007 race by largely borrowing from the right-wing Front National party’s platform on everything from immigration reform to national security. Keeping in mind that French presidential elections usually consist of two rounds of voting (if no one party gets 50% of votes in the first round), with other parties throwing their weight behind one of the remaining two parties in exchange for concessions and government positions, Sarkozy beat Socialist Segolene Royale in 2007 because he nabbed right-wing and centrist party votes after the first round, which put him over the top in the second and final vote.
The advantage Sarkozy had in 2007 is that he had never been given the chance to be in charge. He always had to dodge the long shadow of his party’s leader, Jacques Chirac, whom few outside of France (or even in France) could ever legitimately label right-leaning or laissez faire. Chirac spent his mandate importing his beloved Africa into France one Muslim immigrant at a time, appreciating the various resulting cultural manifestations such as bar-b-cueing Citroens as a form of public debate, and taking advantage of various sanctions imposed by the world community on dodgy regimes like Saddam Hussein’s to enjoy market monopoly free of any legitimate competition.
Sarkozy was supposed to be a break from all that. But then something got in the way: France. The Economist, having hailed Sarkozy as the new Napoleon, recently called him the “incredible shrinking president”, and criticized him for not following through on his good ideas. The criticism came from the right, not from the left. The result of gridlock or inaction is maintenance of the status quo, which in France is nanny-state left. And this isn’t what a majority of French voted for when they elected Sarkozy.
A summary of the disappointments:
*Sarkozy pushed DNA testing legislation through parliament to ensure actual relation between family reunification immigrants. But when the bill had passed and was ready to be signed, he told his minister not to.
* After running a campaign emphasizing cultural integration and the secular nature of the French state, Sarkozy sent his prime minister – the head of French government -- to open a new mosque during which he made warm declarations about Islam.
* While the value of the Euro is on a roller-coaster ride because some member countries can’t sort out their own messes to the point of just failing and requiring a bailout from others, Sarkozy has been spending his time strong-arming German Chancellor Angela Merkel into coughing up German productivity to help out the deadbeats. Some French don’t understand why they should be forced to pay for Greeks to riot.
* A presidential campaign emphasizing meritocracy has given way to parachuting friends and relatives, and firing critics in both the private and public sectors. The fact that Sarkozy has referred to himself, in various contexts, as the “head of human resources” probably doesn’t help.
* French companies and factories are disappearing from the landscape and setting up shop overseas. Rather than reducing taxes and gold-plated benefits all around and explaining to people that not doing so will choke off their livelihood entirely, Sarkozy just offered the companies goodie-bags* (*cash). Most normal people can’t fathom handing over a wad of money to their significant other without being considered crass, so imagine the reaction of an entire population when money is given to big business – and the money doesn’t come from the giver but rather from other people’s pay checks. “The French should be used to that,” you might say. But no, the French aren’t used to seeing it done that overtly. When their pay checks are stolen from them by the State, it is done underhandedly in the interest of “benefits”, making them think they’re getting something back, or at the very least that it’s going to their employer: the government. In this case, it’s just shooting down a tube directly into other people’s hands.
This is not to say that Sarkozy hasn’t made a dent. He’s planted the seed of change in France, such as getting the French used to the idea of working two years longer – which shut down the country in itself. But the change promised in 2007 hasn’t yet become a reality to the extent it was perhaps anticipated by voters.
So what are these voters to do? Well, this time, they have an alternative that’s as right-leaning as Sarkozy’s UMP party in theory, and perhaps may actually be more so in practice: therein lies the real difference between the two. The Front National party, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, is set to be taken over in the coming weeks by his 42-year old lawyer daughter, Marine: a smart, tough, articulate lawyer and mother with a knack for leading debate and appealing directly to the people over the heads of the elites. In a recent example, she criticized Muslims who flood into the streets and jam entire blocks of public space to conduct their prayers to Allah as “occupying”. A flood of denouncements came from all other parties, along with threats from various minority and ethnic interest groups to take legal action against the remark. A Socialist Party leader conceded that the phenomenon is indeed a problem – while everyone else living in the real world and having to manoeuvre around these sessions can actually see that it is. French people are now supporting Marine Le Pen in record numbers (27% versus Sarkozy’s 35%).
So let’s imagine a scenario that could very well occur if Sarkozy’s popularity continues to decline or remain low. If, in the first round of 2012 presidential voting, Sarkozy’s right-leaning base votes against him and in favour of the Front National (in protest or otherwise), the centrists vote for their own various candidates and divides the center-right, and the left rallies around the Socialist Party, this could result in a second round race between the Front National and the Socialist Party. And while centrists may side with the Socialists, the right and traditional UMP voters would rally around the Front National.
In a country where a presidential candidate can go from 65% popularity to tanking with 18% in the first round of voting (Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in 1995), it’s not unfeasible to imagine the possibility of France now moving further right.
SOURCE
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Japan population shrinks by record in 2010
Only the Japanese can do anything about it but this is nonetheless something we should all view with some concern. The shrinking of such a creative and productive population is a loss for us all
Japan's population fell by a record amount last year as the number of deaths climbed to an all-time high in the quickly aging country, the government said Saturday.
Japan faces a looming demographic squeeze. Baby boomers are moving toward retirement, with fewer workers and taxpayers to replace them. The Japanese boast among the highest life expectancies in the world but have extremely low birth rates.
Japan logged 1.19 million deaths in 2010 — the biggest number since 1947 when the health ministry's annual records began. The number of births was nearly flat at 1.07 million.
As a result, Japan contracted by 123,000 people, which was the most ever and represents the fourth consecutive year of population decline. The top causes of death were cancer, heart disease and stroke, the ministry said.
Japanese aged 65 and older make up about a quarter of Japan's current population. The government projects that by 2050, that figure will climb to 40 percent.
Like in other advanced countries, young people are waiting to get married and choosing to have fewer children because of careers and lifestyle issues. Saturday's report showed 706,000 marriages registered last year — the fewest since 1954 and a sign that birth rates are unlikely to jump dramatically anytime soon.
Japan's total population stood at 125.77 million as of October, according to the ministry.
SOURCE
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Obama's do-gooder credit card laws are hurting both the rich and the poor -- but mostly the poor
Last year, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act. It was supposed to really end the alleged abuses perpetrated by the credit card companies. The law forbids some penalties and interest-rate increases on existing balances.
It is one of President Obama's proudest achievements. "Enough's enough," he said. "It's time for strong, reliable protection for our consumers." Reform, he said, would not come at the expense of honest businesses. "Unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking your customers, you've got nothing to fear."
Finally! Protection! A new bureaucracy will stop greedy credit card companies from unfairly penalizing you. And it won't threaten the credit business. Yippie!
How has it worked out? Not so well. George Mason University Law Professor Todd Zywicki points out that the new restrictions hurt more consumers than they help.
Since the Card Act passed, mortgage and Treasury bill rates have dropped a little, but credit card interest went up -- from 13 percent to nearly 15 percent. Some banks also stopped offering credit to some people. JPMorgan Chase cut off 15 percent of its customers.
So the real result of this "consumer" regulation? "Hundreds of thousands of people can't get cards who used to be able to have cards, and all the rest of us now have to pay more," Zywicki said.
But maybe the people who can't get credit cards are better off because they couldn't handle credit wisely? "Just to say they don't have a credit card doesn't mean that they don't have credit," Zywicki retorts. "They'll just go to more expensive places -- the local payday lender or the local pawn shop."
And pay a lot for credit. Payday lenders make small short-term loans, sometimes just till payday. But the annual interest is nasty -- often more than 500 percent. Several states have outlawed payday lenders. The politicians say they do it to help low-income people. But again, their "help" harms. The lenders' former customers complain that the payday lenders were their only way to avoid missing a bill payment -- and maybe having the lights shut off. "It's not just a matter sometimes of saving money," one borrower told us. "It's a matter of saving yourself grief."
Maybe they should get a credit card. Then they'd have lower interest payments. But of course Congress just made that tougher.
"People who have limited choices when it comes to credit are not likely to have their situations improved by taking away some of those limited options that they have," Zywicki says.
This is a lesson the elitist reformers are determined never to learn. Or maybe the elite like creating new problems. It gives them new chances to ride to the rescue and pose as great humanitarians. Someone likened this to breaking people's kneecaps, then compassionately providing crutches.
Without regulation, wouldn't banks charge monster fees and high interest? "Certainly they would," Zywicki said. "The problem is they can't. I've got four credit cards in my wallet. As I sit here talking to you, my credit cards are competing for my business. If one tries to rip me off, or charge me too much, I'll switch to another."
The law of unintended consequences is never more clear than in the capping of interest -- so-called usury laws. Arkansas once capped interest rates at 10 percent. "Very few people could get a credit card in Arkansas as a result," Zywicki said. Arkansas then became known as the pawn shop capital of America. Pawn shop interest can be 250 percent.
To Sen. Chris Dodd, President Obama and all the credit "reformers," Zywicki says this: "In the 1960s, the second biggest revenue source of organized crime was illegal lending. Is that the world we want to go back to, where we get rid of payday lending, and we're so morally outraged that we're going to put people in the hands of the leg-breakers and the loan sharks? They charged an interest rate that was well over 1,000 percent, and their collection techniques were a lot tougher than your local pawn shops."
When will the political do-gooders realize that the most vulnerable people in society can't take any more of their kindness?
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Bob McCarty
I disagree with the staff at Automotive News and their selection of the Toyota recall story as the top automobile-related news story of 2010. The story that deserves at least as much attention has to do with how members of the state-run media ignored recall issues at GM (a.k.a., “Government Motors”) at Toyota’s expense.
I covered the Toyota recall story thoroughly in three early-February posts:
In my first post Feb. 5, I examined the number of campaign contributions made by Toyota executives to Barack Obama since Jan. 1, 2007, and found that only two of 151 executives listed on the Toyota web site gave a combined total of $2,500 to Obama for America;
In my second post Feb. 5, I speculated about the possible reasons why the Obama Administration would want to bully Toyota; and, finally,
In a Feb. 8 post, I wondered why the federal government had not yet issued a recall for the Chevrolet Cobalt despite the fact that, according to a Feb. 2 Los Angeles Times report, 905,000 2005-’09 copies of the “Bow-Tie” vehicle, including the Cobalt SS, were the subject of a new investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration due to complaints of electric power steering failure.
It was in the latter post that I revealed the disturbing results of some simple math calculations:
During the days that followed, Edmund’s Inside Line, The New York Times Wheels blog and two other publications reported the same basic story, informing readers that the investigation was launched after more than 1,100 consumer complaints were received.
According to a Chicago Tribune report Jan. 26, the Toyota recall was based upon some 2,000 complaints related to 2.3 million vehicles sold.
In doing the math related to these recalls, I found the following:
• Only 1 in 1,000 (.001) consumers complained about the Chevrolet product; and
• Fewer than 1 in 1,000 (.00009) consumers complained about the Toyota product.
In short, the Chevrolet product has received more complaints per car sold than the Toyota products! So why hasn’t the federal government issued a recall on the Cobalt? Probably because Chevrolet is owned by General Motors (a.k.a. “Government Motors”), a taxpayer-owned company that stands to benefit greatly from having its foreign-owned competitors struggle with the public relations nightmares related to product recalls.
Did Toyota’s recall problems warrant selection as the “Top News” story of 2010? Perhaps. But the state-run media/government treatment of Toyota certainly deserves at least as much attention.
SOURCE
***********************
Could France Go Even Further Right?
With less than a year and a half to go before the next French presidential election, and current President Nicolas Sarkozy at 35% popularity, could France end up shifting further to the right?
The possibility is a good one. Sarkozy won the 2007 race by largely borrowing from the right-wing Front National party’s platform on everything from immigration reform to national security. Keeping in mind that French presidential elections usually consist of two rounds of voting (if no one party gets 50% of votes in the first round), with other parties throwing their weight behind one of the remaining two parties in exchange for concessions and government positions, Sarkozy beat Socialist Segolene Royale in 2007 because he nabbed right-wing and centrist party votes after the first round, which put him over the top in the second and final vote.
The advantage Sarkozy had in 2007 is that he had never been given the chance to be in charge. He always had to dodge the long shadow of his party’s leader, Jacques Chirac, whom few outside of France (or even in France) could ever legitimately label right-leaning or laissez faire. Chirac spent his mandate importing his beloved Africa into France one Muslim immigrant at a time, appreciating the various resulting cultural manifestations such as bar-b-cueing Citroens as a form of public debate, and taking advantage of various sanctions imposed by the world community on dodgy regimes like Saddam Hussein’s to enjoy market monopoly free of any legitimate competition.
Sarkozy was supposed to be a break from all that. But then something got in the way: France. The Economist, having hailed Sarkozy as the new Napoleon, recently called him the “incredible shrinking president”, and criticized him for not following through on his good ideas. The criticism came from the right, not from the left. The result of gridlock or inaction is maintenance of the status quo, which in France is nanny-state left. And this isn’t what a majority of French voted for when they elected Sarkozy.
A summary of the disappointments:
*Sarkozy pushed DNA testing legislation through parliament to ensure actual relation between family reunification immigrants. But when the bill had passed and was ready to be signed, he told his minister not to.
* After running a campaign emphasizing cultural integration and the secular nature of the French state, Sarkozy sent his prime minister – the head of French government -- to open a new mosque during which he made warm declarations about Islam.
* While the value of the Euro is on a roller-coaster ride because some member countries can’t sort out their own messes to the point of just failing and requiring a bailout from others, Sarkozy has been spending his time strong-arming German Chancellor Angela Merkel into coughing up German productivity to help out the deadbeats. Some French don’t understand why they should be forced to pay for Greeks to riot.
* A presidential campaign emphasizing meritocracy has given way to parachuting friends and relatives, and firing critics in both the private and public sectors. The fact that Sarkozy has referred to himself, in various contexts, as the “head of human resources” probably doesn’t help.
* French companies and factories are disappearing from the landscape and setting up shop overseas. Rather than reducing taxes and gold-plated benefits all around and explaining to people that not doing so will choke off their livelihood entirely, Sarkozy just offered the companies goodie-bags* (*cash). Most normal people can’t fathom handing over a wad of money to their significant other without being considered crass, so imagine the reaction of an entire population when money is given to big business – and the money doesn’t come from the giver but rather from other people’s pay checks. “The French should be used to that,” you might say. But no, the French aren’t used to seeing it done that overtly. When their pay checks are stolen from them by the State, it is done underhandedly in the interest of “benefits”, making them think they’re getting something back, or at the very least that it’s going to their employer: the government. In this case, it’s just shooting down a tube directly into other people’s hands.
This is not to say that Sarkozy hasn’t made a dent. He’s planted the seed of change in France, such as getting the French used to the idea of working two years longer – which shut down the country in itself. But the change promised in 2007 hasn’t yet become a reality to the extent it was perhaps anticipated by voters.
So what are these voters to do? Well, this time, they have an alternative that’s as right-leaning as Sarkozy’s UMP party in theory, and perhaps may actually be more so in practice: therein lies the real difference between the two. The Front National party, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, is set to be taken over in the coming weeks by his 42-year old lawyer daughter, Marine: a smart, tough, articulate lawyer and mother with a knack for leading debate and appealing directly to the people over the heads of the elites. In a recent example, she criticized Muslims who flood into the streets and jam entire blocks of public space to conduct their prayers to Allah as “occupying”. A flood of denouncements came from all other parties, along with threats from various minority and ethnic interest groups to take legal action against the remark. A Socialist Party leader conceded that the phenomenon is indeed a problem – while everyone else living in the real world and having to manoeuvre around these sessions can actually see that it is. French people are now supporting Marine Le Pen in record numbers (27% versus Sarkozy’s 35%).
So let’s imagine a scenario that could very well occur if Sarkozy’s popularity continues to decline or remain low. If, in the first round of 2012 presidential voting, Sarkozy’s right-leaning base votes against him and in favour of the Front National (in protest or otherwise), the centrists vote for their own various candidates and divides the center-right, and the left rallies around the Socialist Party, this could result in a second round race between the Front National and the Socialist Party. And while centrists may side with the Socialists, the right and traditional UMP voters would rally around the Front National.
In a country where a presidential candidate can go from 65% popularity to tanking with 18% in the first round of voting (Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in 1995), it’s not unfeasible to imagine the possibility of France now moving further right.
SOURCE
************************
Japan population shrinks by record in 2010
Only the Japanese can do anything about it but this is nonetheless something we should all view with some concern. The shrinking of such a creative and productive population is a loss for us all
Japan's population fell by a record amount last year as the number of deaths climbed to an all-time high in the quickly aging country, the government said Saturday.
Japan faces a looming demographic squeeze. Baby boomers are moving toward retirement, with fewer workers and taxpayers to replace them. The Japanese boast among the highest life expectancies in the world but have extremely low birth rates.
Japan logged 1.19 million deaths in 2010 — the biggest number since 1947 when the health ministry's annual records began. The number of births was nearly flat at 1.07 million.
As a result, Japan contracted by 123,000 people, which was the most ever and represents the fourth consecutive year of population decline. The top causes of death were cancer, heart disease and stroke, the ministry said.
Japanese aged 65 and older make up about a quarter of Japan's current population. The government projects that by 2050, that figure will climb to 40 percent.
Like in other advanced countries, young people are waiting to get married and choosing to have fewer children because of careers and lifestyle issues. Saturday's report showed 706,000 marriages registered last year — the fewest since 1954 and a sign that birth rates are unlikely to jump dramatically anytime soon.
Japan's total population stood at 125.77 million as of October, according to the ministry.
SOURCE
************************
Obama's do-gooder credit card laws are hurting both the rich and the poor -- but mostly the poor
Last year, Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act. It was supposed to really end the alleged abuses perpetrated by the credit card companies. The law forbids some penalties and interest-rate increases on existing balances.
It is one of President Obama's proudest achievements. "Enough's enough," he said. "It's time for strong, reliable protection for our consumers." Reform, he said, would not come at the expense of honest businesses. "Unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking your customers, you've got nothing to fear."
Finally! Protection! A new bureaucracy will stop greedy credit card companies from unfairly penalizing you. And it won't threaten the credit business. Yippie!
How has it worked out? Not so well. George Mason University Law Professor Todd Zywicki points out that the new restrictions hurt more consumers than they help.
Since the Card Act passed, mortgage and Treasury bill rates have dropped a little, but credit card interest went up -- from 13 percent to nearly 15 percent. Some banks also stopped offering credit to some people. JPMorgan Chase cut off 15 percent of its customers.
So the real result of this "consumer" regulation? "Hundreds of thousands of people can't get cards who used to be able to have cards, and all the rest of us now have to pay more," Zywicki said.
But maybe the people who can't get credit cards are better off because they couldn't handle credit wisely? "Just to say they don't have a credit card doesn't mean that they don't have credit," Zywicki retorts. "They'll just go to more expensive places -- the local payday lender or the local pawn shop."
And pay a lot for credit. Payday lenders make small short-term loans, sometimes just till payday. But the annual interest is nasty -- often more than 500 percent. Several states have outlawed payday lenders. The politicians say they do it to help low-income people. But again, their "help" harms. The lenders' former customers complain that the payday lenders were their only way to avoid missing a bill payment -- and maybe having the lights shut off. "It's not just a matter sometimes of saving money," one borrower told us. "It's a matter of saving yourself grief."
Maybe they should get a credit card. Then they'd have lower interest payments. But of course Congress just made that tougher.
"People who have limited choices when it comes to credit are not likely to have their situations improved by taking away some of those limited options that they have," Zywicki says.
This is a lesson the elitist reformers are determined never to learn. Or maybe the elite like creating new problems. It gives them new chances to ride to the rescue and pose as great humanitarians. Someone likened this to breaking people's kneecaps, then compassionately providing crutches.
Without regulation, wouldn't banks charge monster fees and high interest? "Certainly they would," Zywicki said. "The problem is they can't. I've got four credit cards in my wallet. As I sit here talking to you, my credit cards are competing for my business. If one tries to rip me off, or charge me too much, I'll switch to another."
The law of unintended consequences is never more clear than in the capping of interest -- so-called usury laws. Arkansas once capped interest rates at 10 percent. "Very few people could get a credit card in Arkansas as a result," Zywicki said. Arkansas then became known as the pawn shop capital of America. Pawn shop interest can be 250 percent.
To Sen. Chris Dodd, President Obama and all the credit "reformers," Zywicki says this: "In the 1960s, the second biggest revenue source of organized crime was illegal lending. Is that the world we want to go back to, where we get rid of payday lending, and we're so morally outraged that we're going to put people in the hands of the leg-breakers and the loan sharks? They charged an interest rate that was well over 1,000 percent, and their collection techniques were a lot tougher than your local pawn shops."
When will the political do-gooders realize that the most vulnerable people in society can't take any more of their kindness?
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Was the first human being an Israeli?
Could this be seen as theologically significant?
It has long been believed that modern humans emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago -- the earliest evidence for the existence of modern humans anywhere in the world.
The findings were discovered in the Qesem Cave, a pre-historic site located near Rosh Ha'ayin that was first excavated in 2000. Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, who run the excavations, and Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of the university's Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Sackler School of Medicine, together with an international team of scientists, performed a morphological analysis on eight human teeth found in the Qesem Cave.
This analysis, which included CT scans and X-rays, indicates that the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern humans. The teeth found in the Qesem Cave are very similar to other evidence of modern humans from Israel, dated to around 100,000 years ago, discovered in the Skhul Cave in the Carmel and Qafzeh Cave in the Lower Galilee near Nazareth. The results of the researchers' findings are being published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Qesem Cave is dated to a period between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, and archaeologists working there believe that the findings indicate significant evolution in the behavior of ancient humans. This period of time was crucial in the history of humankind from cultural and biological perspectives. The teeth that are being studied indicate that these changes are apparently related to evolutionary changes taking place at that time.
Prof. Gopher and Dr. Barkai noted that the findings related to the culture of those who dwelled in the Qesem Cave -- including the systematic production of flint blades; the regular use of fire; evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat; mining raw materials to produce flint tools from subsurface sources -- reinforce the hypothesis that this was, in fact, innovative and pioneering behavior that may correspond with the appearance of modern humans.
According to researchers, the discoveries made in the Qesem Cave may overturn the theory that modern humans originated on the continent of Africa. In recent years, archaeological evidence and human skeletons found in Spain and China also undermined this proposition, but the Qesem Cave findings because of their early age is an unprecedented discovery.
Excavations at Qesem Cave continue and the researchers hope to uncover additional finds that will enable them to confirm the findings published up to now and to enhance our understanding of the evolution of humankind -- especially the emergence of modern man.
SOURCE
**********************
Obama Administration Closes Year Paying Off Big Labor
With the White House doling out appointments, regulatory favors and other paybacks, Big Labor must be counting its blessings to have an administration in place willing to ignore the will of citizens and job creators. It does not seem President Obama feels inhibited in paying back union bosses even though his initiatives could not and would not pass in the legislature. Instead, he has taken to using unelected bureaucrats not accountable to voters to enact sweeping changes in labor laws.
All of this takes place in the context of Big Labor having spent half a billion dollars to elect Obama in the first place and hundreds of millions more in the midterm elections just a few, short months ago. So instead of engaging in public dialogue and advancing initiatives in Congress, the Obama Administration has settled on a skewed and secretive rulemaking process largely driven by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Just a year ago, we heard over and over again from union bosses that they would be able to achieve enactment of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act. Friends of Big Labor in the Senate echoed the sentiment, confident that they would push this job-killing bill through, but small business owners and voters refused to allow it. The bill would remove workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union elections and force government-mandated contracts on employees and employers alike without their consent.
Frustrated with this failed effort, Big Labor turned its sights elsewhere and redirected its focus to the White House where they handpicked advocates to serve on the NLRB and do their bidding. It began with Craig Becker, the former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) attorney who received a recess appointment after being rejected in a bipartisan fashion by the U.S. Senate and who now refuses to recuse himself from matters directly related to and benefiting his previous employers.
Just this month, the NLRB decided in favor of union bosses in its ruling on the Dana Corporation. In this decision, employers and unions can conspire to identify the workers most easily persuaded into forming a collective-bargaining unit having them sign cards, while leaving the remaining half of the workforce without a voice or vote in the process which affects their wages, benefits and workplace rules.
In addition, the NLRB also pushed this year for electronic voting in unionization elections, which would take voting out of the workplace and introduce a myriad of potential problems – not the least of which would be coercion of workers. Factor in the high potential for fraud and it is easy to see where the NLRB’s loyalties lay – with union bosses, not workers.
As if changing the mode of voting wasn’t enough, the NLRB is now considering reversing a determination that employees have a 45-day window to file petitions for an election after being notified that the employer has recognized a union through a so-called “voluntary” card check agreement. Shortchanging workers by rushing them into a union vote and not giving them ample time to educate themselves before making a decision is just another way this government agency is paying back Big Labor.
And last week, the NLRB stated that it would require companies to publicly alert their employees of their right to unionize under Federal law, requiring postings on bulletin boards, and sometimes even calling for emails to be sent to all staff members. But there was no mention made of the right of employees to remain without a collective bargaining unit or even how to decertify one. Claiming the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as its justification, the NLRB is taking one more jab at small business as we approach the end of the year.
Job creators will not simply look the other way and will hold to account those who advocate for job-killing policies.
SOURCE
**************************
Charge NYC Union Leaders With Negligent Homicide
Well, it turns out that the slow snow removal process in New York City was the act of childish adults protesting budget cuts. According to the New York Post:
"[Unionized city workers] sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
On Wednesday, MYFOXNY.com reported that two people died, including a new born baby, because emergency crews couldn’t navigate the unplowed streets.
Plain and simple: the union leaders who called for the job action should be charged with negligent homicide. Let them prove that their actions did not result in the unfortunate deaths of these New Yorkers. For too long, Big Labor has been allowed to hold taxpayers hostage in order to get their way at the bargaining table. And this time, their utter selfishness may have contributed to the deaths of two innocent people.
Jeopardizing the health and safety of innocent New Yorkers in order to make a cheap political statement is reprehensible, and must be denounced in the strongest possible terms. New York citizens need to know if the willful inaction of municipal employees contributed to nine-hour wait for emergency crews that tragically resulted in the death of a newborn child.
This is America – such behavior cannot be acceptable. Or are we turning into Germany and France and willing to sit idly by as the actions of Big Labor result in death and chaos?
SOURCE
**************************
ELSEWHERE
Huge gas find a boon for Israel: "A massive offshore natural gas reserve is poised to give Israel energy security, freeing the desert nation from the threat of boycotts and reshaping the political dynamics of the Middle East. Estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to more than a quarter of Canada’s proven reserves and enough to meet Israel’s domestic demand for 100 years – the Leviathan field is believed to be the largest such deepwater gas discovery in a decade. Observers say the windfall, whose size was confirmed this week, could also affect Israel’s relationships not only with its traditional enemies but also with its allies"
Iraq: Gunmen target Christian homes, 2 killed: "Militants attacked at least four Christian homes Thursday night with a combination of grenades and bombs, killing two people and sending fear into the already terrified tiny Christian community. It was the first attack against the country's Christian community since al-Qaida-linked militants last week threatened a wave of violence against them. Christians went so far as to tone down their Christmas celebrations in what was a peaceful holiday, but the attacks Thursday night demonstrated the intent of militants to keep up their deadly pressure on the Christian community."
Chess players’ opt for trial after prosecution for playing in NYC park: "Two New York City men arrested for playing chess in a city park have rejected a plea deal with the city and have insisted on going to trial. Yacahudah Harrison was among six men playing chess at a Parks Department stone table with a chess table built into it on Oct. 20. The table, however, was located inside a children's section of Inwood Hill Park when police rushed them and issued them summonses for failure to obey park regulations."
Single tip now lands you terrorism watch list: "A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorism watch list .... Even though Abdulmutallab’s father had told US officials of his son’s radicalization in Yemen, government rules dictated that a single-source tip was insufficient to include a person’s name on the watch list. Since then, senior counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip, as long as it is deemed credible, can lead to a name being placed on the list."
Minimum wage hurts workers: "That the minimum wage helps the working poor is a popular policy. Congress recently increased the national minimum from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. A CNN poll found that 86% of Americans supported the change. ... The late senator Kennedy called raising the minimum 'a fairness issue ... If you work … you should not live in poverty.' But as with so many politicians' promises, this one has awful unintended consequences. It hurts workers -- and the least-skilled workers lose the most."
Is big government a myth?: "Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts. As we'll see, yes Virginia there is indeed a big — and growing — government in DC, as even that government's own numbers confirm."
Almost everything is a crime in America now: "Doesn't it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns. But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things? Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society."
The real number of uninsured Americans: "Across the health care debate, supporters of Obamacare have tried to inflate the number of uninsured, and too often they have gotten away with it. Yesterday, for instance, a Huffington Post banner headline read, 'Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to Over 50 Million.' But this claim cannot withstand examination."
The right way to balance the budget: "The federal debt is at its highest level since the aftermath of World War II -- and it's projected to rise further, says Andrew G. Biggs, resident scholar, Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies, and Matt Jensen, research assistant, at the American Enterprise Institute. Stabilizing debt levels would require an immediate and permanent 23 percent increase in all federal tax revenues or equivalent cuts in government expenditures, according to Congressional Budget Office forecasts."
Federal real estate swelled despite “push to purge”: "President Obama over the summer signed a memorandum ordering department heads to 'identify and eliminate' unneeded properties, with the goal of saving 'no less than' $3 billion by fiscal 2012. The order followed a similar efficiency pledge made by former President George W. Bush in 2004. While the administration claims it's making serious headway toward that goal, a recent inventory from the Federal Real Property Council showed that 2009 was a banner year for gaining -- not selling -- federal property."
VA: Man protests molestation at Richmond airport, is arrested: "A Charlottesville man who stripped down to his underwear at Richmond International Airport in protest of security screening procedures was charged with disorderly conduct Thursday. ... police reported that when they arrived at the checkpoint, they found Tobey, 'absent of pants and shirt in full public view, exposing language regarding the Fourth Amendment written on his chest and abdomen with marker or crayon.' The message read, 'Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,' said Bell."
What you pay for Medicare won’t cover your costs: "You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and want your money's worth: full benefits after you retire. Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so they deserve their full benefits -- no cuts. But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Could this be seen as theologically significant?
It has long been believed that modern humans emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago -- the earliest evidence for the existence of modern humans anywhere in the world.
The findings were discovered in the Qesem Cave, a pre-historic site located near Rosh Ha'ayin that was first excavated in 2000. Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, who run the excavations, and Prof. Israel Hershkowitz of the university's Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Sackler School of Medicine, together with an international team of scientists, performed a morphological analysis on eight human teeth found in the Qesem Cave.
This analysis, which included CT scans and X-rays, indicates that the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern humans. The teeth found in the Qesem Cave are very similar to other evidence of modern humans from Israel, dated to around 100,000 years ago, discovered in the Skhul Cave in the Carmel and Qafzeh Cave in the Lower Galilee near Nazareth. The results of the researchers' findings are being published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Qesem Cave is dated to a period between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, and archaeologists working there believe that the findings indicate significant evolution in the behavior of ancient humans. This period of time was crucial in the history of humankind from cultural and biological perspectives. The teeth that are being studied indicate that these changes are apparently related to evolutionary changes taking place at that time.
Prof. Gopher and Dr. Barkai noted that the findings related to the culture of those who dwelled in the Qesem Cave -- including the systematic production of flint blades; the regular use of fire; evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat; mining raw materials to produce flint tools from subsurface sources -- reinforce the hypothesis that this was, in fact, innovative and pioneering behavior that may correspond with the appearance of modern humans.
According to researchers, the discoveries made in the Qesem Cave may overturn the theory that modern humans originated on the continent of Africa. In recent years, archaeological evidence and human skeletons found in Spain and China also undermined this proposition, but the Qesem Cave findings because of their early age is an unprecedented discovery.
Excavations at Qesem Cave continue and the researchers hope to uncover additional finds that will enable them to confirm the findings published up to now and to enhance our understanding of the evolution of humankind -- especially the emergence of modern man.
SOURCE
**********************
Obama Administration Closes Year Paying Off Big Labor
With the White House doling out appointments, regulatory favors and other paybacks, Big Labor must be counting its blessings to have an administration in place willing to ignore the will of citizens and job creators. It does not seem President Obama feels inhibited in paying back union bosses even though his initiatives could not and would not pass in the legislature. Instead, he has taken to using unelected bureaucrats not accountable to voters to enact sweeping changes in labor laws.
All of this takes place in the context of Big Labor having spent half a billion dollars to elect Obama in the first place and hundreds of millions more in the midterm elections just a few, short months ago. So instead of engaging in public dialogue and advancing initiatives in Congress, the Obama Administration has settled on a skewed and secretive rulemaking process largely driven by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Just a year ago, we heard over and over again from union bosses that they would be able to achieve enactment of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act. Friends of Big Labor in the Senate echoed the sentiment, confident that they would push this job-killing bill through, but small business owners and voters refused to allow it. The bill would remove workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union elections and force government-mandated contracts on employees and employers alike without their consent.
Frustrated with this failed effort, Big Labor turned its sights elsewhere and redirected its focus to the White House where they handpicked advocates to serve on the NLRB and do their bidding. It began with Craig Becker, the former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) attorney who received a recess appointment after being rejected in a bipartisan fashion by the U.S. Senate and who now refuses to recuse himself from matters directly related to and benefiting his previous employers.
Just this month, the NLRB decided in favor of union bosses in its ruling on the Dana Corporation. In this decision, employers and unions can conspire to identify the workers most easily persuaded into forming a collective-bargaining unit having them sign cards, while leaving the remaining half of the workforce without a voice or vote in the process which affects their wages, benefits and workplace rules.
In addition, the NLRB also pushed this year for electronic voting in unionization elections, which would take voting out of the workplace and introduce a myriad of potential problems – not the least of which would be coercion of workers. Factor in the high potential for fraud and it is easy to see where the NLRB’s loyalties lay – with union bosses, not workers.
As if changing the mode of voting wasn’t enough, the NLRB is now considering reversing a determination that employees have a 45-day window to file petitions for an election after being notified that the employer has recognized a union through a so-called “voluntary” card check agreement. Shortchanging workers by rushing them into a union vote and not giving them ample time to educate themselves before making a decision is just another way this government agency is paying back Big Labor.
And last week, the NLRB stated that it would require companies to publicly alert their employees of their right to unionize under Federal law, requiring postings on bulletin boards, and sometimes even calling for emails to be sent to all staff members. But there was no mention made of the right of employees to remain without a collective bargaining unit or even how to decertify one. Claiming the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as its justification, the NLRB is taking one more jab at small business as we approach the end of the year.
Job creators will not simply look the other way and will hold to account those who advocate for job-killing policies.
SOURCE
**************************
Charge NYC Union Leaders With Negligent Homicide
Well, it turns out that the slow snow removal process in New York City was the act of childish adults protesting budget cuts. According to the New York Post:
"[Unionized city workers] sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.
On Wednesday, MYFOXNY.com reported that two people died, including a new born baby, because emergency crews couldn’t navigate the unplowed streets.
Plain and simple: the union leaders who called for the job action should be charged with negligent homicide. Let them prove that their actions did not result in the unfortunate deaths of these New Yorkers. For too long, Big Labor has been allowed to hold taxpayers hostage in order to get their way at the bargaining table. And this time, their utter selfishness may have contributed to the deaths of two innocent people.
Jeopardizing the health and safety of innocent New Yorkers in order to make a cheap political statement is reprehensible, and must be denounced in the strongest possible terms. New York citizens need to know if the willful inaction of municipal employees contributed to nine-hour wait for emergency crews that tragically resulted in the death of a newborn child.
This is America – such behavior cannot be acceptable. Or are we turning into Germany and France and willing to sit idly by as the actions of Big Labor result in death and chaos?
SOURCE
**************************
ELSEWHERE
Huge gas find a boon for Israel: "A massive offshore natural gas reserve is poised to give Israel energy security, freeing the desert nation from the threat of boycotts and reshaping the political dynamics of the Middle East. Estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to more than a quarter of Canada’s proven reserves and enough to meet Israel’s domestic demand for 100 years – the Leviathan field is believed to be the largest such deepwater gas discovery in a decade. Observers say the windfall, whose size was confirmed this week, could also affect Israel’s relationships not only with its traditional enemies but also with its allies"
Iraq: Gunmen target Christian homes, 2 killed: "Militants attacked at least four Christian homes Thursday night with a combination of grenades and bombs, killing two people and sending fear into the already terrified tiny Christian community. It was the first attack against the country's Christian community since al-Qaida-linked militants last week threatened a wave of violence against them. Christians went so far as to tone down their Christmas celebrations in what was a peaceful holiday, but the attacks Thursday night demonstrated the intent of militants to keep up their deadly pressure on the Christian community."
Chess players’ opt for trial after prosecution for playing in NYC park: "Two New York City men arrested for playing chess in a city park have rejected a plea deal with the city and have insisted on going to trial. Yacahudah Harrison was among six men playing chess at a Parks Department stone table with a chess table built into it on Oct. 20. The table, however, was located inside a children's section of Inwood Hill Park when police rushed them and issued them summonses for failure to obey park regulations."
Single tip now lands you terrorism watch list: "A year after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit, officials say they have made it easier to add individuals’ names to a terrorism watch list .... Even though Abdulmutallab’s father had told US officials of his son’s radicalization in Yemen, government rules dictated that a single-source tip was insufficient to include a person’s name on the watch list. Since then, senior counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip, as long as it is deemed credible, can lead to a name being placed on the list."
Minimum wage hurts workers: "That the minimum wage helps the working poor is a popular policy. Congress recently increased the national minimum from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. A CNN poll found that 86% of Americans supported the change. ... The late senator Kennedy called raising the minimum 'a fairness issue ... If you work … you should not live in poverty.' But as with so many politicians' promises, this one has awful unintended consequences. It hurts workers -- and the least-skilled workers lose the most."
Is big government a myth?: "Lately the supporters of big government have deployed an interesting twist to their arguments, claiming that it is a dirty right-wing lie that government has grown under the Obama administration. Unlike arguments over economic theory, surely this should be an objective exercise in looking up the facts. As we'll see, yes Virginia there is indeed a big — and growing — government in DC, as even that government's own numbers confirm."
Almost everything is a crime in America now: "Doesn't it seem like almost everything is becoming a crime in America now? Americans are being arrested and charged with crimes for doing things like leaving dog poop on the ground, opening up Christmas presents early, not recycling properly, farting in class and having brown lawns. But is it healthy for our society for the police to be involved in such silly things? Every single day the United States inches closer to becoming a totalitarian society."
The real number of uninsured Americans: "Across the health care debate, supporters of Obamacare have tried to inflate the number of uninsured, and too often they have gotten away with it. Yesterday, for instance, a Huffington Post banner headline read, 'Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to Over 50 Million.' But this claim cannot withstand examination."
The right way to balance the budget: "The federal debt is at its highest level since the aftermath of World War II -- and it's projected to rise further, says Andrew G. Biggs, resident scholar, Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies, and Matt Jensen, research assistant, at the American Enterprise Institute. Stabilizing debt levels would require an immediate and permanent 23 percent increase in all federal tax revenues or equivalent cuts in government expenditures, according to Congressional Budget Office forecasts."
Federal real estate swelled despite “push to purge”: "President Obama over the summer signed a memorandum ordering department heads to 'identify and eliminate' unneeded properties, with the goal of saving 'no less than' $3 billion by fiscal 2012. The order followed a similar efficiency pledge made by former President George W. Bush in 2004. While the administration claims it's making serious headway toward that goal, a recent inventory from the Federal Real Property Council showed that 2009 was a banner year for gaining -- not selling -- federal property."
VA: Man protests molestation at Richmond airport, is arrested: "A Charlottesville man who stripped down to his underwear at Richmond International Airport in protest of security screening procedures was charged with disorderly conduct Thursday. ... police reported that when they arrived at the checkpoint, they found Tobey, 'absent of pants and shirt in full public view, exposing language regarding the Fourth Amendment written on his chest and abdomen with marker or crayon.' The message read, 'Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,' said Bell."
What you pay for Medicare won’t cover your costs: "You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and want your money's worth: full benefits after you retire. Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so they deserve their full benefits -- no cuts. But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Friday, December 31, 2010
New year thought
This next year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog.
*******************
Northern Europe doing fine
Note that both Germany and Sweden are under conservative leadership
NORTHERN European countries, lead by Sweden, are providing a glimmer of hope to a continent savaged by a sovereign debt crisis.
In late November, as euro-zone leaders struggled to quell Dublin's debt maelstrom, something odd was happening farther north. In Stockholm, government statisticians reported the strongest economic growth in Sweden's modern history.
Having been torpedoed along with the rest of the West in the banking bust, the Nordic country was now riding on a high, with gross domestic product rising almost 7 per cent thanks to a potent rebound in domestic spending and strong exports.
Sweden was not alone. Germany, Europe's dominant economy, enjoyed its most powerful economic expansion since the country's reunification in 1990, borne aloft not only by its hyper-competitive manufacturers but by an acceleration in consumer spending and rising employment.
And further east, Poland was showing signs of shrugging off its own credit crunch hangover to report a growth spurt, with gross domestic product rising by an annual 4.7 per cent in July to September.
The figures defy the perception of a Europe that is drifting into economic somnolence, the only thrills coming from fiscal car wrecks in the single currency area.
Some of the region's key economies are enjoying remarkable success, in part thanks to their exporters' ability to cash in on demand from fast-growing emerging markets, but also because of strengthening household spending and confidence at home.
"It is a great divide; we have the best and worst in the world in this region," said Christopher Potts, head of economics and strategy at CA Cheuvreux. "We have countries in serious, serious difficulties, but we have other parts of Europe that are enjoying a period of prosperity."
More HERE
********************
The betrayal of the young
However misguided their slogans and questionable their tactics, it is difficult not to sympathise with the young protesters in London, Paris and Madrid whose street marches marked 2010. After all, their elders have left them a legacy of public debt that can only translate into future tax increases and spending cuts.
Pressures for fiscal retrenchment will doubtless be even stronger next year. Interest rates on government bonds are about 12 per cent in Greece, 8.6 per cent in Ireland and 6.4 per cent in Portugal, compared to a mere 2.6 per cent in Germany: clearly, markets have not found the European Financial Stability Facility as reassuring as all that.
And with the US and the European countries poised to borrow a historically high $3.5 trillion to fund fiscal deficits, interest rates are likely to rise, so that debt servicing will weigh even more heavily on public budgets. This will force greater tax increases and reductions in outlays if fiscal targets are to be achieved.
Whether those targets will indeed be met remains to be seen. With 21 per cent of the labour force out of work in Spain, 15 per cent in Greece and 13 per cent in Ireland, securing real improvements in budget deficits will test political systems that have long found fiscal discipline a struggle.
But the problems go far beyond the most egregious basket cases. And whatever the role of the euro, their origins predate the move to a common currency.
Rather, an important factor is that Europe's overall productivity performance has been poor for some time.
From 1973 to the early 1990s, European productivity increased to levels close to or even exceeding those in the US. After that, however, productivity growth in the European Union halved, just as US productivity levels surged. By 2007, gross domestic product per hour worked in the EU was about 12 percentage points below the US level. And partly as a result of high tax rates, Europeans now work 20 per cent fewer hours per head than Americans, so the gap in output per hour leads to an even greater gap in total output.
Slowing productivity growth constrained the tax base that could be used to fund public expenditure. But instead of cutting back on powerful constituencies, many European governments accumulated debt, shifting tax burdens to future generations.
Those burdens will prove all the more painful as, rather than leave assets that could help pay off debt, much of the public spending has gone to fund consumption or on white elephants.
And the pain is increased further by the widespread protection of labour market insiders through stringent unfair dismissal regulations. These have imposed high costs on Europe's young, who have struggled to gain secure jobs. The result has been a marked rise in income inequality between cohorts of working age.
The French case is symptomatic. In 1977, the earnings gap between 30 to 35-year-olds and 50 to 55-year-olds was 15 per cent; now, it is 40 per cent.
Moreover, while earnings continue to rise for the baby-boomer cohorts, cohorts born since the mid-60s have experienced stagnant incomes, a far greater risk of unemployment and slow rates of job advancement.
This is all the more striking as periods of rapid technological change typically increase the relative income of younger cohorts, who have more up-to-date skills. In other words, the between-cohort income spread usually narrows, even if the within-cohort spread rises, as has occurred in the US.
Overall, young Europeans face a double whammy: they will have to make good years of wasteful spending and do so out of incomes lower and more uncertain than those of older generations. Little wonder they are referred to as the iPod generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden.
The politics this gives rise to are made poisonous by the widespread loss of credibility of European political elites.
In many countries, those elites are increasingly a gerontocracy: in 1981, for example, the typical French parliamentarian was 40; today, he or she is 60. And that the elites are embroiled in scandals further undermines their legitimacy.
So does the fact the elites have no credible answers to European society's challenges, most obviously immigration. Here too, protecting labour market insiders has imposed high costs, compounding the many other problems of integration.
A recent French government report finds that adjusting for factors such as age and education, the unemployment rate for migrants is 1.5 to 2 percentage points greater than for the native born, with an even greater gap for migrants from Africa. While that may be unsurprising, the study also finds that second generation migrants are even more disadvantaged than their parents were.
It concludes that despite substantial public spending, the social problems of areas with a high proportion of migrants are worsening, including in terms of violent crime. And the evidence it surveys suggests the French situation, while hardly satisfactory, is no worse than that in The Netherlands and Sweden.
To all this, neither the social democrats nor the traditional conservative parties have any sensible response. And neither is capable of channelling popular discontent. As a result, Europe's Tea Party movement has taken forms far more virulent than its US counterpart, including xenophobic, at times overtly racist, organisations such as the Swiss Union of the Democratic Centre, the New Flemish Alliance in Belgium and Geert Wilders's Party For Freedom in The Netherlands.
This is not to say nothing good has come from the current crisis. Some madcap projects, such as Greece's national broadband network, have been shelved. And fiscal accountability has been enhanced, including by strengthening independent review of budget proposals
SOURCE
**************************
Making 2011 the Year of Economic Growth
The liberal media has been heralding all the grand achievements of the 111th Congress, especially the legislation pushed through during the lame duck session. The Congress which took its last vote on Dec. 22 added $3.2 trillion to the national debt, setting a record for red ink that exceeded the $2.0 trillion in deficits run up during the 110th Congress. Since the Democrats took control of both houses after the 2006 election, the national debt has grown by $5.2 trillion, or by 30 percent. The deficits are mainly the result of the 2008 recession, which reduced revenue and spurred the use of stimulus spending to speed recovery. Yet, with unemployment at 9.8 percent, it would seem that the fiscal programs were poorly devised and accomplished little for the huge sums spent.
The best anti-recession policy was something Congress did not do. It did not enact the so-called "cap and trade" initiative to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by raising costs for energy production and use. Had such legislation been implemented, there would have been no chance for an economic recovery. The new burdens envisioned for the core activities of America's modern, affluent society would have made the lapse of the Bush tax cuts pale in comparison. The misnamed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) just barely passed in the House or Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212. Only eight Republicans voted in favor and 44 Democrats opposed it. The bill then stalled in the Senate in the face of a bipartisan coalition worried about the recession. GOP gains in the 112th Congress should render its re-introduction futile.
Yet, sending the United States not just into another Great Depression, but turning the clock back several generations in living standards is the aim of the Left-wing Green movement. Groups like Climate Justice Action want to “ensure that large-scale, destructive corporate-controlled false solutions to climate change are eliminated. This includes so-called ‘clean coal,’ agrofuels (industrial scale biofuels), nuclear power, and large-scale hydropower.” And “we should not build electric cars or trucks running on biofuels but massively reduce their numbers through the radical development of public transportation." To them, there is no way forward, only backwards.
Economic stagnation or decline is vital to the sustainability of socialism. Marxists have always assumed they would be taking over a capitalist system that had already solved the economic problem of producing all that society needed. Their mission was simply to run the system more "fairly" by eliminating "profits" and "the wealthy" who had more than their proper share. There was no understanding that the modern age was only dawning when the core doctrines of the Left were being formulated in the 19th century. Without a capitalist system with its financial incentives for material advancement, economic progress comes to an end. For many on the Left, this is an acceptable outcome, but it cannot be sold to the general public which expects living standards to continually rise. The fear that their children may not be better off than they are is driving middle class angst.
The solution for the Left is to convince the public that economic progress is bad. Several attempts have been made to sell this idea since it was spawned by the New Left in the 1960s. The early "tree hugger" approach extolling the "simple life" never got beyond the hippie communes, where its application was quickly found to be appalling. Then came the "limits to growth" argument that there aren't enough "resources" to maintain middle class standards as populations increase. Capitalism and technology, however, keep finding new ways to do things, using resources more efficiently and finding new resources. The Greens have had to devote time to denying access to resources to starve progress (such as restrictions on oil drilling and mining, and even to building wind mills and dams) so they could artificially create shortages.
Finally, unable to persuade people to go backward, the Greens invoked their own version of the "voice of god" to command regression on pain of universal death. Hence, the birth of the "global warming" notion. Progress is not good, for it will kill us all. That socialism cannot create progress ceases to be a failing; it becomes the movement's central platform plank. Material advancement will be "capped" and what benefits are available will be "traded" under socialist administration to assure "fairness" and a minimum standard for all---but not more than a minimum or the planet's future will be in peril. Nature requires socialism, end of the debate.
This argument has reached further than the hippie communes, but not much further. The vast majority of the world's people and their governments have not bought it, as evidenced by the continued failure of the UN climate conferences to find any general support for imposing restrictions on national economies (as opposed to the purely political battle by some groups of states to impose limits on rival states). The "right to develop" which has been at the core of human nature since before recorded history continues to be the rallying cry of those who live in the real world. The embrace of retrogression is a sickness unique to the cloistered halls of Western liberalism.
Unfortunately, the death of "cap and trade" legislation does not mean the battle is over. The race in domestic policy will continue between those who are pushing expanded energy production from nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and domestic oil against those who are trying to close down energy sources like coal, oil (from anywhere) and nuclear. Securing funding for one side while denying it to the other will decide the contest.
On Dec. 23, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its plan for establishing GHG standards in 2011. Its press release said, "The agency looked at a number of sectors and is moving forward on GHG standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries—two of the largest industrial sources, representing nearly 40 percent of the GHG pollution in the United States. EPA will propose standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively." The EPA claimed it would hold "listening sessions with the business community, states and other stakeholders in early 2011, well before the rulemaking process begins."
Among the "other stakeholders" are all Americans who want to keep their country moving forward, which cannot happen if energy costs are driven upward by EPA fiat. As one Greenwebsite put it, "the ultimate regulations, which will apply to factories, oil refineries, and power plants, including many of the oldest, dirtiest coal plants, is a huge deal." Concerned citizens and their representatives in the new Congress must make sure the "deal" works in the national interest, which is assuredly won't if the Green Luddites stack the deck.
Meanwhile, California's Air Resources Board approved its own state-wide cap-and-trade system on Dec. 16. After 2015, refiners and distributors of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and other fuels will be required to buy emissions permits at auctions or purchase them from other companies. Gradually, the state will reduce the number of permits available, squeezing companies that do not reduce their GHG emissions. Again, the cost of producing or using energy will go up. The California authorities seem bent on blasting holes in a ship that has already run aground to make sure it can never be refloated to sail again as the vanguard of American affluence.
California's impending bankruptcy is rooted in the same liberal doctrines that triggered the national rebuke of the 111th Congress. Too much spending on non-productive programs while the foundations of the economy are being undermined; making any spending for any purpose (even on the basic duties of government) impossible to sustain. Society requires growth, end of the debate.
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
This next year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address occur on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition of events: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication while the other involves a groundhog.
*******************
Northern Europe doing fine
Note that both Germany and Sweden are under conservative leadership
NORTHERN European countries, lead by Sweden, are providing a glimmer of hope to a continent savaged by a sovereign debt crisis.
In late November, as euro-zone leaders struggled to quell Dublin's debt maelstrom, something odd was happening farther north. In Stockholm, government statisticians reported the strongest economic growth in Sweden's modern history.
Having been torpedoed along with the rest of the West in the banking bust, the Nordic country was now riding on a high, with gross domestic product rising almost 7 per cent thanks to a potent rebound in domestic spending and strong exports.
Sweden was not alone. Germany, Europe's dominant economy, enjoyed its most powerful economic expansion since the country's reunification in 1990, borne aloft not only by its hyper-competitive manufacturers but by an acceleration in consumer spending and rising employment.
And further east, Poland was showing signs of shrugging off its own credit crunch hangover to report a growth spurt, with gross domestic product rising by an annual 4.7 per cent in July to September.
The figures defy the perception of a Europe that is drifting into economic somnolence, the only thrills coming from fiscal car wrecks in the single currency area.
Some of the region's key economies are enjoying remarkable success, in part thanks to their exporters' ability to cash in on demand from fast-growing emerging markets, but also because of strengthening household spending and confidence at home.
"It is a great divide; we have the best and worst in the world in this region," said Christopher Potts, head of economics and strategy at CA Cheuvreux. "We have countries in serious, serious difficulties, but we have other parts of Europe that are enjoying a period of prosperity."
More HERE
********************
The betrayal of the young
However misguided their slogans and questionable their tactics, it is difficult not to sympathise with the young protesters in London, Paris and Madrid whose street marches marked 2010. After all, their elders have left them a legacy of public debt that can only translate into future tax increases and spending cuts.
Pressures for fiscal retrenchment will doubtless be even stronger next year. Interest rates on government bonds are about 12 per cent in Greece, 8.6 per cent in Ireland and 6.4 per cent in Portugal, compared to a mere 2.6 per cent in Germany: clearly, markets have not found the European Financial Stability Facility as reassuring as all that.
And with the US and the European countries poised to borrow a historically high $3.5 trillion to fund fiscal deficits, interest rates are likely to rise, so that debt servicing will weigh even more heavily on public budgets. This will force greater tax increases and reductions in outlays if fiscal targets are to be achieved.
Whether those targets will indeed be met remains to be seen. With 21 per cent of the labour force out of work in Spain, 15 per cent in Greece and 13 per cent in Ireland, securing real improvements in budget deficits will test political systems that have long found fiscal discipline a struggle.
But the problems go far beyond the most egregious basket cases. And whatever the role of the euro, their origins predate the move to a common currency.
Rather, an important factor is that Europe's overall productivity performance has been poor for some time.
From 1973 to the early 1990s, European productivity increased to levels close to or even exceeding those in the US. After that, however, productivity growth in the European Union halved, just as US productivity levels surged. By 2007, gross domestic product per hour worked in the EU was about 12 percentage points below the US level. And partly as a result of high tax rates, Europeans now work 20 per cent fewer hours per head than Americans, so the gap in output per hour leads to an even greater gap in total output.
Slowing productivity growth constrained the tax base that could be used to fund public expenditure. But instead of cutting back on powerful constituencies, many European governments accumulated debt, shifting tax burdens to future generations.
Those burdens will prove all the more painful as, rather than leave assets that could help pay off debt, much of the public spending has gone to fund consumption or on white elephants.
And the pain is increased further by the widespread protection of labour market insiders through stringent unfair dismissal regulations. These have imposed high costs on Europe's young, who have struggled to gain secure jobs. The result has been a marked rise in income inequality between cohorts of working age.
The French case is symptomatic. In 1977, the earnings gap between 30 to 35-year-olds and 50 to 55-year-olds was 15 per cent; now, it is 40 per cent.
Moreover, while earnings continue to rise for the baby-boomer cohorts, cohorts born since the mid-60s have experienced stagnant incomes, a far greater risk of unemployment and slow rates of job advancement.
This is all the more striking as periods of rapid technological change typically increase the relative income of younger cohorts, who have more up-to-date skills. In other words, the between-cohort income spread usually narrows, even if the within-cohort spread rises, as has occurred in the US.
Overall, young Europeans face a double whammy: they will have to make good years of wasteful spending and do so out of incomes lower and more uncertain than those of older generations. Little wonder they are referred to as the iPod generation: Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden.
The politics this gives rise to are made poisonous by the widespread loss of credibility of European political elites.
In many countries, those elites are increasingly a gerontocracy: in 1981, for example, the typical French parliamentarian was 40; today, he or she is 60. And that the elites are embroiled in scandals further undermines their legitimacy.
So does the fact the elites have no credible answers to European society's challenges, most obviously immigration. Here too, protecting labour market insiders has imposed high costs, compounding the many other problems of integration.
A recent French government report finds that adjusting for factors such as age and education, the unemployment rate for migrants is 1.5 to 2 percentage points greater than for the native born, with an even greater gap for migrants from Africa. While that may be unsurprising, the study also finds that second generation migrants are even more disadvantaged than their parents were.
It concludes that despite substantial public spending, the social problems of areas with a high proportion of migrants are worsening, including in terms of violent crime. And the evidence it surveys suggests the French situation, while hardly satisfactory, is no worse than that in The Netherlands and Sweden.
To all this, neither the social democrats nor the traditional conservative parties have any sensible response. And neither is capable of channelling popular discontent. As a result, Europe's Tea Party movement has taken forms far more virulent than its US counterpart, including xenophobic, at times overtly racist, organisations such as the Swiss Union of the Democratic Centre, the New Flemish Alliance in Belgium and Geert Wilders's Party For Freedom in The Netherlands.
This is not to say nothing good has come from the current crisis. Some madcap projects, such as Greece's national broadband network, have been shelved. And fiscal accountability has been enhanced, including by strengthening independent review of budget proposals
SOURCE
**************************
Making 2011 the Year of Economic Growth
The liberal media has been heralding all the grand achievements of the 111th Congress, especially the legislation pushed through during the lame duck session. The Congress which took its last vote on Dec. 22 added $3.2 trillion to the national debt, setting a record for red ink that exceeded the $2.0 trillion in deficits run up during the 110th Congress. Since the Democrats took control of both houses after the 2006 election, the national debt has grown by $5.2 trillion, or by 30 percent. The deficits are mainly the result of the 2008 recession, which reduced revenue and spurred the use of stimulus spending to speed recovery. Yet, with unemployment at 9.8 percent, it would seem that the fiscal programs were poorly devised and accomplished little for the huge sums spent.
The best anti-recession policy was something Congress did not do. It did not enact the so-called "cap and trade" initiative to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by raising costs for energy production and use. Had such legislation been implemented, there would have been no chance for an economic recovery. The new burdens envisioned for the core activities of America's modern, affluent society would have made the lapse of the Bush tax cuts pale in comparison. The misnamed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) just barely passed in the House or Representatives by a vote of 219 to 212. Only eight Republicans voted in favor and 44 Democrats opposed it. The bill then stalled in the Senate in the face of a bipartisan coalition worried about the recession. GOP gains in the 112th Congress should render its re-introduction futile.
Yet, sending the United States not just into another Great Depression, but turning the clock back several generations in living standards is the aim of the Left-wing Green movement. Groups like Climate Justice Action want to “ensure that large-scale, destructive corporate-controlled false solutions to climate change are eliminated. This includes so-called ‘clean coal,’ agrofuels (industrial scale biofuels), nuclear power, and large-scale hydropower.” And “we should not build electric cars or trucks running on biofuels but massively reduce their numbers through the radical development of public transportation." To them, there is no way forward, only backwards.
Economic stagnation or decline is vital to the sustainability of socialism. Marxists have always assumed they would be taking over a capitalist system that had already solved the economic problem of producing all that society needed. Their mission was simply to run the system more "fairly" by eliminating "profits" and "the wealthy" who had more than their proper share. There was no understanding that the modern age was only dawning when the core doctrines of the Left were being formulated in the 19th century. Without a capitalist system with its financial incentives for material advancement, economic progress comes to an end. For many on the Left, this is an acceptable outcome, but it cannot be sold to the general public which expects living standards to continually rise. The fear that their children may not be better off than they are is driving middle class angst.
The solution for the Left is to convince the public that economic progress is bad. Several attempts have been made to sell this idea since it was spawned by the New Left in the 1960s. The early "tree hugger" approach extolling the "simple life" never got beyond the hippie communes, where its application was quickly found to be appalling. Then came the "limits to growth" argument that there aren't enough "resources" to maintain middle class standards as populations increase. Capitalism and technology, however, keep finding new ways to do things, using resources more efficiently and finding new resources. The Greens have had to devote time to denying access to resources to starve progress (such as restrictions on oil drilling and mining, and even to building wind mills and dams) so they could artificially create shortages.
Finally, unable to persuade people to go backward, the Greens invoked their own version of the "voice of god" to command regression on pain of universal death. Hence, the birth of the "global warming" notion. Progress is not good, for it will kill us all. That socialism cannot create progress ceases to be a failing; it becomes the movement's central platform plank. Material advancement will be "capped" and what benefits are available will be "traded" under socialist administration to assure "fairness" and a minimum standard for all---but not more than a minimum or the planet's future will be in peril. Nature requires socialism, end of the debate.
This argument has reached further than the hippie communes, but not much further. The vast majority of the world's people and their governments have not bought it, as evidenced by the continued failure of the UN climate conferences to find any general support for imposing restrictions on national economies (as opposed to the purely political battle by some groups of states to impose limits on rival states). The "right to develop" which has been at the core of human nature since before recorded history continues to be the rallying cry of those who live in the real world. The embrace of retrogression is a sickness unique to the cloistered halls of Western liberalism.
Unfortunately, the death of "cap and trade" legislation does not mean the battle is over. The race in domestic policy will continue between those who are pushing expanded energy production from nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas and domestic oil against those who are trying to close down energy sources like coal, oil (from anywhere) and nuclear. Securing funding for one side while denying it to the other will decide the contest.
On Dec. 23, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its plan for establishing GHG standards in 2011. Its press release said, "The agency looked at a number of sectors and is moving forward on GHG standards for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries—two of the largest industrial sources, representing nearly 40 percent of the GHG pollution in the United States. EPA will propose standards for power plants in July 2011 and for refineries in December 2011 and will issue final standards in May 2012 and November 2012, respectively." The EPA claimed it would hold "listening sessions with the business community, states and other stakeholders in early 2011, well before the rulemaking process begins."
Among the "other stakeholders" are all Americans who want to keep their country moving forward, which cannot happen if energy costs are driven upward by EPA fiat. As one Greenwebsite put it, "the ultimate regulations, which will apply to factories, oil refineries, and power plants, including many of the oldest, dirtiest coal plants, is a huge deal." Concerned citizens and their representatives in the new Congress must make sure the "deal" works in the national interest, which is assuredly won't if the Green Luddites stack the deck.
Meanwhile, California's Air Resources Board approved its own state-wide cap-and-trade system on Dec. 16. After 2015, refiners and distributors of gasoline, diesel, natural gas and other fuels will be required to buy emissions permits at auctions or purchase them from other companies. Gradually, the state will reduce the number of permits available, squeezing companies that do not reduce their GHG emissions. Again, the cost of producing or using energy will go up. The California authorities seem bent on blasting holes in a ship that has already run aground to make sure it can never be refloated to sail again as the vanguard of American affluence.
California's impending bankruptcy is rooted in the same liberal doctrines that triggered the national rebuke of the 111th Congress. Too much spending on non-productive programs while the foundations of the economy are being undermined; making any spending for any purpose (even on the basic duties of government) impossible to sustain. Society requires growth, end of the debate.
SOURCE
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
Thursday, December 30, 2010
If Republicans Stick With Six Simple Words, They'll Be Golden In 2011
The end of the year is the right time for Republicans to revisit the lessons learned in 2010 and look forward to 2011. Several months ago, I recommended that Republican Party provide the American electorate with a calling card, a clear statement of what it stands for. The GOP delivered.
The elections resulted in an overarching victory for conservatives, making it clearer than ever that the Republicans’ position can be summarized in 6 words: Small Government. Low Taxes. National Security.
Now it is time to take that slogan into everyday governing as well as into the next election cycle and use it to end Barack Obama’s mangled presidency. With the Republicans earning a mandate in the House and an effective minority in the Senate, it is incumbent upon them not to lose their focus on the 6 simple words, and to continue to trumpet their ideals at each and every instance.
We learned again this past year that if Republicans stand by their beliefs, the other side inevitably buckles to the pressure. Below are two concrete examples:
1. First, in the recently concluded tax debate, Republicans scored a victory for their conviction that Low Taxes are a necessity. While Republicans remained steadfast that a recession is not the time to raise taxes across all economic classes, Democrats declared that they would never allow the Bush – era tax cuts to be extended.
However, when the moment of truth came, the Republicans prevailed in the fight for low taxes and Americans do not have to worry about their tax duties going up in these difficult times.
2. Second, the Republicans’ ability to stand strong on their belief in Small Government resulted in the failure by the Democrats to pass their $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, a heap of pork-barrel and special interest spending.
Even with a majority in the Senate, Harry Reid was not able to coerce his caucus into voting for the measure which was a sum of separate spending bills which could not be passed on their own. In desperation, the left attempted to bribe Republican Senators with pork barrel provisions, but leader McConnell made sure the Republicans stood united on their principle that government has to be small and not overreaching. The omnibus bill was pulled from the Senate floor.
2011 is going to be a momentous year in national politics, and each Republican candidate for president has to follow the two examples I've mentioned above and show the country that GOP principles do not bend.
The GOP bench is strong, featuring, among others, such experienced leaders as Governors Barbour, Pawlenty, Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Christie.
It is critical as the primary competition goes into full swing that the candidates remember that it is not just the Republicans who will be following and watching, it is the whole electorate.
With that in mind, the candidates need to keep the country focused on Small Government, Low Taxes, National Security. and if that is achieved, there will be a Republican president elected in November, 2012.
SOURCE
****************************
European riots and the real party of "No"
Thomas Sowell
Economists are the real "party of No." They keep saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch-- and politicians keep on getting elected by promising free lunches.
Such promises may seem to be kept, for a while. There are ways the government can juggle money around to make everything look OK, but it is only a matter of time before that money runs out and the ultimate reality hits, that there is no free lunch.
We are currently seeing what happens, in fierce riots raging in various countries in Europe, when the money runs out and the brutal truth is finally revealed, that there is no free lunch. You cannot have generous welfare state laws that allow people to retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.
In the United States, that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions-- which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."
Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow. The results are not pretty, as we can see on TV, in pictures of rioters in the streets, smashing and burning the property of innocent people, who had nothing to do with giving them unrealistic hopes of living off somebody else, or with the inevitable disappointing of those hopes with cutbacks on the giveaways.
Nothing is easier for politicians than to play Santa Claus by promising benefits, without mentioning the costs-- or lying about the costs and leaving it to future governments to figure out what to do when the money runs out.
In the United States, the biggest and longest-running scam of this sort is Social Security. Fulfilling all the promises that were made, as commitments in the law, would cost more money than Social Security has ever had.
This particular scam has kept going for generations by the fact that the first generation-- a small generation-- that paid into Social Security had its pensions paid by the money that the second and much bigger "baby boom" generation paid in.
What the first generation got back in benefits was far greater than what they themselves had paid in. It was something for nothing-- apparently.
This is the way a Ponzi scheme works, with the first wave of "investors" getting paid with the money paid in by the second wave. But, like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme creates no wealth but only an illusion that cannot last. That is why Mr. Ponzi was sent to prison. But politicians get re-elected for doing the same thing.
As the baby boomers begin to retire, and there are now fewer working people per retired person to pay for Social Security pensions, this scam is likewise headed for a rude revelation of reality-- and perhaps riots like those in Europe.
All the incentives are for politicians to do what they have done, namely to promise benefits without raising enough taxes to pay for them. That way, it looks like you are getting something for nothing.
When crunch time comes and politicians are either going to have to tell people the truth or raise taxes, the almost inevitable choice is to raise taxes. If the people think they are already taxed too much, then the taxes can be raised only for people designated as "the rich." If "the rich" object, then demagogues can denounce them for their selfishness and "greed" for objecting to turning over ever-growing amounts of what they have earned to politicians.
Economists often make stronger objections than the high-income people themselves. That is because history has shown repeatedly that very high rates of taxation lead to all sorts of ways by which those very high rates of taxation do not have to be paid.
No matter how high the tax rates are, they do not bring in more revenue when many of the people subject to those tax rates do not in fact pay them. The scams inherent in welfare states are not only economically counterproductive, they turn group against group, straining the ties that hold a society together.
SOURCE
***********************
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13. Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat patrol:
"Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths...... No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make ..... for you....
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.... Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.....
"Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. ...... But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
“The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: ‘Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?’ I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, ‘No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.’ They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
“A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms....
“What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as [Iraqi policemen on the scene] had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
“You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: ‘Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.’ The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.
“It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
“For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing nonstop ...... the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore into the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe..... because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.
"The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
“The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty ..... into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight —for you.”
SOURCE
***********************
ELSEWHERE
Israel: Aid for Torah study challenged: "Chaim Amsellem was not the first parliament member to suggest that most ultra-Orthodox men should work rather than receive welfare subsidies for full-time Torah study. But when he did so last month, the nation took notice. Amsellem is a rabbi, ultra-Orthodox himself, and his outspokenness ignited a fresh -- and fierce -- debate about the rapid growth of the ultrareligious in Israel."
America's fading liberties: "Are the Americans greater today than before 1917 or 1898? In the military sense, they are so undoubtedly. But every step towards world domination has been at the expense of the qualities that underpin their general greatness. Their government has become more distant and opaque, more centralised and more open to capture by special interests. It has repeatedly violated the old Constitution. Liberties have been abridged on the grounds of dealing with emergencies, and then never restored. America has been at war almost throughout the whole of the past century -- at war with other countries, or at war with abstractions like 'drugs' or 'terrorism.' As everywhere else, war has been the health of the State and the sickness of the people. If the Americans today remain the freest people in the world, that is only because they started with so much more to lose."
In money-changers we trust: "In a parallel universe lives Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s former budget director and key adviser, who even faster than his mentor, Robert Rubin, has passed through that revolving platinum door linking the White House with Wall Street. The goal is to use your government position to advance the interests of your future employer, and Orszag and Rubin’s actions in the government and then at Citigroup provide stunning examples of the synergy between big government and high finance."
A tithe for Uncle Sam: "Political leaders talk as if the money Americans keep (not paid in taxes) belongs to the government and that our keeping money they could tax is an actual cost to them. This kind of distorted thinking has led us into the fiscal irresponsibility that threatens to destroy our country."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
The end of the year is the right time for Republicans to revisit the lessons learned in 2010 and look forward to 2011. Several months ago, I recommended that Republican Party provide the American electorate with a calling card, a clear statement of what it stands for. The GOP delivered.
The elections resulted in an overarching victory for conservatives, making it clearer than ever that the Republicans’ position can be summarized in 6 words: Small Government. Low Taxes. National Security.
Now it is time to take that slogan into everyday governing as well as into the next election cycle and use it to end Barack Obama’s mangled presidency. With the Republicans earning a mandate in the House and an effective minority in the Senate, it is incumbent upon them not to lose their focus on the 6 simple words, and to continue to trumpet their ideals at each and every instance.
We learned again this past year that if Republicans stand by their beliefs, the other side inevitably buckles to the pressure. Below are two concrete examples:
1. First, in the recently concluded tax debate, Republicans scored a victory for their conviction that Low Taxes are a necessity. While Republicans remained steadfast that a recession is not the time to raise taxes across all economic classes, Democrats declared that they would never allow the Bush – era tax cuts to be extended.
However, when the moment of truth came, the Republicans prevailed in the fight for low taxes and Americans do not have to worry about their tax duties going up in these difficult times.
2. Second, the Republicans’ ability to stand strong on their belief in Small Government resulted in the failure by the Democrats to pass their $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, a heap of pork-barrel and special interest spending.
Even with a majority in the Senate, Harry Reid was not able to coerce his caucus into voting for the measure which was a sum of separate spending bills which could not be passed on their own. In desperation, the left attempted to bribe Republican Senators with pork barrel provisions, but leader McConnell made sure the Republicans stood united on their principle that government has to be small and not overreaching. The omnibus bill was pulled from the Senate floor.
2011 is going to be a momentous year in national politics, and each Republican candidate for president has to follow the two examples I've mentioned above and show the country that GOP principles do not bend.
The GOP bench is strong, featuring, among others, such experienced leaders as Governors Barbour, Pawlenty, Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Christie.
It is critical as the primary competition goes into full swing that the candidates remember that it is not just the Republicans who will be following and watching, it is the whole electorate.
With that in mind, the candidates need to keep the country focused on Small Government, Low Taxes, National Security. and if that is achieved, there will be a Republican president elected in November, 2012.
SOURCE
****************************
European riots and the real party of "No"
Thomas Sowell
Economists are the real "party of No." They keep saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch-- and politicians keep on getting elected by promising free lunches.
Such promises may seem to be kept, for a while. There are ways the government can juggle money around to make everything look OK, but it is only a matter of time before that money runs out and the ultimate reality hits, that there is no free lunch.
We are currently seeing what happens, in fierce riots raging in various countries in Europe, when the money runs out and the brutal truth is finally revealed, that there is no free lunch. You cannot have generous welfare state laws that allow people to retire on government pensions while they are in their 50s, in an era when most people live decades longer.
In the United States, that kind of generosity exists mostly for members of state government employees' unions-- which is why some states are running out of money, and why the Obama administration is bailing them out, in the name of "stimulus."
Once you buy the idea that the government should be a sort of year-around Santa Claus, you have bought the kinds of consequences that follow. The results are not pretty, as we can see on TV, in pictures of rioters in the streets, smashing and burning the property of innocent people, who had nothing to do with giving them unrealistic hopes of living off somebody else, or with the inevitable disappointing of those hopes with cutbacks on the giveaways.
Nothing is easier for politicians than to play Santa Claus by promising benefits, without mentioning the costs-- or lying about the costs and leaving it to future governments to figure out what to do when the money runs out.
In the United States, the biggest and longest-running scam of this sort is Social Security. Fulfilling all the promises that were made, as commitments in the law, would cost more money than Social Security has ever had.
This particular scam has kept going for generations by the fact that the first generation-- a small generation-- that paid into Social Security had its pensions paid by the money that the second and much bigger "baby boom" generation paid in.
What the first generation got back in benefits was far greater than what they themselves had paid in. It was something for nothing-- apparently.
This is the way a Ponzi scheme works, with the first wave of "investors" getting paid with the money paid in by the second wave. But, like Social Security, a Ponzi scheme creates no wealth but only an illusion that cannot last. That is why Mr. Ponzi was sent to prison. But politicians get re-elected for doing the same thing.
As the baby boomers begin to retire, and there are now fewer working people per retired person to pay for Social Security pensions, this scam is likewise headed for a rude revelation of reality-- and perhaps riots like those in Europe.
All the incentives are for politicians to do what they have done, namely to promise benefits without raising enough taxes to pay for them. That way, it looks like you are getting something for nothing.
When crunch time comes and politicians are either going to have to tell people the truth or raise taxes, the almost inevitable choice is to raise taxes. If the people think they are already taxed too much, then the taxes can be raised only for people designated as "the rich." If "the rich" object, then demagogues can denounce them for their selfishness and "greed" for objecting to turning over ever-growing amounts of what they have earned to politicians.
Economists often make stronger objections than the high-income people themselves. That is because history has shown repeatedly that very high rates of taxation lead to all sorts of ways by which those very high rates of taxation do not have to be paid.
No matter how high the tax rates are, they do not bring in more revenue when many of the people subject to those tax rates do not in fact pay them. The scams inherent in welfare states are not only economically counterproductive, they turn group against group, straining the ties that hold a society together.
SOURCE
***********************
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13. Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat patrol:
"Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths...... No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make ..... for you....
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.... Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.....
"Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. ...... But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
“The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: ‘Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?’ I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, ‘No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.’ They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.
“A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms....
“What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as [Iraqi policemen on the scene] had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
“You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: ‘Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.’ The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.
“It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
“For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing nonstop ...... the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore into the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe..... because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.
"The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.
“The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty ..... into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight —for you.”
SOURCE
***********************
ELSEWHERE
Israel: Aid for Torah study challenged: "Chaim Amsellem was not the first parliament member to suggest that most ultra-Orthodox men should work rather than receive welfare subsidies for full-time Torah study. But when he did so last month, the nation took notice. Amsellem is a rabbi, ultra-Orthodox himself, and his outspokenness ignited a fresh -- and fierce -- debate about the rapid growth of the ultrareligious in Israel."
America's fading liberties: "Are the Americans greater today than before 1917 or 1898? In the military sense, they are so undoubtedly. But every step towards world domination has been at the expense of the qualities that underpin their general greatness. Their government has become more distant and opaque, more centralised and more open to capture by special interests. It has repeatedly violated the old Constitution. Liberties have been abridged on the grounds of dealing with emergencies, and then never restored. America has been at war almost throughout the whole of the past century -- at war with other countries, or at war with abstractions like 'drugs' or 'terrorism.' As everywhere else, war has been the health of the State and the sickness of the people. If the Americans today remain the freest people in the world, that is only because they started with so much more to lose."
In money-changers we trust: "In a parallel universe lives Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s former budget director and key adviser, who even faster than his mentor, Robert Rubin, has passed through that revolving platinum door linking the White House with Wall Street. The goal is to use your government position to advance the interests of your future employer, and Orszag and Rubin’s actions in the government and then at Citigroup provide stunning examples of the synergy between big government and high finance."
A tithe for Uncle Sam: "Political leaders talk as if the money Americans keep (not paid in taxes) belongs to the government and that our keeping money they could tax is an actual cost to them. This kind of distorted thinking has led us into the fiscal irresponsibility that threatens to destroy our country."
My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena
List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)
****************************
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)
****************************
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